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such amenities as are available to you. I trust you will not find them inadequate. We dine at six, and I should like it if you will appear at not later than fifteen minutes to.’
    ‘Thank you, marm. Ah, first, when did we meet?’
    ‘Meet?’
    ‘I fancy your sister might ask that question. Shall we say at a ball, perhaps, a while before you were married and I had had some acquaintance with Lord Percival?’
    ‘I cannot deny that the details of our assumed first meeting might be important. Let it be at the Queen’s ball in September, seven years ago.’
    ‘Excellent. And may I enquire how I’m to address you? As an old friend, shall it be Caroline or not?’
    ‘Lady Clarence,’ she said. ‘Or Lady Caroline.’
    ‘Very well, marm.’
    ‘And I shall call you Captain Burnside, to indicate that although we are old friends we are not intimately so.’
    ‘Lady Caroline, marm, I am yours to command.’
    ‘Indeed you are,’ said Caroline firmly, ‘and do not forget it.’

Chapter Five
    The atmosphere at supper proved as equable as Caroline could have wished. One never knew in precisely what mood the Duke of Cumberland would arrive at any function, private or public, but at least he was more inclined to dispense civility at a small supper party than at a large gathering. At a large gathering, he disliked the possibility of rubbing shoulders with people who might be merely people.
    Caroline had not been sure he would put in an appearance following her confrontation with him the previous day. But he did, and he greeted her as if nothing obtained between them but the friendliest of feelings. And with six at the table, the dining room owning a magnificence in keeping with his own, he induced an agreeable atmosphere with his mood of royal benevolence. Nor did he make any attempt to be more attentive to Annabelle than to anyone else. If, from time to time, his eye was a little mocking, and his smile a little satirical, his conversation was most agreeable. He knew each of the three ladies well, and they were all pleasing to look upon.
    His hostess, gowned in shimmering jade green, strung pearls clasping her smooth, creamy neck, was undeniablysuperb, her lightly powdered bosom a curving splendour. Her sister Annabelle, in delicious azure blue, came to the eye as a fair young goddess, if with no more worldly knowledge than that of a simple shepherdess. As for Lady Caroline’s cousin by marriage, Cecilia Humphreys, her magenta gown gave a vividness to her Latin-like dark looks. She was the daughter of the deceased younger brother of the Duke of Avonhurst, and in her aptitude for radiating gaiety hinted not at all that she and her husband Robert were hard put to maintain their expensive lifestyle.
    Robert Humphreys was a pleasant and amiable gentleman who, with Cumberland’s help, kept his head just above water. The impoverished third son of the spendthrift Sir Godfrey Humphreys, he had managed to lay his hands on a little property for a nominal outlay, and he had been put in the way of this by Cumberland. He received rents from the tenants, rents necessary to his pocket. Only yesterday, at the request of Cumberland’s private secretary, he had turned one of the properties over to accommodate a wish of the duke. It had meant housing the tenants elsewhere at a moment’s notice. The arrangement, Erzburger had assured him, was only temporary. It was also confidential. Robert knew better than to ask questions. Robert was the kind of gentleman who liked people to like him. Why any gentleman should worry about people liking him was beyond the comprehension of the duke.
    Cumberland noted that the other fellow, Captain Burnside, dressed decently enough, as a man should, without lace or fripperies. Aside from that, he was, of course, as much of a nonentity as Humphreys. However, in certain circumstances, a nonentity or two could be tolerated. The three ladies made these circumstances of that kind. Percival’s widow was a challenge,