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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 of that sort 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.

‘What – apart from my father’s hitherto secret wish, of course – makes this young lady above all others so outstandingly suitable?’ he said.

It was a sign of wavering resolution on his part, and trust his mother to pounce on it.

He endured a lengthy encomium to Miss Nightingale’s beauty and virtue, her noble birth, the very respectable size of her portion, her mastery of every accomplishment, her prowess in the saddle, even – as a distinct afterthought – her intelligence.

She sounded far too good to be true, and probably was.

He knew nothing to her discredit, knew nothing about her at all save what he was being told, but her father was another matter.

‘Lord Nightingale has the reputation of being rather eccentric,’ he ventured after a while, when the flow had lessened a little.

‘Has he not lived apart from his wife for several years?’

‘What of it?’ said his parent robustly. ‘There has been no open breach, no mention of anything so shocking as divorce, not the least breath of scandal, and I am surprised, Dominic, that you should even hint at such a thing! Lady Nightingale merely prefers the countryside, and her husband Town. They are both notable scholars, you know, with a wide correspondence and a great deal to keep them busy, though I do not mean to say, of course, that Miss Nightingale herself is a bluestocking, or… or a writer, or anything of that disagreeable nature.’

He wondered why his mother should consider intellectual achievements in a woman so very undesirable, but did not feel equal to arguing the point just now. ‘Naturally not. I feel sure you would not suggest her otherwise, ma’am. She sounds a very paragon of perfection.’

‘She is! Dominic, I know you are being tiresomely satirical, as ever, but truly, it is past time that you should be thinking of marriage. The future of the family demands it, and if, as you pretend in your odiously affected way, you cannot distinguish one lovely and eligible young lady from another, the plain truth is that you may as well marry this one and be done, since it cannot possibly make the least difference to you!’

Cousin Sarah, whose unobtrusive presence it was possible to forget for long periods of time, clucked ineffectually at this stinging and most unmaternal remark, and Dominic smiled at her.

‘There is no need to distress yourself, Cousin,’ he said gently.

‘I assure you that I am not in the least offended. Perhaps my mama is right, and perhaps my father was, though alas he cannot be here to tell us why he thought so. Perhaps it is indeed time.’

It was a great concession, and Lady De Lacy was duly sensible of it.

She might have preferred that her son should hasten immediately to the Nightingale mansion in Grosvenor Square, to offer for the young lady before he should have a chance to change his mind.

But when Dominic insisted with great firmness that he should as a bare minimum be able to identify his prospective bride by sight before he asked for her hand, his mama conceded with surprising grace.