Dear Mr Chalfont

This is to let you know that Miss Hélène is going to be married to Monsieur Barnier next week. She was very upset when she heard you were married having heard nothing from you after your first two letters even after Pierre wrote and told you how sad she was. It was cruel of you to cut her off like that, and not write any more letters until you was actually married. You may have changed your mind, but she didn’t deserve that. Shame on you! Miss Hélène is nothing to do with you now, but I thought you should know the misery you have caused her by your desertion and now she’s being pushed into marrying Monsieur Barnier.

You may think I have no right to take you to task, but Hélène is my friend and we look out for each other so I have every right. I am going with her to Gavrineau, so she won’t be on her own but I hope you feel as sick as I do at the thought of her being married to M. Barnier.

Annette Dubois

Rupert read the letter through again and did, indeed, feel sick. Hélène was going to marry that cold, autocratic man. How could she? How could she even consider the idea? And what did Annette mean by saying he hadn’t written more than once? He’d written several times and received no replies. It was only because Hélène had cut him off that he had allowed himself to be pushed into marriage with Kitty. Pushed into marriage. The words that Annette had used struck him forcibly. His Hélène was being forced into marriage with Simon Barnier – only, of course, she wasn’t his Hélène any more. But who was forcing her? Her parents? Simon Barnier himself? Did he have some hold over her? Rupert wished he could talk to Annette and get her to answer all his questions. She said Pierre had written to him as well. Where was that letter? If he had addressed it as this one from Annette was addressed, it must surely have arrived. The same with Hélène’s letters. He had given them all the same address to write to, but this was the sole letter that had arrived since Hélène’s first and only one. Annette said Hélène had heard nothing from him after the letter he’d sent on his arrival. Surely all his other messages couldn’t have gone astray. She obviously received the one he’d sent after he and Kitty were married. Why not the others?

And then a thought struck him; he’d taken that one to the post office himself. He had not put it in the postbag in the normal way, to be posted by one of the servants, and that letter had arrived at Belair.