He needed a wife to connect him again, to be a bridge between him and all around him, especially in the social sense. He was an earl with numerous sisters, relatives, connections, and obligations; he couldn’t hide himself away. He didn’t want to hide himself away-he was constitutionally unsuited to being a recluse. He liked parties, balls, dancing-liked people and jokes and having fun-yet at present, even though he might be standing in the middle of a ballroom surrounded by laughing hordes, he still felt he was outside, looking in. Not a part of it.

Connection. That was the one vital ability he needed in a wife, that she should be able to connect him to his life again. But to do so, she needed to connect with him, and that was where all the bright young things failed.

They couldn’t even see him clearly, let alone understand him-and he wasn’t at all sure they had any real interest in that latter. Their notion of marriage, of the relationship underlying that state, seemed determinedly and unalterably fixed in the superficial. Which, to his mind, came perilously close to deception, to pretense. After thirteen years of lying, both living a lie and constantly dealing in fabrication, the last thing he would permit to touch his life-his real life, the one he was determined to reclaim-was any element of deceit.

Fixing his gaze on the flames leaping in the hearth, he focused his mind on his objective-on finding the right lady. He’d had no difficulty rejecting all those he’d met thus far; accustomed to gauging character swiftly, it usually took him no more than a minute. Yet identifying what characteristics his right lady possessed, let alone her whereabouts, had thus far defeated him. If she wasn’t in London, where else should he look?

The sound of footsteps, faint but definite, reached him.

He blinked, listened. He’d dismissed his staff for the night; they’d gone to their beds long ago.