10Lady Wrexham lay on a chaise longue in the boudoir that led out of her bedroom. It was a big room, light and gay, for the panelling had been painted white and inset with silk brocade and the curtains were of rose damask. The sunshine coming through the closed windows filled the room with a golden radiance, dimming the flames that leapt high from the logs burning in the chimneypiece.
Beatrice lay near the fire, a rug of ermine covering her legs, her head against satin cushions. She was wearing a negligée of Chinese silk, fine as a spider’s web and so transparent that its soft folds concealed few of her voluptuous charms. Her golden hair, unpowdered and drawn back from her low forehead, was caught simply in a twisted coil at the nape of her neck and held only with two jewelled pins.
Even
