Lady Exencour was renowned for her dashing sense of fashion and her two companions were well-known members of the Corinthian set; thus anyone who pretended to sartorial elegance was interested in their appearance. They looked quite striking, with Isobel’s auburn head and white and silver gown setting off the gentlemen’s blondness and dark evening clothes. “I say, Eynsford has returned to England,” observed Horace Worth to his mother, the Dowager Countess of Twytham. “He is unbending amazingly, too; he ain’t the sort of fellow to be seen enjoying himself, but I swear I just saw him laugh.” The Countess put up her lorgnette and observed the Exencour box. She snorted. “It’s that Isobel Exencour,” she said. “A shameless minx. You think she’d be content with catching young Wheaton and his fortune, not that she needed it with all that money of her own. Then his brother died, and she’ll be a duchess someday. Now she seems intent on enslaving Eynsford.” Horace sputtered.
