Charles Jervas!”

Poor Catholics in London were still known to worship there secretly, in chapels above the taverns.

Alexander saw that it was Martha Blount, and not Teresa, who had waited outside to greet him. He stepped down, and she came toward him, smiling and blushing. The sight filled him with affection.

the French ambassador’s masquerade ball.

He hoped for glory. She longed to be introduced into the fashionable circle of their cousin Arabella, who had been described as the greatest beauty of her age.

John Caryll was a Catholic landowner like Sir Anthony, whose estate, Ladyholt, was a short distance from Alexander’s family home in Binfield. But Caryll’s good opinion mattered very little to Alexander this afternoon.

“A priest has been murdered, and the body left in Shoreditch,”

Everybody was in costume: carnival figures, Russian princes, Chinese merchants, butterflies and bears, fairies and goblins, piping shepherds. Cases of wine were opened, supper was carried out in silver dishes, and the maskers danced on. Scattered groups lingered in the courtyard talking to one another in English or French, often a mixture of the tw

It had been dark since three o’clock. They had dined at noon; tea had been brought in at four, and there were still another three hours before bed.