‘That is true, and Martley is heir to an earldom.’ Lady Elstead found this consoling.

‘Which puts me in my place,’ murmured Mr Newbold to Lord Henfield.

‘I heard that, Mr Newbold. Rank is not everything, not always. You have excellent breeding, and you are very rich.’ Lady Elstead smiled graciously upon him.

‘Such solace as that is, ma’am.’ Mr Newbold bowed to her. She did not even notice the irony.

Caroline, hearing Lord Martley’s name mentioned, stepped back from the window. Henrietta smiled at her, and she recognised it as the same smile she had seen in her own mirror over the last day and a half.

‘Oh, cousin! How wonderful!’ She came forward, hands outstretched, but Henrietta went further, and hugged her.

‘We are both so lucky,’ she whispered in Caroline’s ear.

What followed was a more general exchange of congratulations within the party, which only ceased when the other people in the room began clapping.

‘It is open,’ declared a young man.

‘The opening of the bridge may be more important to London, and be remarked in the histories,’ said Lord Elstead calmly, ‘but I think the opening of new chapters in young lives is far more important overall.’

Despite Lord Henfield’s desire to take Henrietta back to Shropshire as soon as possible, Lady Elstead was determined to throw a betrothal party for both Caroline and Henrietta before they left, with the logical excuse that Sir John had already given his implicit blessing by sending Lord Henfield to London in the first place. The notice was sent to the Gazette, but Charles himself wrote to his godfather so that he should receive the good news at a more personal level than reading it in the newspaper. As she feared, there were some ladies who whispered behind their hands how Maria Elstead had aimed ‘at the moon’, pretending her niece could catch Mr Newbold, but most congratulations were genuine, for Henrietta was accepted as a very nice girl, and her marrying a gentleman who did not generally grace the London Season was not seen as her lessening the chances of her peers. She could have done better, but Henfield was a decent enough man, and of course, if it had been in the offing long before the Season began …