William Monk 09 - A Breach of Promise Read Free Page B

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 wasinvited, 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 a muted golden bronze in color, and with a heavy curl which no art could have imitated.
    “Are you acquainted with them?” Rathbone asked.
    “Only slightly,” FitzRobert answered without changing expression. “He is in trade of some sort. Made himself a fortune. But of course that hardly endears him to society, although they will put up with him for his money’s sake. And he has had the grace to patronize the arts to the extent of tens of thousands of pounds.” He shrugged slightly. “Which, of course, does notmake him a gentleman but at least lends him some respectability.” FitzRobert turned back to Rathbone, smiling because they both knew precisely what he meant: the subtle grades of acceptance which came so easily to those born to it and were nigh on impossible to those who were not.
    Even Prince Albert was regarded with coolness by some, just as he disdained the frivolity, the wit, the self-indulgence and the sheer arrogant grace of some of the oldest aristocracy in the country, whose fortunes certainly equaled his own and whose wives had a better sense of fashion than the Queen—and jewels to match. Until very recently they had considered him a political upstart, and his endless notes and letters to be interfering.
    Rathbone smiled back. He allowed FitzRobert to see in his eyes that he was going to pretend he had not noticed the shadow of unhappiness there, nor understood its deeply personal nature.
    “Who is he?” he asked. “He does not look familiar to me.”
    “Barton Lambert,”