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bestbooks,’ she added thoughtfully, ‘but I have never been able to afford that!’
    ‘As a business venture it would seem to have certain merits,’ Sir William agreed. ‘But where will you establish your library, Mrs St Auby? A seaside town or fashionable watering place might be the best. I suppose your father did not leave you any property that might be of use?’
    Annabella shook her head. ‘He left plenty of property, but all is sold to pay his debts,’ she admitted. ‘Why, the lawyers are still trying to disentangle his affairs! But I have no hope that there will be anything suitable. That is the only flaw in my plan.’
    ‘Hmm, a pity.’ Sir William had slowed the horses as they sped through a picturesque village. ‘It seemed an excellent plan in all other particulars. But there are alternatives, of course! You might marry again, perhaps?’
    ‘I doubt that, sir.’ Annabella sounded subdued. They were back on dangerous ground.
    Sir William allowed the curricle to slow down, and half turned towards her. ‘You seem very certain, ma’am! How is it possible to tell what the future holds?’
    ‘It is not, of course,’ Annabella allowed, permitting herself to meet those perceptive blue eyes for a brief moment. ‘But I do not think…’
    ‘Perhaps,’ Sir William said thoughtfully, ‘when one has been married happily once, it is difficult to imagine such good fortune occurring again.’
    ‘I imagine that might be so.’ The sun went behind a cloud. Annabella shivered. ‘And the reverse might also be true.’
    ‘You mean that having been married unhappily, one might not wish to risk such a situation again?’ Sir William pursued. ‘Yet your sister, having been so unfortunate in the past, has now found true happiness as a result of being prepared to take that risk.’
    ‘I am very glad that Alicia is happy now,’ Annabella said sincerely, swallowing a lump in her throat and looking fixedly at the horizon.
    ‘Yes, having been estranged from James for so long, and enduring that appalling scandal of her forced marriage, she deserves her current good fortune.’ Sir William took his eyes off the road to consider Annabella’s averted face thoughtfully.
    ‘And you, Mrs St Auby, were you more fortunate than your sister in your dealings with your father? Did he not have an arranged match designed for you too?’
    Annabella was taken by surprise. She had a sudden, vivid flash of memory—her father, bright red with rage, storming at her when she had refused to marry the man he had chosen for her. She had had Alicia’s example to learn from, after all, and had been determined not to succumb. But though Bertram Broseley had not succeeded in marrying her off, he had managed to poison her life anyway. She pressed her hands together, suddenly distressed.
    ‘Must we speak of such matters, sir? The circumstances surrounding my marriage cannot be of any interest to you, I am sure—’
    ‘On the contrary, ma’am,’ Sir William’s tone was inflexible. ‘It interests me considerably! What happens to one sister can, after all, repeat itself with another! And I have the strangest feeling that your apparent love match with Francis St Auby was no such thing!’
    Annabella gasped. His effrontery in speaking of such matters was beyond anything she had experienced or knew how to deal with. No mere acquaintance should speak so, and certainly no gentleman should broach such a topic, particularly when she had shown her own disinclination to discuss the matter!
    ‘Upon my word, sir,’ she gasped, ‘you are most persistent! And you presume too much! Your comments are impertinent in the extreme! Kindly stop this curricle and take me back now!’ She looked around and realised that she had not the first idea where they were, for she had been quite engrossed in their conversation.
    The flat country of the Somerset Levels stretched around them as far as the eye could see. Verdant green fields lined with thick hedgerows and