It amused him to realize that this was the woman of whom Susanna had spoken so warmly as one of her dearest friends. The viscountess was small, vivacious, and exquisitely lovely. And yet it was not impossible to imagine her teaching at that school. However dry and severe the headmistress had appeared when she was with him, she must be doing something right. The girls and teachers he had seen had all appeared happy enough, and there was a general atmosphere about the place that he had liked. It had not felt oppressive, as many schools did. His first impression had been that Miss Martin was surely old enough to be Susanna’s mother. But he had revised that thought. She was quite possibly no older than he. Thirty-five was a rottenly nasty age for a single man who was heir to a dukedom. The necessity of doing his duty and marrying and producing the next heir had been causing him some uneasiness even before his recent interview with his father. Now it was something he could no longer ignore or procrastinate over. For years he had actively resisted all pressures of the matrimonial kind. For all his faults—which were doubtless legion—he did believe in monogamous relationships. And how could he marry when he was so irrevocably bound to a mistress? But it seemed he could resist no longer. At the far end of Great Pulteney Street carriage and horse executed a series of sharp turns to arrive at the door of the school on Daniel Street. Someone must have been spying at a window, he saw immediately. No sooner had the carriage stopped rocking on its springs than the school door opened to spill girls onto the pavement—a large number of them, all in a state of agitated sensibilities. Some of them were squealing—perhaps over the sight of the carriage, which was admittedly rather splendid, or perhaps over the sight of his horse, which was not but was the best he could do under the circumstances and was at least not lame in any one of its four legs. Or perhaps they squealed over him—arresting thought!—though doubtless he was a few generations too ancient to send them into any grand transports of romantic delight.