Roxana, The Fortunate Mistress Section 25

In which Roxana attains the title and lifestyle of a countess through her spouse’s inheritance and carefully crafted public narrative, securing legitimacy and respectability for their family while reflecting on her conflicting feelings towards her children and past. Yet despite outward prosperity, she is haunted by melancholy and the threat of exposure from one of her daughters, whose suspicions jeopardise the carefully maintained concealments of her earlier life.