“My dear Mrs. Randolph! And Sir Harry. I see you’ve met our new recruit.”

“Recruit?” he demanded.

“The Red Cross. Mrs. Randolph’s volunteered her services.”

“The Red Cross? What the devil for? You don’t strike me as a Red Cross kind of gal.”

“Just doing my bit,” I said.

“But you’re American. You’ve got no part in this damned war.”

“Now, Sir Harry,” said the duchess, “the Red Cross has nothing to do with taking sides. We are a humanitarian organization.”

Well, Oakes rolled his eyes at this—as well he might—and stumped a few paces to the right, where he greeted the duke with about as much ceremony as he’d greeted the duke’s wife. Stuck his hand out and grunted something. The duchess and I exchanged weary little smiles, almost intimate. A fellow like that can bind two females instantly. A pair of diamond and ruby earrings clung to her earlobes, matching the necklace. I thought she glanced down to assess the imitation pearls around my collar, but maybe that was my imagination.

“I’m so terribly sorry to be late,” I said. “I didn’t realize about the entrance.”

“Not at all. I haven’t anyone left to greet, thank goodness, so we can get to know each other a bit.” She slipped her arm around mine. She smelled of face powder and perfume, and her arm was like her hand, bony and purposeful. “Don’t you look charming in that dress.”

I might have stuttered, so great was my amazement. “Why—well—this old thing?”

“Of course, you’ve got the kind of figure that suits any dress, you lucky duck. Now, stick with me. There’s somebody I want you to meet.”

“Meet me? I can’t imagine whom.”

She laughed. “David! David!”

Her husband stood a few feet away, dressed in a pale suit, speaking to the other man and to Oakes, who had turned toward them both. The duke’s head snapped in her direction. For an instant, his eyes bugged in a terrified way. The lanterns poured gold on the duke’s waving hair, his shocked, twitching, haggard face. Next to him, Oakes and the other fellow more or less disappeared—not physically, of course, but rendered invisible by the halo of glamour. “Yes, dear?” the duke asked, pitched anxiously toward his wife, not registering my presence in the slightest degree.

“David, it’s Mrs. Randolph at last.”

“Mrs. Randolph?”

“Yes, Mrs. Randolph. You remember, don’t you?” She grasped my elbow. “Mrs. Randolph, David. The girl I’ve been speaking about.”