Realizing they were invading Lady Camden's privacy, Alexandra smiled tentatively, silently apologizing for their intrusion. The countess acknowledged the smile with a polite nod of her head and serenely turned back to the French doors.
Lord Ponsonby either failed to notice the countess, or refused to be distracted by her presence. After helping himself to a glass of punch from the tray on the table beside him, he positioned himself beside one of the marble pillars that were situated in front of the curtains, and then launched into a pompous, grossly inaccurate dissertation on Horace's philosophical remarks about ambition, but all the while his gaze seemed to be on Alexandra's bosom.
Alexandra was so disconcerted at being subjected for the first time in her life to visual fondling by a male—even such a comically poor specimen of a male as this—that when he casually attributed a remark of Socrates' to Horace, she scarcely noticed either the error or the fact that the Countess of Camden had glanced swiftly over her shoulder at him, as if startled.
A minute later, Lord Ponsonby declared importantly, "I agree with Horace, who said, 'Ambition is so powerful a passion in the human breast that however high we reach we are never satisfied—' "
Utterly unnerved by his unswerving gaze and unaware that Lady Camden had turned fully around and was listening to Lord Ponsonby with a mixture of disbelief, fascination, and ill-concealed mirth, Alexandra shakily stammered "M-Machiavelli."
"Horace," Lord Ponsonby decreed, and to Alexandra's horror, the absurdly dressed creature lifted his quizzing glass to his eye, trained it upon the ripe flesh swelling above her bodice and boldly inspected her while he simultaneously sought to improve his appearance of languid nonchalance by propping his shoulder against the pillar behind him. Unfortunately, his obsession with Alexandra's breasts prevented him from glancing over his shoulder to ascertain the exact location of the pillar. "Now perhaps you can begin to understand," he proclaimed, leaning back and opening his arms wide in an all-encompassing gesture, "why Horace's remarks caused him to—aagh!" Arms outspread, he fell backward, overturning the table with the punch and dragging down the curtain, landing spreadeagled on his back at the feet of three male guests, like a colorful bowl of fruit beneath a waterfall of punch.
Unable to prevent her mad desire to laugh, Alexandra clapped her hand over her mouth, whirled around, and found herself staring at the Countess of Camden, who had covered her own mouth and was staring at Alexandra, her shoulders shaking with mirth, her wide green eyes swimming with it. In unison, both young women sped for the French doors, colliding in their haste to get through the doorway, and fled onto the balcony. Once there, they collapsed against the side of the house and exploded into gales of laughter.
Side by side, they stood, oblivious to the hard stone behind their shoulder blades, shrieking with mirth, gasping for breath, and wiping at the tears running down their cheeks.
When the storm of laughter had dwindled into fits of helpless giggles, the Countess of Camden turned her face toward Alexandra and said brokenly, "Ly-lying on his back, h-he looked exactly like a giant macaw that fell from a tree."
Alexandra was scarcely able to drag her voice through the mirth in her chest. "I—I thought a bowl of fruit—no, fruit punch," she declared, and they dissolved with laughter again.
"P-poor Ponsonby," Lady Camden giggled, "s-struck down in his pompous prime by Machiavelli's ghost for attributing his own words to Horace."
"It was Machiavellian revenge!" Alexandra gasped.
And beneath a black velvet sky carpeted with stars, two elegantly garbed young women leaned against a cold stone wall and laughed with all the giddy, helpless delight of barefoot children racing across a meadow.
When their laughter was finally spent, Melanie Camden weakly slumped against the wall and turned her head to Alexandra, regarding her with smiling curiosity. "How did you know the odious Lord Ponsonby was confusing Machiavelli with Horace?"
"I've read them both," Alexandra admitted after a guilty pause.
"Shocking!" said the countess, feigning a look of horror. "So have I."
Alexandra's eyes widened. "I was under the impression that reading the classics branded a female as a bluestocking."
"It usually does," Melanie admitted airily, "but in my case, Society has chosen to overlook my—er—unfeminine interest in things beyond petitpoint and fashions."
Alexandra tipped her head to the side, regarding her in rapt fascination. "Why have they done so?"
Lady Camden's voice softened with affection. "Because my husband would flay anyone alive who dared intimate that I am anything less than a perfect lady." Suddenly, she peered suspiciously at Alex and demanded, "Do you play a musical instrument? Because if you do, I warn you—friend or not—I shall not come and listen to you play. The mere mention of Bach or Beethoven sends me galloping after my hartshorn, and the sight of a harp puts me into a violent decline."
Alexandra had spent one year learning to play the pianoforte because the duchess had told her the ability to play at least one musical instrument was absolutely mandatory for young ladies of quality; she could hardly believe she was now hearing these derogatory comments from a lady who was reputed to be a veritable trend setter amongst the haughty elite. "I've had lessons at the pianoforte, but I don't play well enough to perform," she admitted uncertainly.
"Excellent," said Melanie with great satisfaction. "How interested are you in shopping for fashions?"
"Actually, I think it's tedious."
"Perfect," she declared, and then suspiciously, "You don't sing, do you?"
Alexandra, who had been somewhat reluctant to admit her inability to play a musical instrument, was now conversely reluctant to admit that she could sing well. "Yes, I'm afraid so."
"No one's perfect," the Countess of Camden cheerfully and magnanimously declared, pardoning Alexandra. "Besides, I've been waiting forever to meet a female who's read Horace and Machiavelli, and I shan't be deterred from befriending you merely because you can sing. Unless, of course, you do it very well?"
Alexandra's shoulders began to shake with mirth, for she sang very well indeed.
Melanie saw the answer in Alexandra's laughing eyes and grimaced with comical horror. "You don't sing often, do you?"
"No." Choking back a giggle, Alexandra added irreverently, "and if it will help raise me in your estimation, I can promise you that I generally run out of polite conversation in less than five minutes." Having thus cheerfully disposed of some of the most sacred of conventions, both girls burst out laughing again.