“I will save my breath, then,” Barbara said, “and simply gaze about at this extraordinary scene. Does your masterful man, who may or may not be in London, have a name, by the way?”

“It would be strange if he did not,” Hannah said. “It is Huxtable. Constantine Huxtable. Mister. It is very lowering, is it not, that fact, when I have consorted with almost no one below the rank of duke and marquess and earl for the past ten years and more. Even the king. I have almost forgotten what the word mister means. It means, of course, that he is a lowly commoner. Though not so lowly either. His father was the Earl of Merton-and he was the eldest son. His mother, lest you should assume otherwise, was the countess. There was marvelous stupidity there, Babs, at least on her part and that of her family. And marvelous resistance, I suppose, on the part of the earl. They married, but they did so a few days after their eldest son was born. Can you imagine any worse disaster for him? I believe the actual number of days to have been two. Two days deprived him forever of becoming the Earl of Merton, which he would have been by now, and made him plain Mr. Constantine Huxtable instead.”

“How very unfortunate,” Barbara agreed.

A little way ahead of them the ton had gathered in great force and was affecting to take exercise as carriages of all descriptions and riders on all kinds of mounts and pedestrians in all the latest fashions milled about a ridiculously small piece of land considering the size of the park, trying to see everyone and be seen by everyone in return, trying to tell the gossip they had just heard themselves and listen to any that someone else had to impart.

It was spring, and the ton was hard at play again.

Hannah twirled her parasol.

“The Duke of Moreland is his cousin,” she said. “They look remarkably alike, though in my estimation the duke is the more purely handsome, while Mr.