‘The r-ring!’ Beatrice began when her aunt came into the room.

‘It’s quite wonderful, Beatrice,’ Aunt Emily said, patting her shoulder. ‘Eustace sent a message first thing this morning. He says he forgives you your nerves and promises there’ll be no more said about it. It was a lucky escape, to be sure, but fortunately the duke is a gentleman.’

Beatrice could not believe what she was hearing.

‘B-But, Aunt, I r-really d-don’t want to—’

‘Do get out of bed, dear. The guests will be here sooner than you think and we’ve so much still to do.’

Beatrice tried desperately to make herself heard, but it seemed impossible. Aunt Emily refused to listen, just as Eustace had disregarded her letter, and her father before that. Her frustration made her stammer worse and worse until she could hardly speak at all. Before long, there was an army of maids pushing her this way and that, tugging at her hair and covering her face in powders.

Finally Beatrice reached for an old copy of Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, hoping to calm herself by examining the coloured plates of newly discovered plants and the intricate sketches of seeds and leaves inside. But she only managed a few pages before she came to an article about an orchid hunter named Benjamin Smith who’d been gored to death in a bull trap in Hawaii. She frowned down at the words. Before she could read any further, Aunt Emily happened to see the headline and whipped the magazine from her hands with an expression of profound distaste.

‘This really isn’t suitable reading material for you at all, dear,’ she said.

Angrily, Beatrice tried to demand it back, but her tongue had completely tied itself into knots and she found she could not utter a single coherent word. The morning raced by and before she had time to blink, there were guests assembled on the lawn outside, and she was wearing a sumptuous wedding dress, trimmed with elaborate flounces of Honiton lace. There was even a gauzy veil, fastened to a wreath of orange blossoms.

Her aunt and the maids cooed that she looked beautiful but Beatrice thought it quite plain that she looked utterly ridiculous. She stepped away from the mirror and crossed the room to the windows where she could look out at the guests, already taking their seats upon the croquet lawn.