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all these years,” Amy said. “Manchester! She could have come to see her children whenever she wanted, yet she did not. How shocking!”
    “But why has she returned now?” Connie said.
    “Only she knows the true answer to that question,” Ambleside said. “However, we could hazard a guess. Allamont must have been supporting his wife financially all this time, to the ruin of the estate. I am no judge of clothes, but that pelisse looked vastly expensive to me.”
    “And that sealskin muff!” Amy said. “Quite delightful, but so modish that it must have cost a great deal.”
    “Should you like one, my love? We must see what we can find of that style in Brinchester. Yes, she was always extravagant. I recall my mother being scandalised by the number of gowns she seemed to need. And now the supply of money has dried up, so here she is again.”
    “So Cousin Henry has been sending money to Cousin Vivienne?” Belle said with a frown. “But then… all these years, he must have known exactly where she was. Yet he pretended she was in France. Why would he do that?”
    “Embarrassment, perhaps?” Ambleside said. “He may not have wanted the world to know his wife preferred to live alone in Manchester to being Mrs Henry Allamont of Willowbye. Telling everyone she had gone home to France suggests a benevolent husband with a care for his wife’s homesickness.”
    “I wonder if he even knew where she resided,” Belle said. “If the money he sent to her passed through a third party, he may have had no notion where she was. He seemed quite shocked to see her.”
    “Oh dear,” Amy said. “This will be so unsettling for everyone.”
    And on that point they could all agree.
    ~~~~~
    The time came for the next assembly in Brinchester. Their mother took Belle and Connie to the town at an early hour, so that they could visit the warehouses and select silks and muslin and cotton for Belle’s wedding clothes, and wallpaper and paint for Willowbye. Connie had been established as the authority on colours and styles for the house, and she made rapid, confident choices which even Lady Sara approved.
    “You have surprisingly good taste, Connie,” she said, as they made the short drive to their hotel. “I am happy to discover that you have inherited something from me, after all.”
    “I wish I had looked more like you,” Connie said quietly.
    Lady Sara looked askance at her. “Do you really? Dark hair is much more fashionable.”
    “I should love to have natural curls like you, Mama.”
    “Ah, yes, that is a blessing, it is true. Yet you do quite well with curling papers. None of you have an appearance such as to disgrace me in public, for which I am thankful, and now that you no longer wear identical gowns — such a foolish notion! — I find you all much more presentable. And one married and one betrothed! Excellent progress. Now it is your turn, Connie. I hope you will try for the Marquess. That would be a son-in-law I could be proud of.”
    Belle said nothing, but Connie could not let such a slur pass. “Surely you have nothing against Ambleside or Burford, Mama? They are both respectable gentlemen of good fortune.”
    “Oh, I have nothing against either of them, but Ambleside’s family is nothing at all, only two generations from trade, and Burford — he may be a wealthy man now, but he was merely a country curate with very poor prospects before that.”
    “And he was quite content to be so,” Belle said, in her calm way, not at all offended. “He is not ambitious.”
    “Exactly,” Lady Sara said. “That is precisely my point. A man of good family should always aspire to improve his position in society, by increasing his income and taking care to mix with the best company available to him, whether he has a career or not.”
    “Papa did not do so, did he, Mama?” Connie said, fascinated by this blunt speaking from her very proper mother.
    “No, he did not ,” she said with sudden fire. “He never mixed