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discretion.’
    ‘See that you are. What a wretched coil. I never thought Toby Saint Clair would comply with his father’s wishes. He’ll run Mannerling into the ground; you’ll see.’
    The voices suddenly came nearer the door. Miss Trumble sped lightly down the stairs.
    ‘So that is that,’ she said to Barry as he drove her homewards. ‘As I see it, this Mr. Vanewants Mannerling for himself. Oh, my poor Belinda. But if Saint Clair is bringing Belinda here and Mr. Vane is absent, there is little he can do.’
    *      *      *
    Belinda could not know the plans to invite her to Mannerling because so far Lord St. Clair had forgotten to tell her or make a point of seeing her. First there was a prize-fight on the Sussex Downs and then the roistering that followed afterwards to keep him out of town. Nor had he thought whom else to invite to the country.
    Long experience had trained him to say he would do something to please his father and then, when the threat of disinheritance had disappeared, to promptly forget what it was he had promised.
    So Belinda attended balls, parties, routs, and the opera, relieved that she had no longer to play the part of a silly miss. To her mother’s distress, she began to disaffect suitors by her ‘masculine’ conversation, for Belinda was interested in military and political matters in a way that no young lady should be. As it also got about that she had little dowry to speak of, she lost any attractions she might have had for a gentleman who was prepared to overlook the handicap of intelligence in a future bride for the sake of money.
    Belinda appeared deaf to criticism, and her sister Abigail, who had luckily married a highly intelligent man, was of no help at all, or so Lady Beverley constantly moaned. She blamed Miss Trumble for this unmaidenly curse of superior education that had been inflicted on Belinda.
    Belinda did not even seem to have a proper fear of spinsterhood. A woman who did not marry might just as well not exist. She could perhaps make herself useful in the family, taking over some of the role of unpaid housekeeper. Had she money, she might become a fashionable eccentric. But without it, she might be condemned to the life of a governess.
    Love did not normally enter into marriage among the upper classes. Marriage was a business arrangement. When a woman married, her husband was her absolute master, with total rights over the children. If they separated, though it might be his fault, she was totally dependent on him for access to her children.
    Fear of being left on the shelf drove the terrified débutantes into preening and flirting, giggling, talking baby talk and bad French. Behind each débutante was a powerful family who expected the horrendous expense of a Season to be paid back in full by an advantageous marriage.
    Belinda, however, was being brought out bya rich and indulgent elder sister who had married for love. Abigail’s husband had made Lady Beverley a generous present of money so that her daughter could boast a fine dowry. But the miserly Lady Beverley had squirrelled the money away for her own use. For had not four of her daughters married well with only modest dowries? Money was not to be wasted when beauty could bring the same result.
    Abigail was in blissful ignorance of this state of affairs, and being too high-minded to gossip was not aware that society believed Belinda to be badly dowered.
    And so, at a very grand ball, even little Lizzie was startled to see that Belinda was actually having to sit out during a waltz at which she, Lizzie, being partnered by a jolly young captain, was taking the floor. Lizzie was not aware of her own popularity. Lady Beverley had dinned into her from an early age that her looks were ‘unfortunate.’
    Lord Gyre noticed the phenomenon of dance-less Belinda as well. He turned to his friend, Gurney Burke. ‘The Beverley charmer does not seem to be taking this Season. What can have gone wrong with our