“Oh, good heavens. He’s a priest,” Darien said as he hauled Henrietta out of the room. “Moreover, he’s Rufie. He wouldn’t insult a gentleman’s daughter even if he knew how.”
The lady’smaid proved a ready ally once Darien marched Henrietta to her dressing room and announced his quest. “Surely Miss Wardley-Hines has an acceptable dinner gown? This Brunswick is three decades out of fashion.”
“She ’as evening gowns, my lord,” the Frenchwoman responded, “but I cannot call them acceptable.” She opened a massive mahogany wardrobe.
“Duprix!” Henrietta protested. “These gowns are Aunt Davinia’s, and she was the toast of court in her day.”
“I doubt your aunt expected you to wear them,” Darien said. “More like she sent you the dresses to take apart for the fabrics.”
“That is what I told ma’mselle,” Duprix cried. “Bien sûr!”
“This one seems the least offensive.” Darien lifted an ivory silkrobe à la françaisecovered in ruffles. “Go behind the screen and try it on.”
“I most certainly will not remove my gown. A man in my dressing room, and a rogue at that?”
“I shall be in your sitting room, next door,” Darien said, “and you shall not set foot from this room until you are properly attired. Now hurry. It won’t do to delay dinner.”
She stepped behind the screen, muttering, and Darien could not resist teasing her. “It was once the done thing for a lady’s admirers to attend hertoilette.They would choose her gown and accessories. Am I correct, Duprix?”
“Ma’mselle has proven herself sadly indifferent to matters of fashion. And entertainment,” Duprix replied, whisking the feathered horror out of sight.
Her sitting room, as Darien had hoped, revealed a great deal about Miss Henrietta Wardley-Hines. A tumble of books, colored rocks, and dried flowers lined the mantel above the fireplace, and several amateur watercolors lined the walls. Atop the escritoire stood a stack of foolscap, bottles of ink, a chipped Wedgewood teacup holding a bristle of quills, and a list of debate topics for the Minerva Society, all but the last crossed and blotted.
A pile of books on a small table beside bloomed with silk ribbon bookmarks. He detected the complete volumes of Catherine Macaulay’sHistoryand, atop them, Elizabeth Carter’s translation of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus. He smiled.
Squeezed between Mrs. Montagu’s writings on Shakespeare, Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography, and Helena Maria Williams’sLetters from France,Darien detected, was a novel,Cecilia, by Fanny Burney. So Miss Wardley-Hines had a trace of romantic sensibility after all.
Darien picked up the top volume, his eye drawn to the marked passages.True dignity and human happiness consist of strength of mind and body, he read. An appropriate Stoic sentiment.The character of every man is in some degree formed by his profession. Now, that was the belief of the professional class. One passage was heavily underlined:An air of fashion, which is but a badge of slavishness, proves that the soul has not a strong individual character.
That hit home. Worse were the arrows pointing to a sentence following:Idle superficial young men, whose occupation is gallantry, and whose polished manners render vice more dangerous, conceal its deformity under gay ornamental drapery. An exclamation point heralded this discovery.
The cover of the book confirmed his suspicions:A Vindication of the Rights of Woman,with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects, by Mary Wollstonecraft. He dropped the volume as if it were a serpent about to strike.
Henrietta emerged from behind the screen, still grumbling. “If you are so interested in my dress, Lord Darien, you might recommend suitable attire for my debate. I must be presentable and persuasive, but not too fine.”
Darien stared at the new gown, which was no more flattering. “I shall be happy to advise you.” He walked around her, flicking a finger at the items he named. “Duprix. Take in the sack back, here, to give her more shape. Remove this ruffle around the neck and take these flounces off the shoulder as well. When you have time, sew them into a nice fall of lace at the cuff, but tonight she shall do without. And take off these feathered overskirts. She looks like a goose pulled through a hedge backwards.”
“Another bird.” Henrietta sighed.
“But a moment’s work, my lord,” the maid said with a gleam in her eye, and in short order she had the dress off her mistress. Henrietta stepped from the screen with a worried expression and the ugliest wrapper he had ever seen.
“Charley is going to read me a lecture,” she fretted. “And what would Lady Bess say about Lord Daring in my chamber, telling me how to dress?”
There would be talk enough once her friends saw those cartoons, Darien knew. But if he made her stylish, she could better bear the gossip and snickers. She didn’t know Polite Society well enough to know how much fashion ruled.
Darien pulled out the chair before the dressing table. “Now your hair. Take off that deplorable cap. You are not a milkmaid.”
“I was meeting with my man of business about my mill,” Henrietta reminded him, “and did not have time to dress my hair. What progress have you made with your own business which we discussed?”
He took a moment to sort through their conversation from yesterday morning. She didn’t know of his father’s intentions, so she must be hinting at something to do with the women’s hospital.
“Celeste turned my solicitor away again.” Darien consulted the boxes and bottles on the table. “Do you not know red powder is out of fashion? You might try blue.”
“That is m’amselle’s natural shade, monsieur,” said Duprix from the chair where she sat ripping out stitches with lightning precision. “I give her a weekly lemon rinse to keep the shine.”
“You might ask a woman to approach Lady Celeste.” Henrietta took the set of pearl pins he held, looking up at him with wide, concerned eyes. “Perhaps a fellow creature can gain her confidence.”
“Catch up these curls at the sides and add these.” He handed her a string of pearls. “Whom can I ask? The ladies of her rank are locking up their daughters against me. I understand why, of course.”
