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 aits to the extent of tens of thousands of pounds." He shrugged slightly. "Which, of course, does not make 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.