The Making of a Marchioness

Four miles across the heath and four miles back, for a basket of fish the dinner party at Mallowe cannot do without. Emily Fox-Seton is thirty-four, penniless, unfailingly obliging, and remaking last season's skirt. Halfway home she sits down in the heather and cries. Then a cart draws up, and the Marquis of Walderhurst, who needs an heir and dislikes being fussed over, asks her a question.

That is only the first half. Her husband goes abroad; his heir presumptive installs himself at Palstrey Manor with his wife and her ayah; and a bridge crosses water the servants say has no bottom. Emily's maid begins to keep watch. A Cinderella story cools into a study of what a kind woman is worth to those who want what she has.