“Oh?” Minnie opened her eyes wide. Serious for a moment, she searched his face, then her soft smile returned. “I wouldn’t worry your head with such considerations, dear.” She patted his hand. “When the right lady appears, it’ll all be very plain.”

Timms nodded sagely. “Indeed. No sense imagining it’ll be up to you to decide.”

Far from reassuring him, their words elicited a twinge of alarm. He hid it behind a smile. Sighting a group of friends, he seized the opportunity to retreat; farewelling Minnie and Timms, he strolled across the lawn.

The four gentlemen hailed him. All were known to him; all, like him, were of marriageable age and condition. They were standing a little apart, surveying the field.

“The Curtiss chit’s quite fetching, ain’t she?” Philip Montgomery raised his glass the better to observe the beauty parading with her two sisters.

“If you can stand the giggling,” Elmore Standish replied. “For my money, the Etherington girl’s more the ticket.”

Gerrard half listened to their commentary; he was one of them in the social sense, yet his unconventional hobby set him apart. It had opened his eyes to a truth his peers had yet to see.

He exchanged a few comments, wryly cynical, then walked on, into the relative safety of Kensington Gardens. At that hour, the gravel walks were busy with nannies and nursemaids watching over their charges as they romped on the lawns. Few gentlemen strolled there; ladies of the ton rarely ventured that way.

He’d intended refocusing on Lord Tregonning’s outrageous proposition; instead, the gay shrieks of the youngsters distracted him, sending his mind down a quite different track.

Family. Children. The next generation. A wife. A successful marriage.

All were elements he assumed one day he’d have; they still spoke to something in him, still meant something to him. They were things he still desired. Yet ironically, while his painting, especially his portraits, had elevated him to a position where he could have his pick of the unattached ladies, the very talent that enabled him to create such striking art had opened his eyes, and left him wary.