Married to a Stranger. Louise Allen

and settle together in whatever humble parish Mark found himself. But if she was married into the Chatterton family, then a whole world of influence would be opened up to her brother, her mother would bask happily in the assurance of status and connection and she could have a family of her own.

      The same results might come if she married someone else, of course, but it was a daydream to imagine she could easily find another eligible suitor at the age of twenty-six, shut away in the depths of the country with no dowry and no connections.

      She turned back into the room and found her sketching pad and began to draw. A church interior, the long aisle, a challenge in perspective, a man at the far end, waiting at the altar rail, his face a blur.

      ‘Mrs Callum Chatterton,’ Sophia said to herself. ‘I suppose I had better get used to it.’