The Duke reserved his greatest respect for the missive from Queen Victoria. It was a wonder, Consuelo thought, that her telegram wasn’t presented on its own silver platter. For the first time, Consuelo began to understand that she had married into an ironclad social structure, one much older and deeper than the pretend aristocracy found in New York. She had thought she understood snobbishness, but she’d never seen it like this. The Duke explained to her that she would have to learn the lineage and rank of some two hundred families to which the Spencer-Churchills were connected, together with
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