He has a romance and in my opinion it's quite a good one! Not a traditional romance, perhaps, but it's not anything sleazy, there's mutual respect and fondness there.
You need to have high manipulation, invite him to your musicale, and get some of his romance up with specific clever dialogue choices - usually turning his questions back on him and such. He then stops you on the way to your matchmaker and lets you know the terms of engagement (and if you saw some of his secret scenes you already know a bit of what he expects).