“Of course you hadn’t. They’re all against me. I’m sure you read about our little tour this fall, how many pieces of luggage went along with us.”

“I can’t remember the number,” I said modestly.

“A hundred and forty-six, they said, which wasn’t remotely true, it was no more than seventy-three, and anyway it wasn’t just ours. It belonged to our entourage as well. Our private secretary, Miss Drewes, and Major Phillips—that’s David’s aide-de-camp—and so on. But each and every story they print has to conform to this—this idea they have about me. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what that is. And it’s all very frustrating. One can’t answer back. One can try, of course, but that only makes one sound petulant.”

“The duchess doth protest too much.”

“Exactly. I see you understand the business, Mrs. Randolph.”

“What business?”

“Journalism.” Her smile took on a feline quality. “You’re a journalist yourself, aren’t you?”

I sort of choked. “Journalist?”

“Yes. Metropolitan magazine, isn’t that right?”

“Yes. That is, no. That is, the magazine sent me out here to gather a little background information—”

“Now, Mrs. Randolph—”

“—I’ve never written a word for them. Not a word.” I paused. “How did you know about that?”

“Oh, I hear things. It’s my business to hear things. Not for myself, you understand, but for David’s sake. All these stories in the press, these terrible things they print, it upsets him so much. I try to protect him, of course, but it’s impossible. He will read them all.”

I started to rise, and then remembered you weren’t supposed to stand except with permission, and then remembered I was American, after all, not subject to such rules. I rose. I nearly said Mrs. Simpson and caught myself just in time. “Ma’am,” I said instead, “I can’t imagine why you’re telling me all this.”

“Oh, I understand, believe me,” she said. “You’ve got a job to do. A girl’s got to make her way in the world. I also suspect there was no Mr. Randolph. Am I correct?”

There was a noise through the window, a spray of brilliant laughter. The duchess gave no sign of hearing it, not a flinch.

“Oh, the husband’s real enough,” I said. “At least, he was real. But even a dead husband gives a girl on her own a bit more respectability.”

“Of course. A girl like you, for example, a girl with no one to stand up for her. I understand completely. You haven’t got a fortune. Just an allowance of some kind, I presume?” She tilted her head, narrowed her eyes intelligently. “Or not even that?”

“I’m afraid that’s none of—”

“Mrs. Randolph.” She rose to meet me. “What if you were to become a journalist?”

“Become a journalist?”