Chapter Forty-Five
Town was abuzz with the tale of Saintbridge’s fall from grace. People paused to whisper between the bookshelves in Hatchards and they exclaimed to one another over ices at Gunter’s. They discussed it while they browsed the prints at Ackermann’s, selected ribbons and thread at the linen draper’s, and chose their snuff at Fribourg & Treyer.
“Such a juicy scandal,” Violet overheard one stately dowager declare to another as they emerged from a milliner’s closely followed by their maids.
The gossipers only knew the half of it. Violet was bursting to tell Rhodes the whole story, but when she first went looking for him he was out riding, then he was at Manton’s shooting at wafers with Oliver, and when she went in search of him in the afternoon, she discovered that, the breez
