Still Being Charles.

In the matter of The French Lieutenant’s Woman, our flawed hero, Charles Smithson Esq, has just had an interview with his future father-in-law and been offered the reins of the wealthy entrepreneur’s burgeoning business empire. You’d think he’d be pleased, wouldn’t you? Instead, he’s horrified. Few things could be more tedious to a man like Charles than having the reins of a burgeoning business empire strapping him to a dull commercial environment, and he’s in a state of near panic at the prospect. Me to a tee.

Meanwhile, our flawed but irresistible heroine, Sarah Woodruff, has followed Charles’s advice and decamped to a hotel in Exeter. She’s bought herself a teapot (Staffordshire, no less) which she unwraps and regards with pride and delight. She isn’t used to having things of her own, you see. (That sort of thing gets to me. It does.) And I can’t help thinking that Charles must surely soon begin to question the value of his betrothal to the pretty, rich, but relatively insubstantial Earnestina when there's a woman of Sarah's calibre still breathing in the world of mortal man. I know I would.