“That is what I suspected,” the Earl said, “but the only alternative is to ask someone like Lady Melbourne to introduce me to the right sort of young woman. And look what happened to George Byron.”

He was thinking, as he spoke, of how disastrous Lord Byron’s marriage had been and how Lady Byron, now he had gone abroad, was working up a case for divorce with details of cruelty and infidelity that were making the scandalmongers lick their lips.

“I am not going to have that sort of thing happening,” the Earl went on firmly. “I will choose my own wife and I will have no meddlesome interference.”

“She will have to be of the highest breeding,” Richard said. “After all, your mother was the Duke of Dorset’s daughter and no one gives himself more airs than the present Duke.”

He paused and then added quickly in case the Earl should think that he was criticising,

“And quite right. The Dorsets were never part of the Carlton House set. At least that is what my father told me.”

“It’s true,” the Earl replied, “and I certainly would not allow my mother’s place to be filled by any doxy. At the same time to be truthful I find a lot of my Dorset relations extremely dull. They have allied themselves with the King and Queen and spend most of their time decrying the morals, manners and extravagances of our friend Prinny.”

“And of quite a lot of other people as well,” Richard added, “but that is the sort of background your future wife must come from.”

The Earl put down his cup with a little clatter.

“In books it is always so easy,” he said. “The hero meets the heroine, they fall in love, he turns out to be a Prince in disguise and she is not the ‘goose-girl’, but the daughter of a King.”

Richard drew back his head and laughed.

“Where on earth have you heard such stories?”

The Earl laughed too.

“My first Governess, who used to read to me fairy stories every night before I went to sleep, was an incurable romantic. I suppose because children are impressionable, I remember them when I have forgotten a whole number of other much more important things.”

“You will have to see that your children are brought up from a very early age on historical facts and philosophy.”

“It’s no use telling me what I should do with my children until I have them and before I have children I have to find a wife! Come on, Richard, help me! You are not being very constructive.”