‘Yes, m’lord.’

Watching the retreating back of the footman, Hazelmere considered the probable reception of his politely savage missive. Thus ended yet another affaire. Stretching his long legs to the fire, he fell to considering the constantly changing parade of his high-flying mistresses. While providing the ton with a stream of on-dits, he felt that the inevitability of the game was beginning to bore him. After more than ten years on the town, there were few fashionable vices he had not sampled and the pattern of his activities was becoming wearyingly predictable.

Thinking again of the discarded Cerise, he compared her ripe beauty with that of the green-eyed girl whose face had proved disturbingly haunting. His dissatisfaction with his present lot stemmed in large part from that encounter in Moreton Park woods. Entirely his own fault, of course.

Marc St John Ralton Henry, at thirty-one years of age the fifth Marquis of Hazelmere and one of the wealthiest peers of the realm, let his mind wander back to the first time he had heard Miss Darent’s name, during a conversation he had had with his great-aunt the night before she died. A remarkably forthright old lady, she had fixed him with a steely look and embarked on an inquisition as to his marital intentions. This had been prefaced by the remark, ‘I know your mother won’t mention this, so I’m takin’ advantage of the fact that, as I’m dying, you can’t very well tell me to go to the devil!’

Appreciative of the ploy and having admitted he had no present plans in the matter, he had settled down to listen with good grace to the subsequent dissertation, something he would not have done had it been anyone else.

‘Can’t say I blame you for not wanting to marry any of these namby-pamby misses presented every year,’ she’d snorted derisively. ‘Can’t abide such ninny-hammers myself! But why not look to wider fields? There’s plenty of suitable chits who for one reason or another have never made it to London.’