'He did not murder the valet as well, then?' Rowan asked, half joking.

'No! Oh, Rowan, do be serious for a moment.' Penelope dragged a curtain closed to hide the swirling snow outside. 'I am sure-well, almost sure-he is not a murderer. He's an earl, for goodness' sake. But he looks haunted by dark thoughts, seems plunged in gloom, and they say his small daughter is kept locked up all the time. Poor little mite.' She sat down, dragging a shawl around the shoulders of her gown. Rowan noticed it was at least one Season out of fashion, and not the work of a leading modiste, either. 'How could I marry a man like that?'

'He sounds like the villain of a gothic sensation novel. But one has to admit it would be an astonishingly good match,' Rowan pointed out, sitting down in a flurry of fine merino skirts with considerably more grace than her friend. 'You will forgive me being frank, but-'

'I am one of the unimportant Maylins,' Penny interrupted, nodding in agreement. 'I know. We have all sorts of grand distant connections, but we haven't any money-and no pretensions either. At least,' she added scrupulously, 'we had none until Papa married again.'

They were silent for a minute, contemplating the ambitions of the second Lady Maylin. If she had thought that by marrying a second cousin of the Duke of Farthinghoe she would be catapulted into High Society she had soon been comprehensively disillusioned. But that did not stop her from trying.

'So why should the Earl's eye alight upon you?'

'My godmother is the grandmother of Lord Danescroft. Apparently she has persuaded him that he must remarry for the sake of his motherless daughter and to get himself an heir.'

'Yes, but you-'