PROLOGUE
JUNE 1817
It was very late, or very early. The sky was lightening in the east, and the blackbirds beginning to sing to welcome the end of the short summer night. Even here, in the heart of fashionable London, there were a few such wild creatures clinging on to life among the trees and bushes of the central private garden, which made a brave attempt to mimic a little rustic wilderness. The grand square with its tall, impressive mansions had been briefly busy earlier, as carriages brought weary party-goers home after another glittering ball, and wearier servants tended to them. But it was quiet now, its inhabitants slumbering in silk-hung bedrooms and crowded servants’ attics, and the square was empty.
But not everyone, it seemed, was fast asleep. A lone figure, cloaked and hooded, slipped from the mews at the rear of one of the grand houses, and stood waiting in the shadows near one of the corners of the square. If there’d been anyone to observe, it would surely have been obvious that some sort of desperate flight was in progress. It must be an elopement. The fugitive – a woman – was struggling with a heavy portmanteau, and there was an indefinable furtiveness about her movements, an evident tension in her tall frame. She appeared to be young, well dressed and anxious. It seemed she was that most interesting of persons, a runaway debutante, a lady of quality. A fanciful observer would have been tempted to guess at the intriguing nature of her whirling thoughts: can I trust him? Will he come as he promised, and at the time he promised? Will we be pursued? And most of all: is it right, what I am daring to do for love, or is it reckless madness that will end badly, in my ruin and a lifetime of regret?
But whatever her private fears, she did not have long to wait. A dilapidated hackney carriage rattled slowly into the square, breaking the tranquillity. It was a brief interruption – the vehicle stopped, the door was released by some passenger already inside, who did not descend to make a romantic scene but leaned out and held the door wide in a practical manner with a dark-clad arm so that the woman could enter. It closed behind her, softly but decisively. A moment or two later, the carriage was moving again, heading east. Its ultimate destination might be guessed – Gretna Green? The Continent? – but could not be known.
Inside, where the invisible observer’s curiosity would surely lead him to trespass if he could, there were embraces, passionate kisses, murmured endearments. It was a vital moment, certainly, in the lives of two young people, and there could be no turning back now.
‘Will my plan work?’ The hood had fallen back to reveal golden curls and a flushed, vivid face; the fugitive was beautiful.
‘Of course it will, my love; you are so clever.’ Her companion, still in shadow, was reassuring, and clasped her hand strongly.
‘I suppose we shall know soon enough…’
The carriage rattled off, into an uncertain future, and the square was quiet again. When the young lady’s flight was discovered, there would be panic, tears, anger, and perhaps pursuit, and even violence. There would inevitably be public scandal. But for now, the blackbirds were left to sing undisturbed.
1
FOUR DAYS LATER
It was a truth universally acknowledged, Dominic reflected, that two persons of high rank might become engaged to be married as effective strangers, without having spent any time at all alone together and without having the least idea of each other’s true nature. Whether such behaviour should be described as sensible or advisable – that was another question entirely. But that was not, it must be admitted, a particularly helpful question for a man to ask himself as he dressed, with habitual care, for his own betrothal party.
Dominic had, of course, been alone, briefly and for the first time, with the Honourable Miss Nightingale when he had asked for her hand and she accepted. But those few moments could hardly have been said to further their acquaintance in any meaningful way.
He had been expected in Grosvenor Square, the day he proposed, and was punctual, after his brief formal conversation with her elderly father the day before. The butler’s face reflected his knowledge of the circumstances; the tall young footmen standing impassively in the hall no doubt knew it too. He was shown into her aunt Greystone’s drab sitting room, where the young lady awaited him, composed, pale and silent.
An inner door had rather pointedly been left perceptibly ajar, making Dominic all too conscious that the older lady must surely be lurking behind it in the adjoining chamber, listening. Had he been overcome with lover-like ardour, impelled to overstep the bounds of propriety, no doubt she’d have bustled in and set matters right. Since he had felt no such compulsion to make urgent love to Miss Nightingale – the very idea was ridiculous – he’d never know what the eavesdropping duenna might have said or done. Perhaps any hint of a serious conversation, any attempt by him to ask his new fiancée if this bloodless and old-fashioned marital arrangement was really what she wanted in life, might have produced the same result, or even a far swifter interruption. Indeed, signs of overwhelming passion on his part, though improper, might have been excused much more easily by the lady’s so-called protectors. Better an excess of enthusiasm than the merest hints of doubt or reluctance on either side, he mused cynically as he tied his snowy cravat now, frowning unconsciously into the cheval glass as he adjusted its folds.
But it was not to be that sort of marriage. Not a passionate one. Presumably it would have to be, one day, or rather night – or what would be the point? – but at present the strictest decorum was being observed. This, perhaps, was why none of it felt quite real to him, as though all of this were happening to someone else and he a mere detached observer. He had no means of knowing howshefelt.
Sir Dominic De Lacy – Beau De Lacy, as the polite world knew him – was famous throughout the haut ton for his address, for the exquisite refinement of his manners and his dress, and the ironic detachment with which he viewed the world. No doubt the words in which he expressed his admiration and proffered his suit to the young lady had been superbly chosen, polished to perfection, and of course not inappropriately or unfashionably ardent. He couldn’t recall what he’d said, now, just a few short weeks later, and it really didn’t matter. The fact that it didn’t matter struck him suddenly as terrible. Surely it was the kind of important thing a man should remember forever?
He pushed the unhelpful, uncharacteristically dramatic thought away, putting on his immaculately tailored black evening coat with his young valet’s silent, reverent assistance. He’d always disliked melodrama, the display of excessive and uncontrolled emotion – perhaps because his widowed mother was so deeply devoted to it – and his whole persona had been constructed quite deliberately in opposition to the concept. He was unfailingly cool, languid, lazy, unenthusiastic – proverbially so. He knew that it was rumoured in Corinthian circles that he had just once in his life become visibly agitated, but it was also admitted that this had occurred late in the previous century, and he had been a schoolboy at the time. Certainly nobody had ever seen him in such a state in recent years, nor could they imagine it. Nor could he, for that matter. Especially not this evening. So, matters matrimonial were proceeding exactly as they should, without the intrusion of anything so inconvenient or even downright vulgar as feelings.
It must be noted, though, that the plan that was unrolling so smoothly was not of his making. It had been revealed to Dominic quite recently – by his fond mama, in fact – that his father had long ago entered into discussion with Lord Nightingale about the desirability of a match between the Baron’s elder daughter and Sir Thomas’s only son and heir. Since his father had been dead these nine years, Dominic was scarcely in a position to ask him if any of this was true, and to doubt his surviving parent’s word would be quite shockingly unfilial. But he’d been unable to prevent himself from asking why such an interesting and important fact was only now being conveyed to him for the first time.
The fateful interview had taken place in his mother’s sitting room, which was decorated in mourning shades of lavender that no doubt contributed to its oppressive atmosphere of perpetual gloom. Lady De Lacy, drawing on the support of her smelling salts and clasping the thin hand of the unfortunate female relative who lived with her and catered to her every whim, had informed him repressively that the young lady in question had only recently reached marriageable age. Plainly it would have been premature, even improper, to enter into discussion of such matters before that happy date. ‘Your poor father,’ she said, shedding tears, ‘had no opportunity to talk all this over with you, young and heedless as you were when he was torn from us. Imagine your reaction, if he had told you when you were nineteen or twenty that he had a suitable girl in mind for you, a girl who was at that time a mere schoolroom miss. You would have laughed in his face! And alas, he did not live to see you reach maturity so that you could ever discuss your future in a sensible fashion.’
All this was true, and silenced Dominic quite effectively. He greatly regretted the fact that his father had died before they had developed a relationship of mutual confidence; he must blame himself, and the reflection that he had been no more or less of an idiot than any other youth of twenty summers was no consolation at all.
‘And of course, dear boy,’ she went on inexorably, ‘if you had chosen another girl as your bride in the intervening years, as you so easily might have done, nothing need ever have been said on this most delicate subject. The agreement between our two families is very far from being a matter of common knowledge, and could never have been described as binding, merely your sainted father’s dearest and final wish.’ At this melancholy reflection, she shed more tears into her delicate lace handkerchief, and her little wisp of a cousin sighed in sympathy.
‘I am happy to hear it is not to be considered binding, Mama,’ he had replied drily, his sardonic manner effectively masking his emotions, as it so often did, ‘since I am nine and twenty years old, and yet before today I knew nothing at all about all these plans that have been made for my future. I cannot recollect ever having laid eyes upon the young lady, or even having heard of her existence, and I might have expected you at least to have presented me to her at some convenient moment. But I dare say you may think that I am being unreasonable. I so often am.’
This was, in boxing cant, a low blow, since Dominic was perfectly well aware that his mother regarded even the slightest opposition to her wishes on his part, or anyone else’s, as the height of unreasonableness. It was with a little wry amusement, then, that he watched her change tactics with admirable speed and say gushingly, ‘My dear son! What is this foolishness? You know that it is my fondest hope to see you married at last, and happy! If you had chosen a bride yourself, ten years ago, you would not have heard the least objection from me, and you might now be the father of a hopeful family, with all the joy that brings. Then there would not have been the least reason to advert to Miss Nightingale, and your poor father’s cherished plan.’
‘Ten years ago? If I had been so imprudent as to wish to marry at nineteen, Mama, I am sure I would have heard the most vehement objections from you, and from my father too. In fact, I do seem to recall that when I was at Oxford and you discovered that I had become romantically involved with a young woman you did not hesitate to describe as entirely unsuitable?—’
No one could ever call Lady De Lacy slow-witted. ‘I am not speaking ofthatsort of disreputable entanglement, with a woman of low character,’ she said reprovingly. ‘I wonder you should mention, even indirectly, such an improper liaison! A mere folly of immaturity, such as young men are sadly prone to, as I am sure even you would now admit yourself.’ He waved a graceful hand in agreement, and she continued, ‘I refer, naturally, to a sincere and lasting attachment to a young lady of birth and breeding. I am only too well aware that you have formed no such desirable connection, despite a decade spent in the best society, which – one might imagine – has offered you many excellent opportunities to do so.’
‘Alas, Mama, that is all too true.’
It was an undeniable fact. Dominic would have said, before this surprising conversation, that he had met every debutante of even moderate eligibility who had made her come-out in the past decade. If his mother had not brought them to his attention, their own mothers, sisters, aunts, cousins, grandmothers or godmothers had inevitably done so. He had danced with them, so many of them, at private balls and public assemblies. In his heedless youth, he’d gone occasionally to Almack’s Assembly Rooms, and been positively besieged by them there – but he was wiser now, and avoided the dreary place like the plague. He had met the young ladies of the ton, and continued to meet them, while riding in the park, at Venetian breakfasts, ridottos, rout parties, at the theatre and the opera. At the races. In Brighton. On the hunting field. The only places he didn’t meet them were Jackson’s Saloon, Cribb’s Parlour, the fives court, and other exclusively masculine places of entertainment – or, of course, other places, best not mentioned, where women might indeed be found, but ladies decidedly would not.
It was also true that, after ten years, all the blushing flowers of the polite world had, in Dominic’s eyes, begun to blend together into one indistinguishable mass of curls, giggles and muslin. He wasn’t such an arrogant cockscomb as to think that they were all the same in reality – they remained individuals, with their own characters and their own private hopes and dreams, presumably, and it couldn’t possibly be true that they all wanted desperately to marry him, although it quite often seemed as though they did. But not one of them, in the highly artificial circumstances in which he and they inevitably encountered each other, had ever touched his heart, or even slightly piqued his interest. And here he was, almost thirty, with a duty to his ancient family name. That being so, perhaps it was high time he put aside childish dreams of love that seemed unlikely ever to be realised. Maybe his father had known from his own bitter experience that one might be lucky enough to find love, and one might undertake a suitable marriage, but rarely – never? – with the same person.
