a sweet, moral, christian tale, which also satisfied my need for gossip and scandal on a couple of levels. firstly, the romance is extremely cute and i liked being confided in about it. secondly, it’s extremely interesting to get all the insider scoop on the real lives of governesses: there’s something of reality tv in the career focus on the lives behind the lives of the rich, and the boy moms, multi-man romantic scheming, bad behaviour, performative performances are all still familiar tropes. also, i thought ‘reformed rakes make the best husbands’ came from mills and boons style romance novels, but here it is.

i rather liked agnes too. somewhat a good girl, but wry, perspective and judgy too. her isolation is a real moment of insight from this book on this period, and i love how she/anne notice the footmen. she was a nice person to spend a deeply arduous train journey with, a non-frustrating, balanced presence.