To her father, only the best was good enough and, himself a Rhodes Scholar as a young man, he sent her to England to finish her graduate education at St Hugh's College at Oxford University.
Many of her father's business associates in London put themselves out to entertain her and she became popular in London society. She was twenty-four when she met Sir Roger Lang, a baronet and one-time lieutenant colonel in the Scots Guards, now chairman of a merchant bank with close associations with her father.
She adored him at once and the attraction was mutual. There was one flaw, however. Although he was unmarried, there was a fifteen years' age difference between them and, at the time, it simply seemed too much for her.
She returned to America, confused and uncertain about the future, for business held no attraction for her and she'd had enough of academia. There were plenty of young men, of course, if only for the wrong reason – her father's enormous wealth – but no one suited her, because in the background there was always Roger Lang, with whom she stayed in touch once a week by telephone.
Finally, one weekend at their beach house on Cape Cod, she said to her father across the breakfast table, 'Daddy, don't be mad at me, but I'm thinking of moving back to England… and getting married.'
He leaned back and smiled. 'Does Roger Lang know about this?'
' Dammit, you knew.'
'Ever since you came back from Oxford. I was wondering when you'd come to your senses.'