‘A man can only marry one girl’, her lord had said, and this had given Lady Elstead pause. Her initial reaction to Henrietta’s beauty had been adverse, but now she had amended her ‘Henrietta list’ she was more sanguine. Henrietta might have less polish, not having had the benefit of her own advice over the last few years, but she had greater beauty, and an inheritance that would not have every fortune hunter in Town on the doorstep, but would make a ‘mere baronet’s daughter’ a far greater catch than otherwise. There were certainly a number of gentlemen of decent breeding but rather modest means, whose lack of wealth kept them from the list for Caroline, but would be perfectly acceptable for Henrietta. The girl would not suffer, since she would live as well as she had previously, and the gentleman would see his family fortunes boosted, perhaps restored. Not that she would advocate a wastrel, an inveterate gambler, but some men had fathers who had squandered riches, mamas who had proved ‘expensive in the extreme’. Some of these gentlemen were even reduced to marrying nobodies, tainted by commerce and trade. How much better would be a beautiful bride, of impeccable background. Yes, this brought some interesting names onto the list, and such gentlemen would be eager to secure such a prize, which would mean them applying for her hand quite early in the Season. Lady Elstead spent a happy half hour imagining the cachet that would attend her having found a match for her niece before the Season was half over, to be followed by a brilliant match for her daughter. The following half hour she permitted herself the luxury of drawing up a putative wedding invitation list designed to pay off many old scores.

In blissful ignorance, the two girls formed a very cousinly friendship. To Henrietta, as an only child, and with no close female friends, this was quite a novel situation, and she put out the feelers of friendship almost tentatively. She was used to fitting in with a male world, and being ‘girlish’ was almost something she needed to learn. Caroline was a little taken aback by Henrietta’s almost ‘boyish’ attitude, since she was rather more forthright than most girls, but her mama reminded her that her ‘poor cousin’ had lacked the guiding hand of a mama since the age of ten, and had been brought up in a household with only her papa, and visits from his male acquaintance.

‘I do not say that Henrietta is fatally rustic, you understand, for she is remarkably well behaved, but she is unused to the company of ladies, and has, perforce, copied a slightly more “mannish” way of going on. I am trusting you, my child, to show her how a delicately brought up female comports herself in conversation.’