She did see a great number of gentlemen of her acquaintance: Fraser Pyke, the tall lay preacher from Penrith whose wife was perpetually in confinement and whose family, consequently, practically outnumbered his constituents, and Charles Booker-Reid, a man of enormous girth and very little hair whose electorate was so far west of the Blue Mountains it was rumoured he had never actually been there. Behind him was Ned Dempsey, an incongruous anti-billite in a roomful of pro-billers and until quite recently Secretary for Lands (or possibly Minister for Industry; it was hard, sometimes, to remember), and his sister, Miss Marian Dempsey, he a fussy little man and she the unmarried sister who kept house for him and who probably would have made the better minister. With them was the banker Henry Rothe, who owned properties across the city and for whom politics was no more than an amusing sideline, and George Drummond-Smith, who had switched parties a number of times over the years and who puffed away complacently on a huge cigar, surveying the roomful of members with a sardonic eye.

She had known these gentlemen so many years and yet she knew them not at all. Mrs Pyke, who was a little way off in white brocaded satin and diamonds, gave her a cheery wave. Eleanor knew Cecily Pyke at least. They were friends—but were they? Could one be friends with a woman who had so many daughters when one had no daughters at all, and no sons either? Eleanor lifted her hand to return the wave but her hand dropped to her side. And now they were all watching her, Pyke, Drummond-Smith, Dempsey and Miss Dempsey, Rothe and Charles Booker-Reid through the smoke of his foul cigar.

Where was Alasdair? It occurred to her he was not going to come to the reception at all, that he had an appointment elsewhere.

She smiled, as it was her habit to stare dismay in the face, but there was no one to whom she might offer the smile, and as smiles went it was a pretty dismal affair. Her face was as stiff and tight as sunburned skin. The smile froze on her face. It knew it had no right to be there.

From across the chamber Cecily Pyke attempted a second wave. But perhaps it was not a wave, perhaps she was pointing, and now the ladies who stood with Mrs Pyke turned and looked her way. The gentlemen who buzzed about the Premier glanced over their shoulders at her; even the footmen with their trays of glasses stopped and stared.

Did they all know, then?