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Prologue

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.

Chapter One

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 how she felt.

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.