Lofthouse turned to look at him, his tufted eyebrows raised. "She hasn't paid out a fortune for buildings which are worthless now!" he retorted, his voice heavy with impatience.

Rathbone was already raw. His temper snapped.

"Neither has Lambert!" he said very clearly.

Half a dozen people at the table swiveled to look at him, caught as much by the tone of his voice as by his words.

"I beg your pardon?" Colonel Weatherall said with puzzlement, his thin, white hair catching the light.

“I said, 'Neither has Lambert,' " Rathbone repeated. "Any building he has paid for is exactly the same today as it was a week ago."

"Hardly!" Lofthouse laughed. "My dear fellow, you, of all people, know the truth! I don't mean to be unkind, or to make an issue of your misfortune, if that is the word, but Melville was a woman, for heaven's sake." He said no more, as if that fact was all the explanation required.

Weatherall cleared his throat and coughed into his handkerchief.

A ginger-haired man helped himself to more cheese.

"Precisely," Rathbone agreed, facing Lofthouse unblinkingly. "The buildings are exactly the same. Our knowledge of Melville's sex has changed, but not of her architectural skills."

"Oh! Come now!" Lofthouse laughed again, glancing along the table at the others before looking back at Rathbone. "You cannot seriously be suggesting that a woman—a young woman at that—can conceive and draw up technically perfect plans for the sort of buildings Lambert commissioned and had built, for heaven's sake? Really, Rathbone. We all sympathize with your embarrassment. We have all of us made mistakes of judgment at one time or another...." A smile curled his lips. "Although not, I think, of that order ... or nature ..." His smile broadened.

Rathbone could feel the rage inside him almost beyond his grasp to contain. How dare this complacent oaf make a shabby joke out of Keelin Melville's tragedy and society's prejudice?

"Lofthouse, I think..." Laurence began, although there was a look of humor in his eyes also, or so it seemed to Rathbone. He was not in the mood to consider it a reflection from the chandeliers.

"Oh, come on, my dear fellow!" Lofthouse was not going to be hushed. The port was at his elbow, and extremely good. "It has an element of the absurd, you must admit. When a genius like Rathbone gets caught out so very thoroughly, we lesser mortals must be allowed our moment of laughter. If he is not man enough to take it, then he should not enter the fray!"

Laurence opened his mouth to protest, but Rathbone spoke before he could, leaning forward across the table.