He’d pondered the prospect of Lady Georgiana Rutherford a good deal while he was away, applying much the same kind of consideration to her as he did to any business matter. He needed a wife to get an heir. But he didn’t want the kind of wife who’d hang off his sleeve and be endlessly demanding. And emotional.

He’d seen what that had done to his father.

Her aunt had claimed Lady Georgiana wished to live in the country, and raise dogs and horses—and children. That would suit Hart perfectly. He didn’t need a duchess for ceremonial or political purposes. He had no ambitions in that direction. He didn’t need a grand hostess, or anyone to run his various houses—what were butlers and housekeepers and estate managers for, after all?

Lady Georgiana seemed as independent as her aunt had suggested. She was a little volatile, but at least she’d never bore him. That the volatility was partly the effect of unexpected lust—he was sure she was a virgin, unawakened to the pleasures of the flesh—and she didn’t quite know how to handle it—pleased him. What pleased him even more was the sensuality that burned beneath that deceptively boyish exterior.

That had really taken him by surprise. Lord, but that kiss in the library still haunted him. It would be no hardship to plant an heir in her.

But lust was ephemeral, and once the fire between them had burned out, he could imagine them settling quite happily—her in one of his country houses, raising her children and animals, him living as he always had, in London, doing what he wished when he wished with whomever he wished.

Lady Georgiana Rutherford was, in short, perfect to his requirements.

As for her apparent determination never to marry—not that he believed it; it was his experience that all women wanted to marry—it didn’t bother him at all. He had the solution to that little piece of nonsense well in hand.

Chapter Eight

Her resentment of such behaviour, her indignation at having been its dupe, for a short time made her feel only for herself.

—JANE AUSTEN, SENSE AND SENSIBILITY

Everyone knew old Mrs. Gastonbury’s soirées musicale were more to be endured than enjoyed, particularly when her beloved granddaughter was to perform, which she invariably was. Cicely Gastonbury was as enthusiastic as she was tone-deaf.

But old Mrs. Gastonbury was popular, and Cicely was a nice girl. More to the point, Mrs. Gastonbury’s cook was excellent and the suppers at the soirées musicale were famously superb, so the evenings were always sufficiently well attended and people did their best to smile instead of wince as Mozart, Hayden and Beethoven were routinely murdered.