‘By opening my purse strings to the high-flyers,’ said Chepstow candidly, ‘and minding my manners with the Quality. It’s perfectly simple....’

‘Yes, if all you are looking for is something of a temporary nature. But if you had to get married, what kind of woman would you ask? I mean, what sort of woman do you think would make a good wife? And how would you go about finding her, if you only had a fortnight’s grace to get the knot tied?’

Chepstow froze, like a stag at bay. ‘Me? Married?’ He slowly shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t. The trick is avoiding the snares they lay for a fellow, not deliberately walking straight into one.’

‘You don’t understand,’ Havelock began to say. But Chepstow wasn’t listening. He was looking wildly round the room, like a hunted animal seeking cover. And then, with obvious relief, he found it in the form of a pair of young men just barely visible above an enormous mound of books on one of the reading desks, engaged in earnest conversation.

‘Let’s ask Ashe,’ he said, grabbing Havelock by one arm and towing him across the floor with an air of desperation. ‘Kind of chap who reads books when he don’t need to is bound to know something worth knowing about matrimony.’

Which was rot, of course. But Chepstow was clearly panicking. Anybody who thought they could get away with manhandling him across a room, whilst babbling about books, had obviously lost his wits.

But then the topic of matrimony was apt to do that to a fellow. He wouldn’t willingly put his head in the noose if there was any alternative. But, having racked his brains for hours, Havelock simply couldn’t find one.

So he’d decided that the only thing to be done was to see if he couldn’t somehow sugar-coat the pill he was about to swallow. Find some way, unlikely though it seemed, to find a woman who wouldn’t oblige him to alter his entire way of life.

Who wouldn’t try to alter him.

‘Ashe, and, um...’ Chepstow floundered as he shot a blank look at the second man at the table with Ashe.

‘Morgan,’ said the Earl of Ashenden, waving a languid hand at his companion. Havelock had seen Morgan about, at the races, Jackson’s, this club and various social events, though had never had cause to speak to him before. Son of some sort of nabob, if memory served him. Nothing wrong with him, so far as he knew. Just not out of the top drawer.

Not that he cared a rap for any of that. Not at a time like this.

Introductions dealt with, Chepstow thrust Havelock into a chair, then perched on the edge of his own as though ready to take flight at a moment’s notice.

‘Havelock has decided he wants to get married,’ he announced, rather in the manner of a man who has just tossed a hot potato out of his burnt fingers. Then he practically pounced on the waiter, who’d ventured into the library to see if any of the young gentlemen needed refreshment.

‘We need a bottle of wine,’ declared Chepstow with feeling.

‘Not want to,’ Havelock explained once the waiter was out of earshot. ‘Have to. Need to. And before you start questioning my ton, no, it isn’t because I’ve suddenly started seducing innocents,’ he growled, shooting Chepstow a resentful look. ‘That’s not it at all.’

‘Steady on,’ said Chepstow, pushing enough books aside that the waiter would have room to put a bottle and some glasses down when he returned. ‘Sort of mistake anyone could make. With you looking so...out of sorts. And then broaching the topic the way you did.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Ashe in that quiet way he had that somehow made everyone listen. ‘Perhaps the best thing to do would be to let Havelock explain, in his own words, just what his problem is and how he thinks we may be of assistance? Before he feels compelled to call on his seconds.’

At Morgan’s look of alarm, Ashe chuckled quietly. ‘It is a foolish man who casts a slur on Havelock’s honour these days.’

‘I don’t, and never have, challenged my friends to duels.’

‘You shot off half of Wraxton’s ear,’ put in Chepstow.

‘He wasn’t my friend.’ Havelock folded his arms over his chest and glared across the table at Ashe. ‘And it wasn’t me he insulted. But...a lady.’

‘Oho! And I thought you said you weren’t in the petticoat line.’

‘I’m not. Never have been. It wasn’t like that—’

‘From what I heard,’ put in Ashe mildly, ‘if it hadn’t been you, it would have been her husband who challenged him.’

‘He should have done,’ snapped Havelock. ‘Only...’ He sighed, and pushed his fringe out of his eyebrows irritably. ‘I lost my temper with him first.’

‘Never mind,’ said Ashe soothingly. ‘At least someone shot him. That is the main thing.’

‘I shouldn’t have done it,’ admitted Havelock, as the waiter returned with a tray of wine and clean glasses. Meeting Wraxton had been nothing like the first duel he’d fought. Wraxton would have killed him stone dead if his pistol hadn’t misfired. And therefore he’d wanted to kill him right back. If it hadn’t been for a freakish bout of hiccups throwing his aim off, causing him to nick the man’s ear rather than put a hole through what passed for his heart, he would have done. And would then have had to flee the country or face charges for murder.

Seeing how close he’d come to bringing dishonour on his family through sheer anger had pulled him up short. Since then, he’d made much more effort to keep a rein on his temper.

Although few people were foolish enough to think they could get away with goading him, after the affair with Wraxton. The tale had got about that he’d deliberately marked the man. That he was a crack shot.

Which just went to show what idiots most people were.

‘I only wish,’ he said, pouring himself a generous measure of wine, ‘my problems now could be solved by issuing a challenge, picking my seconds, then putting a bullet into...someone. But the fact is I need to get married,’ he said glumly. ‘And soon. But I don’t want to end up shackled to some harpy who will make my life a misery by constantly nagging at me to reform. And the thing with women,’ he said, lifting the glass to his mouth, ‘is that you never can tell what they’re really like until after they’ve got you all legally tied up.’ He took a gulp as he recalled just how many times he’d seen it happen. One minute they’d been blushing brides, tripping down the aisle all sweetness and light, and the next they’d become regular harpies, henpecking the poor devil who’d married them into an early grave.

‘Well, the answer, then, is to make sure of the woman’s character before you wed her,’ said Ashe with infuriating logic.

‘And just how am I supposed to do that in the limited time I have available?’

‘Marry someone you know well,’ said Morgan as though it was obvious.

‘God, no!’ Havelock seized his glass and threw the rest of its contents back in one go. ‘I can’t face the thought of actually living, in the same house, with any of the girls I know really well. And anyway, they wouldn’t oblige me by marrying quickly. They’d want a big society affair.’ He shuddered. ‘Not to mention a massive trousseau, and so forth.’

‘So, to be blunt, you want a girl who will take you exactly as you are, and won’t demand a big society wedding.’

‘Exactly.’

‘You are looking for a mouse,’ put in Morgan. ‘A mouse so desperate for matrimony she’ll take what little you’re prepared to offer.’

‘That’s it,’ he cried, startling the sneer from Morgan’s face. ‘That would work. Morgan, you are a genius.’

‘You’d better be prepared to accept someone plain, then,’ returned Morgan, somewhat taken aback by his enthusiasm for a suggestion he’d made with such sarcasm. ‘And probably poor, as well.’

Havelock leaned back for a moment, considering. ‘Don’t think a plain face would put me off, so long as she’s not a complete antidote.’

‘Just a moment,’ put in Ashe. ‘Though, for whatever reason, you have decided to marry now, and in such haste, you must not forget the matter of succession. All of us, except perhaps you, Morgan,’ he said, giving the nabob’s son a dry smile, ‘have a duty to marry and produce sons to take over our responsibilities in their turn.’