" My spirits were so glum I almost overlooked the two letters waiting on my writing table.
When I did see them, my heart gave one of those painful thumps, and I wondered if these were letters of rejection. The top one had my name written out in a bold, slanting hand, with flourishing letter-ends and underlining. I pulled it open.

My Dear Meliara:
You cannot deny me the pleasure of your company on a picnic this afternoon. I will arrange everything. All you need to do is appear and grace the day with your beautiful smile. To meet you will be some of our mutual friends…

Named were several people, all of whom I knew, and it ended with a promise of undying admiration. It was signed Russav.
Could it be an elaborate joke, with me as the butt, as a kind of revenge for my social lapse? I reread the note several times, dismissing automatically the caressing tone--I knew it for more of his flirtatious style. Finally I realized that I did not see Tamara’s name among the guests, though just about all of the others had been at the party the night before.
A cold sensation washed through me. I had the feeling that if anyone was being made a butt, it was not Meliara Astiar, social lapse notwithstanding.
I turned to the next letter and was glad to see the plain script of my Unknown:

Meliara--
In keeping faith with your stated desire to have the truth of my observations, permit me to observe that you have a remarkable ability to win partisans. If you choose to dismiss this gift and believe yourself powerless, then of course you are powerless; but the potential is still there--you are merely pushing it away with both hands.
Ignorance, if you will honor me with permission to take issue with your words, is a matter of definition--or possibly of degree. To be aware of one’s lack of knowledge is to be merely untutored, a state that you seem to be aggressively attempting to change. A true ignorant is unaware of this lack.
To bring our discourse from the general to the specific, I offer my congratulation to you on your triumph in the Affair Tamara. She intended to do you ill. You apparently didn’t see it, or appeared not to see it. It was the most effective--perhaps the only effective--means of scouting her plans for your undoing. Now her reputation is in your hands.
This is not evidence of lack of influence.

And it ended there.
Two utterly unexpected communications. The only facts that seemed certain were that the Unknown had been at that party and like Savona (maybe it was he?) had sat up very late penning this letter. Or both letters.
I needed very much to think these things out. "

― Sherwood Smith , Court Duel (Crown & Court, #2)