No; the terrified Constance was not pleased. Not at all! Neither the shouts of the street hawkers nor the secret alcove they had both come to know so well impressed her, and it was all because he wasn’t there. Intellectually, she realized that dashing Lyle Barker, the illicit mysterious stranger with the large dog, had a full life in which he was on a collision course with the High Council itself, and he could not be expected to hold any consideration for the pleasure of one brightest, remarkable girl. Intellectually, she knew this. And yet…
   Truly, it had been a most unknowable day when father had brought him to her attention.
   Then, without any warning, a peal of mighty bells shattered her composure into a million quite aristocratic pieces! She struggled in vain with her sudden panic. Surely it could not be — but it was! At the door, the aristocratic, ophidian and masculine face she had come to know so well! “Without you I am nothing,” he rumbled while the truth — the whole truth — slowly came home to her. “I need you, my darling!”
   At long last as the music in her heart rose to a new crescendo of happiness, she knew that life without him was unthinkable, if not incendiary. Wthout him, could she ever have took a moment to plan some of the details of their pre-nuptial agreement?