“We are frugal with the household budget.” Mrs. Bywater managed to look proud and humble at the same time. “Much can be done with careful planning. Mrs. Holloway is clever with her purchases.”

This was the first time my employer had admitted such a thing about me, though I did not take her compliments as they were. I knew she spoke to impress her friends.

“She is very young.” The lorgnette flashed as it moved over my person. “I prefer a stout woman with plenty of gray hair. You’d know she had experience. This one cannot be much into her twenties.”

Mr. Davis radiated silent disapproval, considering it gauche for the mistress to discuss not only expenses, but the staff, especially in front of other staff.

I was young, it was true, especially to be a cook in an elegant Mayfair household. The Mrs. appended to my name was a sign of respect given to senior female servants, and if people assumed I had once been married, I said nothing to dissuade them.

A new voice joined the conversation. “Mrs. Holloway is thirty. A fine age, I think.”

Lady Cynthia Shires, niece to Mr. Bywater and daughter of an earl, halted near Mrs. Bywater and gave the lorgnette lady a look of frank assessment.

I hid my surprise when she came into view. Cynthia had dressed, uncharacteristically, in a frock more beautiful than any in the room. She had recently come out of mourning for her sister, and her evening gown had plenty of colors to make up for her previous lack of them—a deep pink bodice and a cream silk skirt, which was gathered back into a small train and trimmed with ruched ribbon and cloth roses.

She wore her golden hair in its usual unadorned knot, simple elegance in a room filled with diamond-studded turbans, flower-filled bandeaus, and braids and false curls festooned with feathers.

Cynthia met my gaze, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. That Cynthia, who preferred to lounge about the house in a man’s suit, had donned such a splendid dress meant she was up to something.

A young woman joined Cynthia, sliding her hand into the crook of Cynthia’s arm. She was dark-haired and a beauty.

The term beauty is bandied about without discretion, in my opinion, when every young lady who makes her bow is termed so, regardless of her true looks, but this woman was an exception.

The lady was about the same age I was, by my guess. Her very dark hair was dressed in curls at the base of her neck, bound with a thin gold chain. Her cream-colored gown was subdued, its bustle small and without the masses of ribbons, embroidery, or appliqué that other ladies wore tonight. It was a ball dress, no doubt, but a tastefully made and subtle one.

“The lobster rissoles were excellent, Mrs. Holloway,” the young woman said to me.