Much Ado About You

Page 27

“It’s just a shame that Mrs. Chace couldn’t deliver the riding costumes,” Annabel said. “Look at your gown. I do believe that your bosom has grown larger than mine.”
Tess’s dinner gown was a silk tissue robe of bishop’s blue, worn over a white satin slip, half-mourning, as the modiste explained, at its very best. The bodice was round and cut quite low, showing a generous amount of bosom. Tess glanced from Annabels wel’s to her own chest. “I think my gown simply happens to be cut more generously,” she said.
Annabel was turning from side to side and examining herself. “Would you mind if we switched garments?” she asked. “Just look what your dress does for my décolletage! And I adore the way it clasps in front. It makes my bosoms look colossal.”
“Colossal is a word that applies better to monumental architecture than one’s chest,” Tess pointed out. She had the strong suspicion that the earl would offer for her were she wearing sackcloth. And so there was really no reason why she should have a more enticing gown. Then something occurred to her: “Are you hoping to entrance Mr. Felton with your colossal bosom?”
“No,” Annabel said absentmindedly. “Oh, how I wish I had stays! If I had stays, I could hoist my bosom all the way up here—” She pushed up her bosom until her breasts were in the vicinity of her collarbone.
Tess grinned at her. “We can exhibit you at Bartholomew Fair as the Lady with—” she stopped. “No, that would be quite indelicate.”
But Annabel was never one to duck an indelicacy. “The Lady with the Bosom at Her Ears,” she said, staring into the mirror. “I do look ridiculous, don’t I? Perhaps I don’t need stays.”
But for some reason Tess didn’t like the idea of Annabel exhibiting her bosom while Tess wore a demure gown. “I’m sorry, Annabel, but I wish to wear my gown.”
Annabel opened her mouth, but—
“It is possible that the earl will ask me to marry him tonight,” Tess said. “I simply cannot allow a gentleman to ask for my hand in marriage unless I’m in my very best costume.” Never mind the fact that Mr. Felton had asked her just that question, and while she was wearing her dreadful bombazine.
For some reason, she had neglected to tell Annabel about his offer or his kiss.
Annabel sighed and undid the clasp that held the dress tightly under her breasts. “You’re right,” she agreed. “I shall simply count on you and your new husband to buy me hundreds of gowns, all made of tissue silk, if you please, with bodices low enough to allure the most tired rake.”
“A tired rake?” Tess said, grinning at her sister. “Now there’s a lovely choice for a husband.”
But no one could have a grin more suggestive than her sister’s. “Precisely. You never paid enough attention to gossip in the village, Tess. But from everything I learned, one would wish one’s husband to be experienced and yet not so energetic that he cannot be pleased at home. A tired rake is precisely the best sort of spouse.”
Tess rolled her eyes. “Josie is right. You’re contemplating one of those seventy-year-old dukes, aren’t you?”
Annabel had put her own gown back on and was rearranging the bodice so that it sat lower on her shoulders. “Oh certainly,” she said, with that perfect composure that accompanies an untroubled conscience. “Although it is not yet entirely clear to me which of those rather aged gentlemen is unmarried. I keep meaning to ask Brinkley to point me to a current Debrett’s so that I can do the necessary research.”
But for all Tess wore her new gown, presumably tempting the earl to think of marriage, the only cheerful event of the evening was Lady Clarice’s announcement that she would return home in the morning, given the imminent arrival of the Earl of Mayne’s sister. The Earl of Mayne himself offered Tess compliments, but not marriage.
Lady Griselda Willoughby reminded Tess of nothing so much as a winsome china shepherdess, bought by her father for her mother during the early years of their marriage. The shepherdess had ringlets, and a simper, and a positive froth of ruffles about her tiny slippers. After Tess’s mother died, when Tess was eight years old, she used to tiptoe into her mother’s rooms and simply hold things her mother had touched: her brush, her shepherdess, her little prayer book. But within a few months, anything of value began disappearing from the chamber. And one day, when Tess walked in, the shepherdess was missing from the mantelpiece, her bright china smile and blue eyes gone to market in her father’s pocket.
Of course, the shepherdess had always been quite silent. Even when Tess had cried, hot tears dripping onto the cool china, the shepherdess just smiled her hard blue-eyed smile. But Lady Griselda talked—and talked. They were having tea in the morning room, a chamber hung in lilac paper that Lady Griselda had declared to be “absolutely mortal for one’s complexion. Anyone who saw us would think we all had jaundice.” She was reclining on a divan to the side of the room, wearing a gown of ambercolored crape, trimmed with deep flounces of the same color, edged in lace. The amber crape gave her hair delicate bronze tones; her complexion was as creamy as a real milkmaid’s; she had the brightest blue eyes that Tess had ever seen. Anyone who looked less like an invalid with jaundice couldn’t be imagined. Yet: “Ladies, we shall have to make up our minds never to darken the room again until Rafe bestirs his lazy staff to change the paper,” she pronounced.Josie’s eyes widened. “Where shall we eat breakfast?”
Lady Griselda waved her hand in the air. “Breakfast should be taken in one’s own chambers. One mustn’t allow gentlemen to become too accustomed to seeing you any time of the day that they wish. Darling”—for that was what she called her brother—“Darling, do take Rafe out to some sort of male pursuit, won’t you? Find a rabbit and tree it, or something of that nature.”
The Earl of Mayne, Tess was happy to note, had a great deal of solid affection for his sister. He leaned over the back of the settee and tweaked one of her curls. “Planning on corrupting poor Miss Essex and her sisters with a great deal of nonsense about what ladies should and shouldn’t do, are you?”
“I have a small amount of expertise in that area,” Lady Griselda said loftily. “And if I am to bring these ladies into society, I shall naturally give them the benefit of my experience.”
“And I am sure it will be a most instructive occasion,” Rafe put in. He was inclined to laugh at Lady Griselda as well, Tess noticed. She didn’t seem to mind, though, but treated him with the same familiarity as her own brother. “Perhaps we should stay, Mayne, and make certain that we are not maligned in our absence.”
“Be off with the two of you,” she said roundly. “And no smirking on your part, Your Grace. I’ll have you know that as soon as I’ve married off my own brother, I shall be thinking of you.”
“My optimism is unmarred,” Rafe said, escaping out the door. “Threaten as you wish, Grissie, your brother’s reached a ripe old age without marriage!”
Lady Griselda waited until the door shut behind Mayne before she turned to the sisters. The most important, of course, was Tess. The woman who showed every sign of making her marriage-shy brother actually step up to the altar. She was lovely, even wearing bombazine. Truly lovely.