“No? She was buzzing about you a fair bit just now. What was she saying, St. Clare? Looked to me as if she was calling you to account for something.”

“Did it? How odd. We were simply discussing the play. Miss Honeywell is quite passionate about Shakespeare.”

“Hmm. Well, it stands to reason that she’s not going to be as high-spirited as she once was. Advanced age, you know.”

St. Clare flashed his friend an amused smile. “She’s hardly in her dotage.”

“She’s five and twenty if she’s a day. And still unmarried, by Jove. Hardly seems possible.”

“No, it doesn’t.” He’d been perplexed by that fact himself. “Were there never any serious admirers?”

“Loads of ’em! I know of at least six chaps who made her an offer. Decent fellows, too, and all but one of them with a respectable fortune. Miss Honeywell refused them out of hand. As for the rest… Timid chaps all. Quickly stung and easily dispatched. Not that it mattered in the end. Come to find out, she was wearing the willow for another fellow.”

St. Clare looked at him sharply. “Who?”

Mattingly shrugged. “Some soldier. I never met him. And seeing as how she’s still unwed, I suppose nothing came of it. Perhaps the poor sod died in the war?” He cast a brief glance at St. Clare as they shouldered past a group of raucous young men. “Burton-Smythe’s an admirer of sorts.”

“I’m aware.”

“The way I hear it, he’s been trying to fix his interest with her for ages.”

“And failed, it seems.”

“She’s poorly suited for him, anyone can see it. He needs a nice quiet mouse who’ll never say a word against him.” Mattingly chuckled again. “Now you… Well, I should have known you’d take an interest. Miss Honeywell fits the pattern card.”

“What pattern card?”

“Miss Honeywell is your type is what I mean.”

St. Clare gave an abrupt laugh. “I won’t deny it. But I can’t think how you would know one way or the other.”

“Quite easily. When Vickers and I first met you in Italy, the only females that ever caught your attention were the ones with dark hair and blue eyes. The bluer the better. Vickers used to make a joke of it. Anytime a fair-skinned gel with dark hair and blue eyes passed by, you’d do the most damnable about-face. As if you’d seen a ghost. Never failed to send Vickers and me into whoops.” He laughed at the memory, but at the sight of St. Clare’s grim expression he quickly schooled his features into more somber lines. “Not that I’m comparing Miss Honeywell to a continental light-skirt, mind. She’s a lady. No one would dare say otherwise. All I’m trying to say—and badly, apparently—is that Miss Honeywell fits the pattern card.”