Belligerently turning the page of her Gaskill novel – which was passable but despite the mild bout of mental frivolity she felt in the summer, far from engaging – Penny actively ignored her sister’s voice. After the morning she’d had she certainly did not need Betsy’s questioning!

However, it was rather difficult to ignore her sister’s presence when she barged into the library fill of vim and vigour.

“Quite well thank you,” she replied simply, saving her breath because she very much doubted this would be the last question. “Is there something amiss?”

Whenever her sister required advice – and the occasions were few and far between to Penny’s recollection and she had barely asked her thoughts on anything since they had been small – it seemed something of an inevitability that Betsy would not follow it at all. Of course she might be being pre-emptive, but Penny flattered herself that she was seldom wrong.

With the exception of…him but she was absolutely not thinking about him.

“I’m sure I could try,” she said neutrally, wondering why she had been chosen for the honour over Freddie given what she knew her sister’s preference in siblings to lean towards.

"Well," Betsy replied, trying to string the correct words together, "I have been thinking of late, seeing as my twenty-third" - ew - "birthday is fast approaching and-"

Betsy's confidence suddenly drained away, and she found herself wordless. She stared at her hands, and starting mumbling about her fears about dying a spinster. In this rare moment of vulnerability (Betsy usually preferred to hide her problems with a sunny disposition and several layers of bitchiness), her mutterings were mostly intelligible.

After mumbling something that accidentally accused Penny of understanding what it was like to be heading towards spinsterhood, Betsy suddenly exclaimed (because even now she still had to be completely ridiculous), "Oh no I didn't mean it like that! Especially from what I've heard about you and Marcus Lytton."

It was on the tip of Penny’s tongue to compulsively make a catty remark about Betsy’s ever-advancing age but her mouth was stilled instantaneously by the mention of Mr Lytton. If her sister knew something then… oh Merlin, what were people saying? She certainly hadn’t mentioned her…interest to anybody – and likely never would – and she had only received a dress from him, not a marriage proposal!

“What about me and Mr Lytton?” She asked sharply.

Eyes narrowing Penny couldn't tell at all what Betsy knew - not that there was anything to know but she desperately needed to know what her sister thought she knew so she could head off anybody else who might think that they knew things. Dratted rumours! Why did he have to be so well-known?!

"What things exactly?"