TenJohn looked around the room with a sinking heart and asked himself for the umpteenth time why he had allowed himself to be persuaded to attend the Saturday match-making luncheon put on by Constanza Huldah von Werden, otherwise known as Mrs Huldah Wilmington. Nor could he recall how he’d ever got to know Huldah’s full name before she married her Boston sea captain.
To many she was the Dowager because she rode roughshod over others to get what she wanted, barely noticing the embarrassment she left in her wake. And of course she had been Mrs Wilmington from the day she married her sea captain. A sea captain who also owned the line. Huldah had always been socially ambitious.
John was jammed beside her on a couch in the Holborne Hotel reception room, which hummed with excited but muted cha
