“Buckshot, fine birds, brought down, fifty of them myself. The Prince of Wales bagged a hundred or I’m a French monk!”
Mrs. Winston herself twisted round in her chair as she heard this last expression.
“The Prince of Wales!” she said. “That gentleman knows the Prince of Wales.”
She beckoned to a waiter.
“That fellow holding forth there, what’s his name?”
The waiter turned his head to follow her gaze.
“It’s Tunney Whipps, the Duke of Belmont himself, ma’am. Head of one of the most distinguished families in England,” he added with just a slight hint of reprimand at her referring to the Duke as a ‘fellow’.
Madelina felt the Duke looked more like a farmer in fancy dress than a member of the aristocracy, but Mrs. Winston was impressed.
“We shall endeavour to cross his path later,” she w
