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normally excluded—but provided the party is fifteen in total, then we ladies are included. Is that not excellent? You will come, won’t you?”
    “I can’t say the idea bowls me over.”
    “My dear, the only reason I wish to go is so that I can look superior and remark that I cannot imagine why gentlemen seek to exclude us from such dull places. They are so insufferable, Alabeth, treating us as if we are inferior, and I simply cannot resist poking their snouts for them at every opportunity.”
    Alabeth smiled. “Oh, if that’s the case, then I shall definitely come and assist you in your heinous activities.”
    “That’s better, I was beginning to despair of you.” Octavia got up, but then her smiled faded. “I am glad you’ve come back into the fold, Alabeth, for it wasn’t right for you to immure yourself in Charterleigh like that.”
    “It wasn’t like that.”
    “No?” Octavia’s brown eyes were shrewd. “Tell me honestly, would you have undone a single thing had you your time all over again?”
    Alabeth looked at her in surprise. “No. Why?”
    “Oh, it’s just that— Well, I did wonder if—” She smiled in embarrassment. “Oh, it doesn’t matter.”
    “Please tell me.”
    “I just wondered if you were quite as happy as you made out— I mean, Robert seemed the perfect husband for a long time, but he was returning to his bad old ways, wasn’t he? He was spending more and more time at gaming hells, and he came very close to another duel before the one in which he died.”
    Alabeth looked away. “It wasn’t his fault, Octavia, the fault was Sir Piers Castleton’s.”
    “Oh.” Octavia straightened. “You do know that Piers is in Town, don’t you?”
    “Yes.”
    “He’s on everyone’s list, my own included. You’re bound to see him.”
    “I know.”
    “I shall be very honest with you, my dear,” Octavia said gently, “I thought you had made a dreadful mistake when you married Robert, for although he was so handsome and charming, there was something in his character, a flaw which would have emerged sooner or later whether Piers Castleton had been there or not. Robert earned his reputation as a rakehell, Alabeth, and he did so without any help from anyone.”
    “He was reformed,” replied Alabeth staunchly. “He had changed his ways and would have remained like that had it not been for Piers.”
    “A leopard don’t change his spots, my dear.”
    “Are you defending Piers?”
    “No, I’m not defending anyone, except perhaps you, al though you can’t see it. Piers is no angel and I’ve never pretended that he was.”
    “He provoked that duel with the Russian.”
    “I don’t deny it, but I think you’ll find that there was a lot more to that duel than met the eye, certainly more than the paltry disagreement over cards which brought Robert so determinedly to his death.”
    Alabeth stared at her. “Why have you never spoken like this before?”
    “Because since Robert’s death you have remained at Charterleigh and I have seen you only there, wearing black and grieving for him as if there would never be an end to the heartbreak, I could not speak ill of him, not under those circumstances.”
    “And now?”
    “Now I feel I must speak out, for I cannot hold my tongue anymore. He wasn’t right for you, my dear, as you would have found out quite miserably, had he not died when he did. Robert was the perfect lover, Alabeth, but he was no husband; his cloth was cut all wrong for that.” Octavia smiled gently. “Am I in dreadful hot water with you now?”
    Alabeth could not help returning the smile, for it was impossible to be really angry with Octavia. “You know that you are not.”
    Octavia kissed her on the cheeks again, enveloping her in a cloud of Yardley’s lavender water. “I am so relieved to hear you say that.”
    “And to prove it I will tell you that you are still invited to my first dinner party next week and that I shall still suffer you sitting next to