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with ordinary people. But she was anxious to attract wealthier customers, so she decided to try it. Since its installation she had received several inquiries, and it was good to be able to order materials for her hats without having to make the trip to warehouses. Now she was inclined to think that in a few years all businesses and many private homes would have one.
    ‘Please call me Miranda. And no, I don’t want you to telephone anyone. I’ll be fine in a minute or two.’
    Belle made the tea, putting extra sugar in Miranda’s, and insisted she ate a few biscuits too. Her face was still very white, but then she’d noted that most women of her class looked pasty.
    ‘I’m not going to let you walk home alone,’ she said as she gave Miranda her tea. ‘I’ll come with you and I’ll advise your mother to call the doctor. I know it is very hot today, but that shouldn’t make you faint.’
    Miranda’s eyes widened with horror. ‘No! I don’t need an escort or a doctor,’ she said, her voice rising in agitation.
    Belle was immediately suspicious. Most people would be grateful for help and support if they’d had some kind of turn which could have resulted in serious injury or death. And if Miranda’s mother couldn’t even carry a hat box home with her, she was hardly likely to have raised a daughter who was independent.
    ‘Could it be that you’ve been up to something today which you don’t want your family to know about?’ she asked lightly.
    ‘You are direct to the point of rudeness,’ Miranda replied, looking down her slim, aristocratic nose. ‘I appreciate that you’ve helped me, but I don’t think that gives you the right to question me.’
    Belle shrugged. It seemed Miranda was as hoity-toity as her mother. She guessed that she’d been brought up to believe that people in ‘trade’ should kowtow to the upper classes. ‘I believe that any woman should offer the hand of friendship to another if they feel they have a problem. I surmise by your prickliness that you know exactly why you fainted, and you are afraid that if I walk you home your mother will insist on you seeing a doctor.’
    Belle was merely stabbing in the dark, but when she saw the look of alarm on Miranda’s face she knew she’d touched a nerve.
    Maybe it was just that she’d felt dizzy so often lately. There had even been a couple of times when she’d thought she was going to faint. And Miranda had no wedding ring on her finger, not even an engagement ring. Was she in that kind of trouble?
    Belle was well aware that she might very well offend Miranda and that could cause a great deal of trouble for her. But it wasn’t in her nature to look the other way, not when her instinct told her someone needed help, so she went over to her and knelt down by her chair. ‘Are you having a baby?’ she asked quietly. ‘You can tell me to mind my own business if you like, but if you are, you need to confide in someone. You can trust me, I won’t tell a soul.’
    Miranda didn’t have to reply. Tears sprang to her eyes and she covered her face with her hands, all haughtiness gone.
    Belle felt a huge wave of sympathy. She was familiar enough with upper-class society to know that a baby born out of wedlock would create a terrible scandal.
    ‘Can’t you get married quickly?’ she asked, putting her arms around Miranda to comfort her.
    ‘He’s already married,’ Miranda sobbed. ‘I didn’t know that, not when it happened. But it doesn’t matter now because I went to see a woman today and she dealt with it.’
    Belle’s stomach turned a somersault. One of the girls at Martha’s in New Orleans had gone to a woman who had ‘dealt’ with her unwanted pregnancy. She knew what it entailed.
    ‘You went to see someone today? Did she do it with soapy water and a douche?’
    Miranda nodded. ‘I thought it would come away while I was with her, but she told me to go home and it would happen in a few hours. As I was coming up the hill from the