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that such a love was not for him. It was not that he had not observed cases, apart from Lord Vernon’s, of such love-matches, but no young woman, however lovely or accomplished, had ever inspired in him any desire to throw prudence to the winds and declare himself a slave to her every whim.
    He had certainly looked over several crops of London debutantes very carefully, but he had found the majority of them silly, avaricious, simpering, painfully shy, overly assertive—or a combination of these things. None, despite the lavish compliments showered on them, had ever had the quiet self-assurance of, say, Miss Bennett of The LadyShip —with whom he could at least converse sensibly—and very few could have been described as well-suited to be come mistress of Brookfield.
    At the same time, though his mother was not far wrong in saying he had fixed on Clarissa Dudley because she was the nearest suitable bride to hand, Allingham was not so lost to the normal young man’s appreciation of feminine beauty as to choose a wife solely for reasons of suitability. Clarissa was an undeniably lovely child—no, she must be nineteen now, he reminded himself, no longer a child—and he thought she was not indifferent to him. Indeed, only last June, under that very oak tree standing alone at the edge of the wood, Clarissa had looked up at him with a bewitching smile that had stirred something dormant in his heart. It was not precisely a coup de foudre —he recognised that well enough—but he remembered the occasion more viv idly than he would have supposed. He rode on to Oak wood in much better humour.
    The Dudley mansion was just that—a massive white edi fice, not unlike a wedding cake with pillars, perpetrated in the last century by an architect with more ambition than talent. The colonnaded front was redeemed only by its hav ing been stripped of its ornamental plaster-work at the or ders of Lady Alfred Dudley (nee Helena Towne) as soon as she had recovered from the initial shock of beholding it upon her parents’ speculative visit to Oakwood the year be fore her marriage—which she had very nearly not gone through with as a result.
    Allingham fully expected the entire family to turn out to greet him, since he had been rash enough to send his note before considering this possibility; but Lady Alfred, al though she wasted no time in the attack, had mercifully sent her husband and offspring behind the lines for the opening skirmish.
    “My dear Marcus!” she gushed in greeting, “do come in and sit down with me for a little time. I am persuaded you will desire to see Alfred as soon as possible, but a moment to catch your breath will not come amiss, I daresay.”
    Helena Dudley was a handsome, if not precisely beautiful woman, firm of figure and erect of carriage. Her carefully coiffed head retained a youthfully golden glow, and petitioners for her attention were favoured with a steady gaze from her pale green eyes. She also possessed a wardrobe of delicately gauzy gowns and a talent for striking interesting poses in them—which were not immediately identifiable as such but which, after they had been shifted mechanically two or three times, as in a tableau vivant, became unmis takable.
    When Mr Allingham was announced, Lady Alfred was discovered in one of these attitudes, gazing contempla tively at a portrait hanging in her blue salon, of her children at the tender ages of six (Felix) and four (Clarissa). She greeted her visitor and slid into a gilt chair from which she smiled languidly at Allingham, who seated himself on the chair’s fragile-looking twin and said, “Thank you, ma’am. I trust I find you and Lord Alfred well? Your brother-in-law, by the way, sends his greetings.”
    Helena looked justifiably as if she doubted that Lord Ver non had done any such thing, but she nodded agreeably and informed Allingham that he would stay to dinner. Not knowing what other course, if any, was available to him, he thanked