"WHAT I am going to do is find a man."

The speaker was Cassandra Belmont, the widowed Lady Paget. She was standing at the sitting room window of the house she had rented on Portman Street in London. The house had come fully furnished, but the furnishings as well as the curtains and carpets had seen better days.

They had probably seen better days even ten years ago. It was a shabby genteel place, well suited to Lady Paget's circumstances.

"To marry?" Alice Haytor, her lady's companion, asked, startled.

Cassandra watched with world-weary eyes and scornfully curved lips as a woman walked past in the street below, holding the hand of a little boy who clearly did not want either to have his hand held or to be proceeding along the street at such a trot. Everything in the lines of the woman's body spoke of irritation and impatience. Was she the child's mother or his nurse? Either way, it did not matter. The child's rebellion and misery were none of Cassandra's concern. She had enough concerns of her own.

"Absolutely not," she said in answer to the question. "Besides, I would have to find a fool."

"A fool?"

Cassandra smiled, though it was not a happy expression, and she did not turn to direct it at Alice. The woman and child had passed out of sight.

A gentleman was hurrying along the street in the opposite direction, frowning down at the ground in front of his feet. He was late for some appointment, at a guess, and doubtless thought his life depended upon getting where he was going on time. Perhaps he was right. Probably he was wrong.

"Only a fool would marry me," she explained. "No, it is definitely not for /marriage/ that I need a man, Alice."

"Oh, Cassie," her companion said, clearly troubled, "you surely cannot mean – " She did not complete the thought, or need to. There was only one thing Cassandra /could/ mean.