Charlotte waited patiently until it seemed that her mother was not going to elaborate. “It seems rather dismal to marry a man knowing that he will be unfaithful to you, Mama,” she finally observed. “Surely Sissy’s mother never thought that her husband would establish a friendship with a major’s widow.”

Adelaide was trying to work through her tangled thoughts. “If he … if he is unable, then he would not make such an attachment. Although the condition doesn’t make Alexander a good prospect as a husband either,” she added, remembering Marcel’s adamant objections.

Charlotte bit her lip. She was thoroughly perplexed. “What condition, Mama?”

Adelaide took a deep breath. “Your father says—” She broke off. Then she spoke abruptly. “Impotence is when a man … when his member becomes soft rather than stiff. Such a man cannot get married, Charlotte, because he and his wife would have no children. Do you understand?”

Charlotte nodded. She had a fair idea of the mechanics of sexual ingression, less, it must be admitted, from that night in the garden than from inadvertently seeing two horses mating a year ago.

“It’s not right,” Adelaide added. “It’s not right that the earl is pursuing you, given his limitations.”

“He is quite, ah, stiff, Mama,” Charlotte said weakly. “I mean, I noticed, because he kissed me and—”

Adelaide interposed, her eyes slanting away into the corner of the room. “The fact is, darling, that apparently a man can be quite capable up until the last minute, or something of that nature,” she said hurriedly. “I can’t say I understand it completely. But an impotent husband cannot have a child.”

“But—he has a child,” Charlotte said in a puzzled tone. “Pippa looks exactly like him.”

Adelaide groaned inwardly. This was precisely the subject she didn’t want to discuss.

“The child might not be, well, she could be his child but not his wife’s, if you grasp my meaning.”

“Nonsense, Mama. He told me that Pippa is distressed because when his wife was dying, the child was left with a succession of nannies. He was telling the truth.”

“I don’t know, darling. I don’t understand about the child, and your father doesn’t either. But the fact is that his wife annulled the marriage on the grounds of impotence, and he didn’t raise a whisper about it. In fact, he must have agreed with her assessment, or there would have been an examination.”

“An examination,” Charlotte whispered. “You mean by doctors?”