Lily stepped out in the sapphire gown, and Hugo’s lungs emptied.
The silk fitted her like a second skin from the bodice to the waist, where it gathered and fell in a sweep of fabric that moved with her body rather than standing away from it. The neckline sat exactly where he had imagined, just below her collarbone, revealing the elegant line of her throat and the delicate architecture of her shoulders. The color turned her green eyes to something incandescent, deep and bright, and the late afternoon light from the shop windows caught the silk and threw sapphire shadows across her skin.
She was not beautiful. Beautiful was a word for women who pleased the eye and left the mind undisturbed.
Lily in sapphire silk was ademolition.
She was the kind of sight that rearranged a man’s priorities without his permission, which made him forget what he had been thinking and why it had ever mattered.
His mouth went dry. He became aware that he had not spoken and that the silence was stretching into something conspicuous.
“Buy the dress.” His voice came out rougher than he intended.
Lily tugged at the neckline. “It is lower than I am accustomed to.”
“It is perfect.”
“You are biased.”
“I am objective. Every man at the house party will look at you and forget his own name.”
“I do not want every man to forget his name. I want one man to remember mine.”
“He will. Trust me.”
Something shifted between them. The fitting room, the shop, the racks of silk and muslin all fell away, and there was only Lily in sapphire blue, looking at him with an expression that held wariness and want in equal measure.
Her fingers stilled on the neckline. His gaze held hers, and the air between them carried the same charged weight it had carried on the balcony, the same impossible, reckless gravity that pulled them together despite every rule and boundary and sensible objection they had constructed.
Margaret cleared her throat.
Hugo blinked. He stepped back and turned to the nearest display of ribbons with the sudden, intense focus of a man who had just remembered where he was and who was watching.
“The emerald as well,” he said to the modiste who had materialized at his elbow. “And whatever Lady Brimsey has selected. I will settle the account.”
Lily retreated behind the curtain. Hugo studied the ribbons without seeing them and concentrated on breathing.
Lady Brimsey emerged with three bolts of fabric, two pairs of gloves, and the radiant satisfaction of a woman who had experienced a religious awakening at a modiste. Madame Dupont followed with a measuring tape draped over her shoulder and the serene expression of a proprietress watching a Duke spend money.
“Lady Oldbarrow.” Hugo turned to Margaret. “I noticed you admiring the gloves earlier. May I?”
Margaret looked at the gloves. Then she looked at Hugo. Her expression underwent a series of minute adjustments that tracked the collision between her instinct to refuse and her acknowledgment that the gloves were, in fact, exceptional.
“You may.” She picked up the gloves and held them against her hands. “But this does not constitute approval, young man.”
“I would never presume.”
“You presume constantly. It is your defining characteristic.” She paused. “But the leather is very fine.”
Hugo settled the account. The total was extravagant, and he did not blink. Money had never meant much to him except as a tool, and today it had purchased something more valuable than silk. It had purchased Lady Brimsey’s gratitude, Lady Oldbarrow’s grudging tolerance, and the image of Lily Readthorpe in a sapphire gown that he suspected would follow him into his dreams for some time.
They left the shop and stepped into the afternoon sunlight. Lady Brimsey chattered about Lyon silk and sleeve lengths. Margaret walked in thoughtful silence. Lily carried her parcels and said nothing, but her cheeks held a flush he couldn’t help but notice.
Hugo handed the ladies into the carriage. When he took Lily’s hand to help her up the step, her fingers curled around his for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.
She looked back at him from the carriage step. Just once. A glance that lasted no longer than a heartbeat, but her green eyes held something new, something that had not been there when they walked into the shop.
Then she turned and climbed inside, and the door closed, and the moment was gone.
