Since I had absconded from his wedding to rescue Hester from the asylum and not due to his underhanded sale of my horse, I could not answer. He clearly took my silence as further insult.

“No defense? Nothing to say. Of course not. What you did is unforgivable!”

“Surely not unforgivable, brother,” Julia said, placing a pleading hand upon his arm.

He eyed his favorite. “What are you doing here, anyway?” he demanded. “This is a place for serious discussion, not gossip and cards.”

That I could at least answer. “Where we go and what we do is none of your business, brother.”

“Please do not make a scene,” Julia admonished us both softly.

Duffy turned to Julia. “No doubt she has dragged you along tonight, but really this is not the place I would wish to see you, Julia. You are both fast approaching the age where such pretensions will make you laughingstocks and the latest on-dit.” He mimicked a gossip’s voice. “Oh, the Colebrook sisters, thinking they have anything of interest or relevance to say to the prime minister. If you do not care on your own account, then you can at least think how this reflects upon me and Harriet.”

I balled my hand into a fist. It was time to make my exit before I did something that would definitely become an on-dit.

“Good evening, Duffy,” I ground out. “I do hope you manage to keep up with the discussion.”

I turned and strode through the assembly of men, sensing Julia scrambling to keep up at my elbow.

“He is impossible,” I said when we reached the other side of the room.

“Well, it is over now,” Julia said, but I heard the hurt in her voice. She did not like us to quarrel, nor, I think, had she liked the idea that our brother would not forgive me. “Come, Gus, you cannot stand here boiling about Duffy. It is already obvious to everyone that there has been discord.”

My sister was right. I looked around the room for an acquaintance whose conversation would help me regain some composure. Agnes Berry was standing alone and was an interesting conversationalist, since she, along with her sister, knew everybody.

Upon that idle thought, an interesting fact rose to mind.

“Julia, am I right in thinking that Agnes Berry is a particular friend of Lady Deele?”

My sister, who was famed for her prodigious knowledge of society and its interrelations, looked at me in surprise.

“Yes, they have been friends since before Lady Deele married.” She raised her brow at such a salient feat of memory—not my forte, at all. “Well done.”

“We should speak to her. See if she has any information about Deele,” I said.

“Alas, we have missed our chance,” Julia said as we watched a notorious old roué—wearing the powdered wig and rouge of his heyday—approach Agnes. “Mr. Saxby has cornered her.”

Poor Agnes.