"I did... but really... I mean... Italy, did you say?" Her eyes widened. "I suppose it was worth it... but a terribly bad example. I don't know what the world is coming to!"
"Quite," the first matron agreed. "I shan't let my daughters know of it. It is very unsettling, and it doesn't do to allow girls to be unsettled." She lowered her voice confidentially. "One is far happier if one knows precisely what to expect of life. Rose Blaine just had her ninth, you know. Another boy. They are going to call him Albert, after the Prince."
"Speaking of whom," her friend continued, leaning even closer and moving her skirts absently, "Marian Harvey told me he is looking quite poorly these days, very pasty, you know, quite lost his good complexion, and his figure. Dyspeptic, they say."
"Well, he is a foreigner, you know," the thinner of the two said, nodding as if that explained everything. "He may be our dear Queen's husband, but-oh, you know I do wish she would stay with pink, and not ever that fierce shade of fuchsia She looks hot enough to burst into flames any moment! They say she never ever chooses a thing without taking his advice. Some men are color-blind, I hear. It's that German blood."
"Nonsense!" came the instant retort. "English men can be just as color-blind, if they choose."
Rathbone concealed a smile and moved away. He was well acquainted with the insularity of mind which still regarded the Prince Consort, given that official title three years before, in 1857, as being a foreigner, in spite of the fact that he was so deferred to by the Queen that he was king in all but name. He had a wide reputation for being painfully serious and more than a trifle pompous, not merely given to good works but completely overtaken by them to the point where pleasure of any sort was deeply suspect. Rathbone had met him once and found the experience daunting, and one he did not seek to repeat.
He passed a group of pretty girls, seventeen or eighteen years old, their fair skin gleaming in the light from the myriad candles in the chandeliers, their eyes bright, their voices high with nervousness, full of giggles and little squeaks. Their mothers or aunts were only yards away. One must never be without a chaperone. Reputations could be ruined.
A couple of young men were eyeing them from a distance of a few yards, standing self-consciously, pretending not to notice. One of them was so stiff his back was almost arched. They reminded Rathbone of bantam cocks.
He felt a hand on his arm and turned to see a man in his middle forties with a lean and humorous face.
"Rathbone, how are you?" he said cheerfully. "Didn't expect to see you at this sort of thing!"
"Hello, FitzRobert!" Rathbone replied with pleasure. "I was invited, and I rather fancied a little idle amusement, a spot of champagne and music."
FitzRobert's smile broadened. "Just won a notable victory?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact," Rathbone admitted, reliving his satisfaction. "I have. How are you?" He regarded his friend more closely. "You look well." It was not entirely true, but he felt tact was the better part of perception.
"Oh, I am," FitzRobert said a shade too quickly. "Busy, you know. Politics is a demanding mistress." He smiled briefly.
Rathbone struggled to remember the man's wife's name, and it came to him with a sudden picture of her face, very beautiful in a smooth, oddly discontented way. "And how is Mary?" he added.
"Very well, thank you." FitzRobert put his hands in his pockets and looked away. His eye caught a group of people several yards in the distance. The man was stocky, balding, with a plain but genial face. His features were strong, and no skill of expensive tailoring could hide the awkwardness of his stance or the weight and power of his shoulders. The woman next to him, presumably his wife, was a head shorter than he, and extremely pretty, almost beautiful, with regular features, a long, straight nose, and wide eyes. The girl with them was demurely dressed in the customary white for a first season, only barely enhanced with trimmings of pink. The gown was doubtless extremely costly, but she did not need it to make her stand out among her peers. She was a little over average height, slender, and with quite the most beautiful hair Rathbone had ever seen. It was thick, of