"David Drake - RCN 04 - Glory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

capital, a personage of greater status than any other woman present... even in the minds of those women.

The latest style for the sarabande was to keep the toes of the forward foot straight down while

executing the steps in slow motion. Adele filed the information as she filed all information. She'd be called

on to demonstrate Xenos fashion soon enough, she was sure, in a ballroom of unpainted wood or on an

open pavement under unfamiliar stars.

"Mistress Mundy?" said an attractive woman somewhat older than Adele's own 32

standard--that is, Earth--years. "I was told... well, are you Mundy of Chatsworth? I don't mean to

intrude, but...?"

The woman, a complete stranger to Adele, was dressed at the height of current style: her neck

and wrist ruffs would make it impossible for her to feed herself. That was probably the point, of course,

rather like the shoes you couldn't walk in that had been a fad among the nobility when Adele was a child.

"Yes," said Adele, knowing her voice held a hint of challenge. She didn't intend that--whoever

this woman was, she clearly wasn't an enemy in the sense that Adele would need the small pistol in the

side-pocket of her tunic.

But there had been enemies of that sort in Adele's life, even before she joined the RCN and

became part of the Republic's most powerful instrument of policy. Reflexes you've gained on battlefields

don't go away because you're standing in a ballroom now. "I'm Adele Mundy."

"I'm Lira Kearnes, Mistress Mundy," the woman said, obviously embarrassed. "I'd hoped to talk

with you because you're a naval officer. Ah... I expected you to be in uniform, so though you were

pointed out to be I wasn't sure...."

"Oh!" said Adele in considerably greater embarrassment than Mistress Kearnes and for better

reason. Here she was treating her hostess like a potential enemy, simply because the woman had wanted

to talk with her. Though why had she mentioned the RCN? "I'm very sorry, I was thinking of other

things."

And so she had been, thinking about things that had no business in polite society. Even without
the hardships that resulted from her family's ruin, Adele Mundy wouldn't have grown into a person whom