Page 44 of The Mistress of Ashmore Castle

He said, ‘I’m very glad to see you here, and I hope you will enjoy yourselves,’ which was as near as he could get to saying, ‘Don’t pay any attention to my mother.’

Mary said, ‘I’m sure you do,’ which was as near she could get to saying, ‘I’m not troubled by her; I expected nothing more.’

Talbot said, ‘Tremendous affair, Stainton.’

Giulia said nothing, gave Giles a blank look as if she had never met him before, and passed on to Uncle Stuffy, next in line and happy not to have to be hosting in Giles’s absence.

When they had moved away, Stuffy grasped Giles’s arm in a vice-like grip, leaned close and whispered hotly into his ear, ‘My God, Giles! Who is that transcendent creature?’

Giles blinked. ‘Which one?’

‘Who do you think I mean? That glorious vision in red,’ Stuffy said impatiently. ‘I’ve never seen such a beauty in all my life! She’s like – she’s like a Russian tsarina. Or an Egyptian princess. She walks like a queen. And those eyes!’

Amused, Giles said, ‘She is the daughter of an Italian professor who was my mentor. Her name is Giulia Lombardi.’

‘Giulia Lombardi.’ He seemed to taste the words. ‘It’s like poetry. It suits her. She could never have been a Dorothy or a Susan. Please tell me she’s not married. Or betrothed.’

‘What an odd question. As far as I know, she is quite unattached.’

‘Good,’ Stuffy said decidedly. ‘Glorious, glorious creature!’

Giles, a little startled, would have asked a question, but the next dignitary had arrived at the line, and he had his duty to do.

After the receiving line, Rachel had enjoyed a flattering rush of candidates for dances with her. Her mother, of course, had overseen her acceptances, at least for everything up to the supper interval. There was an order of precedence, her grim expression told Rachel, even for dancing.

In the brief moment of hiatus before the first dance, her cousin Angus came up to her, looking so handsome in breeches and stockings (he had very good calves, as she knew already from having seen him at home in Scotland in the kilt) that her heart had given an unruly jump.

She gave him her hand and said formally, ‘Mr Tullamore, how nice to see you.’

He was not at all formal. ‘I suppose, with all these terrible foreign dukes clustering round you, you don’t have a dance to spare for a mere mister?’

‘Why terrible?’ she asked, rather enjoying his hint of grumpiness after all the flowery politeness.

‘They have blue chins and they smell of mothballs!’

She laughed. ‘Oh, they do not!’

‘Some of them do. But that’s better – you sound like Rachel again. I was afraid they’d spoiled you with all this.’ He waved a hand around the magnificent room and the glittering throng. ‘However, you do look very, very pretty tonight. If I’m allowed to say so?’

‘You can say what you like to me,’ she said, with a naughty smile. ‘Cousin’s privilege.’

‘Give me a dance, then – cousin.’

‘I’ve nothing left before supper. Ask me again after that.’

‘I can’t wait until then – you’ll fill up your card with blue-chins. Write me in now, so I know.’

‘All right – the second after supper.’

‘Why not the first?’

‘Mama will be bound to buttonhole me at supper and ask me who has the first.’

‘And you’d be ashamed to say it was me?’

‘Don’t go red in the face. It’s not me, it’s her. She’d just cross your name out and write something else in. You don’t know what she’s like.’

‘Oh, I do. She’s a dragon.’