Now walking among these hubristically superior English nobles, Sarani had never felt more like Miss Swartz in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. Even now, she could see the author’s written words in her mind’s eye: “Marry that mulatto woman? I don’t like the color, sir.”

Gracious, if they only knew the truth…

Would they snub her as well?

Sarani held her head high, catching the eye of the dowager duchess, who stood surrounded by fawning admirers. The ice in the woman’s glare did not dissipate, and Sarani felt the scrape of it like a blade. Resisting the urge to roll her eyes and leave, she approached and bowed her head in greeting, curtsying elegantly.

“My lady,” she murmured.

Haughty brows vaulted to the dowager duchess’s hairline. “The proper address is Your Grace, but I suppose you should be forgiven considering where you’re from. The wilds, truly.”

Sarani felt her cheeks heat with shame as the entire entourage twittered behind their fans. Of course, she knew how to address a duchess, but nerves had twisted her tongue. The dowager’s venom was hidden behind a patronizing, sugary smile, but Sarani would not fall prey to such an obvious trap. The woman clearly wanted to establish how unsuitable Sarani was as a match for her son in her eyes, royal or not.

“As you say, Your Grace, my apologies,” she replied sweetly. “Though some of the Indian princes would beg to differ with that assessment.”

“Oh, have you met many Indian princes, my lady?” a young blond-haired woman blurted out. “I’ve heard that their clothes are studded with rubies and emeralds.”

Sarani held the dowager duchess’s eyes for an extended beat before smiling gently at the girl who had spoken and then gone pink as though she’d crossed some unforgivable line. Perhaps she had from the looks of the other ladies. Sarani gave a wide smile. “Yes, and they do. They’re quite ostentatious, truly, some of the displays of wealth. Rubies as big as one’s fist and emeralds the size of plums.”

“I cannot even imagine!” the girl exclaimed.

“They are uncivilized,” another lady scoffed with a look of affront. “Truly, I do not know how my father expects me to mingle with heathens from the colonies. It is insufferable.”

Sarani detected the scorn in the woman’s tone and the tangible derision in her pale eyes. Undeniably pretty, she was dressed in a gorgeous gown, her heart-shaped face twisted into a sneer. Sarani would put money on this being one of her so-called rivals.

Lifting one shoulder in an elegant shrug, she straightened her spine, her brow lifting in an arch that would rival the Dowager Duchess of Embry’s. “I am certain we have not been introduced. Do remind me, since I have been in the insufferable colonies, what is the proper etiquette again?”