I did not mean that she did not 'intend' Brighton to be the scene of Lydia's foolhardy decision. I meant that undercurrents of the Prince Regent's affairs might not have been the point of the choice.

But we will never know - pity. I am gathering quite a list of questions I would like to pigeonhole Author Austen about!

I did wonder if any scandal had reached her when she began this work that influenced what form the crisis would take, but I discarded that idea. If the exterior points, no matter how well-disguised, of a local hush-up were her inspiration, her sense of principles (which I have gathered from her works' heroes and heroines) would never have let her be the one who dropped hints of the debacle.