The Past Tense of Love — Elizabeth Cadell

The Mostyn family were placid, undemanding, without curiosity or malice and totally unconcerned with the outside world. Only two of its members had ever broken free of its benevolent but tightly-held reins. The first was Madeleine, who returned to the fold just long enough to leave two infant daughters in the family's care -- and vanished without trace. The second was one of those daughters, over twenty years later.

Kerry Cromer, intelligent, pretty and high-powered, now lives in London and works for an ill-tempered tycoon nobody else will work for. Her streak of independence manifests itself in other ways too -- in particular, by her refusal to marry the eligible uncomplicated man in her life.

But when Lord Hazing, her irate employer sends her on a puzzling errand to France, her wheel of destiny is soon spinning madly, propelled by a series of strange coincidences and strange encounters.