The Exploits & Adventures of Miss Alethea Darcy by Elizabeth Aston

daughter of mine marry into, however fine and long their pedigree may be. There was that uncle who behaved so very oddly, do you remember him? They shut him away in the end. Lady Fanny Fitzwilliam, who is a dear friend, is very much concerned by the rumours, but as she says, what can anyone do? Married couples have to sort matters out between themselves as best they can.
    How are Wytton and his bride? They are each as eccentric as the other, which may not make for an easy marriage. Pray remember me to Wytton, for whom I have a tendre as you know; were I twenty years younger, I should have cut him out with his rich Darcy daughter. Are they settled in Venice? He is such a gadabout, one hears of him now in Turkey, now in Egypt.
    By the bye, Alexander’s old friend Titus Manningtree has left the country in his usual dramatic way, calling on his sister booted and spurred to announce that he was on the way to Falmouth to board his yacht and sail for France. He is still very cut up about Emily Thruxton’s desertion, as he sees it, and doubtless feels that foreign fields will restore his equilibrium; if ever there was a man who needed to find a wife, it is Titus. Only who is there who could stand up to him and be the kind of companion he needs? One shudders to think of his sister-in-law ruling the roost at Beaumont, but that is how it will end; I fear he may have reached that age when marriage seems far too daunting an undertaking to be considered.
    I am quite alone just now, with barely a cicisbeo or two left to bear me company. Freddie has gone away to Scotland and will not return this se’ennight; I wish him joy of the heather and the gamekeepers and am glad to be in London. An inclination for the wildness of the north is no bad thing in a husband; I could wish his brother shared it; the odious man came and sat a full hour yesterday, ungracious and surly, and not all my yawns served to get rid of him; never was I more relieved than when his chair was finally called for and I could breathe again.
    I was happy to hear that the weather in Venice has left off its fogs and when you next write I expect to have a good account of St. Mark’s gleaming in the sunlight and the waters of the Adriatic sparkling at your feet, not to mention the streets and canals thronged with handsome Venetians.
    I remain, my dear, your most affectionate friend,
Belinda

Part Two

Chapter Six
    Paris.
    A cold, grey day, with a wind ruffling the waters of the Seine and the trees still stark with the bareness of a late spring. Alethea and Figgins were heartily glad to have a respite from the interminable hours of travel they had endured since Alethea slid out of the window of Tyrrwhit House, but it was not an easy stay. Despite all that common sense told her about the unlikelihood of Napier knowing where she had gone, let alone setting off in pursuit, and the impossibility of his being now in Paris, Alethea couldn’t help looking over her shoulder and jumping every time a carriage came into the Poisson d’Or, where they were lodging.
    Figgins was brusque. “He can’t be here, not without he’s sprouted wings and flown across that dratted channel. It stands to reason; we came at such a pace, down to Dover and then straight on the road to Paris from Calais. If he should be on our trail, which I take leave to doubt, we’ll be out of Paris and on our way to Italy before he sets foot on one of those dirty old bridges.”
    Figgins didn’t like Paris. In comparison with London, she said, it was grubby and mean-looking and she regarded the fine buildings with no enthusiasm. “It’s no good these Frenchies giving themselves airs for putting up one or two grand palaces, and they’re most likely used as prisons or some such, look how they did away with the poor king and queen. And for every fine building there’s a street full of hovels, and the streets aren’t never cleaned, and they don’t seem to have