“Has he asked you to lend him money?”

“No.”

“Then he’s probably all right. Who does he say he is?”

“Lord Kilhenny’s son. Irish baron.”

“There’s a million of them. I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment. So he’s the one who knows Roly?”

I leaned even closer. “He doesn’t know either of them. We’re gate-crashers. Apparently he does this sort of thing often, just to get a free meal. It’s shocking, isn’t it? I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

To my horror, she started to laugh. When she had controlled her mirth, she leaned toward me. “I’ll let you into a little secret. I’m doing exactly the same thing. I wasn’t invited either.”

“Belinda! How could you?”

“Easily. Exactly the same way you could. My face is sort of familiar. I’m seen at Ascot and the opera, so nobody ever questions whether I was invited or not. It works wonderfully.”

“But you said you were doing so well in your career.”

She made a face. “Not all that well, actually. It’s tough to start up a business, especially if you want to design clothes for the fashionable set. They never want to pay, you see. They gush over the dress I’ve designed for them and tell me they positively adore it and I’m the cleverest person they’ve ever met. Then they wear it to the opera and when I remind them they haven’t paid, they point out that they have been advertising my dress just by wearing it and I should be grateful. I’m sometimes owed several hundred pounds, and the fabrics are not cheap.”

“How awful for you.”

“It’s difficult,” she agreed, “because if I make a fuss and upset one of them, she’ll tell the rest of her set and they’ll drop me like a hot potato.”

I did see that this was likely to happen. “So what are you going to do? You can’t keep financing their new clothes forever.”

“I’m hoping for the big break, I suppose. If one of the royal family—or one of the Prince of Wales’s lady friends—decides she likes my dresses, then everyone in the world will want them. That’s where you could be most helpful, you know. If you are going to be mingling with your royal cousin and his set, I’ll lend you one of my designs to wear and you can gush about me.”

“I wouldn’t guarantee that my cousin’s women would pay up any quicker than your current clients,” I said. “But I don’t mind trying for you. Especially if it allows me to wear a slinky new dress.”

“Splendid!” Belinda beamed at me.

“I’m sorry you’re going through such a tough time,” I said.

“Oh, there are a few honest ones among them—mostly old money, you know. Properly brought up, like you. It’s those dreadful nouveau riche women who try to wriggle out of paying. I could name one society belle who looked me straight in the eye and insisted she had already paid, when she knew as well as I did that she hadn’t. They’re just not like us, darling.”