Hunter's Lair was a large house, but it had never been modernized, not even in the Stuart era when almost every great house in England had been redone to include large public dining rooms with marble fireplaces. Quinton Hunter was the ninth Earl and the fourth Duke of Sedgwick. The first duke had been created in 1664, several years after Charles II’s restoration. The earldom had come to them in the time of King Henry VIII. Prior to that, fourteen Baron Hunters descended from the year 1143, and before that the heads of the family were baronets; Saxons who had wisely supported William of Normandy over Harold Godwinson only to find their thanedoms turned into baronetcyes, and fair Norman wives in their beds. It was a long and proud heritage.

The present house was built upon the ruins of the original Saxon hall, and a second house which had burned in the reign of Henry VII. The third house had stood in its present incarnation since the year 1500. It was built of red brick, although the stones were generally obscured by the shiny green ivy growing over it. The ancient leaded paned casement windows remained lovely, but had become, with time, very fragile. They were opened rarely, and then most carefully. It was, despite its antiquity, a very elegant house that had been home to many generations of Hunters, and the duke loved it.

It had always been expected that he would marry, although his late father's wishes in the matter seemed to lack a sense of reality. Who was going to marry a blue-blooded pauper? the duke thought to himself; but marry he must if Hunter's Lair was not to fall into further decay. And then there was his younger brother, George. Without a rich wife's monies the duke could not buy his brother a commission in the army, or even a pulpit in some small church.

"I shall have to sell some horses if I am to have a fashionable wardrobe and pocket money," Quinton Hunter said aloud.