backstage of pleasure
time in the ballrooms and being the most comfortable in that milieu, he
e excuse for Christian remaining
right lady and establish her as his countess. As his sist
ures. He'd set out to find his bride in February. Nearly
t thrived on achievement. He was constitu
er he'd arrived at Paignton Hall in Devon to witness the nu
r so in London in the hope that among the few tonnish fami
een entirely outside his control, had only exacerbated his already abraded patience-a
days in London, not since the Season had commenced, but rather than making his failure to find a wife easier to a
adn't even managed to develop any, as A
anywhere in the next
ct. To accept it, set it aside, and turn to the matter
e Miss Madeli
left himself an escape route. He'd slipped the loophole in
or example-could judge for themselves, but
farsighted; Madeline qual
ather had died eight years ago and she'd been twenty-one at
ly on the shelf, but as he was thirty-four, her advance
rather than fewer years in her dish, o
dy would be extremely unlikely to
unquestionably possessed birth and station appropriate to the
of that as well, having inherited a sizable sum from mat
be well do
petent, more calm and capable, one less likely to enact hi
e into hysterics, not after some of the exploit
point, he frowned. Although he had an excellent visual mem
, but beyond that it was hard to decide how he rated her
of dealing with her as a surrogate male, as the de facto Gas
pass any "b
the one criterion on which he
s would expect to see him doing just that. So he would; he'd spend a little ti
eclaration of incomp
for the summer at the castle, there were any number of issues on wh
way through his system, relaxi
s. Not even vaguely problematic. He'd