“What should I do, miss?” Queenie shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. “Should I go up to your room and wait for you?” She had been standing away from the group, half in the foyer as if she didn’t know where she belonged.

“The sheriff said that nobody should leave and I presume that includes you,” I replied. “You’d better find a chair and come and join us.” I was still feeling ambivalent about her arrival. In a way I suppose that I had grown fond of her and was glad to have her back, but I wasn’t ready to forgive her deserting the ship at the first opportunity.

Belinda moved closer to me on the sofa. “I’m freezing,” she said. “I didn’t get a chance to dry off properly. And I really wish I hadn’t come here.”

“Your own fault,” I said.

“I know. Stupid, really. I do these impulsive things, hoping that something good will come out of them, but it never does. I went down to Kingsdowne Place when you were staying with the Eynsfords and look what happened there. The problem is that you are a disaster magnet, Georgie. I should learn to stay well away from you.”

By now I was also tired and grouchy and I’d had enough for one evening. “Face it, Belinda, you don’t come to see me. You come because you hope to take advantage of people I know.”

One of the good things about Belinda is that she is frightfully easygoing. She nodded. “You’re right. I’m a horrid, shallow person and I only think about myself. But I have to add that my actions are born partly out of desperation. It’s not easy trying to survive with little money in this world.”

“I’m certainly aware of that,” I said, “but I would never land myself on people claiming to be something I’m not, in the hope of snagging myself a rich man.”

“No, of course you wouldn’t. You have Queen Victoria’s blood running through your veins. You are eminently respectable and moral. You’ll marry and have oodles of children and live in a drafty old country house and be supremely happy. I like the good things in life, unfortunately.”

I glanced across at Darcy. He caught my gaze and winked, making me feel so much better. This might be a horrible situation but I was in the same room as a man who loved me and whom I hoped to marry someday. Poor Belinda looked for love in all the wrong places and while she lived a glamorous life from time to time, she had no security. I patted her hand. “Your turn will come, I’m sure.”

“I’m not so sure anymore. Craig Hart invites me for a skinny dip and then rejects me? There must be something wrong with me. I’m getting old and haggard and unattractive.”