It was just a week after Amanda’s confrontation with the jinni with the spectacles, or whoever he, she, or it might be, and Serena was bubbling over with gratification as she stood at the head of the stairs with her husband and daughter. “All the world is here tonight, and I shouldn’t wonder if tomorrow everyone is saying our little party was the worst squeeze of the Season!” For once, Jeremiah seemed satisfied with Serena’s arrangements, and he stood at his wife’s side, beaming impartially on his guests, the servants bustling to and fro with delicacy-laden trays, and on his family, whom, he had declared earlier in the evening, had “done him up proud, and that’s a fact.” Amanda felt very much on display in the costly blue satin gown. The deep sapphire did indeed almost exactly match her eyes and the candlelight turned the delicate gold threads woven through it into streaks of liquid fire. Her shoulders rose, white and shapely, from a cunningly designed décolletage that discreetly emphasized the swell of her bosom.
