“I went so far as to make a guess at your size and then overestimate it, as it is no great matter to take a dress in,” the duchess said. “I thought I must, as we are to have a dinner on the morrow.”
“That was very kind, Your Grace,” Isabel said. A dress had already been made! There was to be a dinner so soon!
“You’d better call me Duchess,” she said, “we will be much together, and I do not wish to be your graced and ma’amed to death.”
“Yes, Duchess,” Isabel said.
“Now, as to that dinner, I have been rather pushed into it. Viscountess Rembly is a very old friend, we’ve known each other since we were girls. Well, she has a daughter, Miss Rightstone.”
At the mention of Miss Rightstone, the duchess frowned and quietly sighed.
“Miss Rightstone has not had the luck of an engagement and it is now getting rather late as this will be her sixth season.”
Isabel was surprised to hear it. She’d no idea a lady could keep coming back season after season. It rather filled her with dread, too. What if she did not make a match this season? Would the duchess even bring her back for another?
“Her mother and I are attempting to engineer a match between Miss Rightstone and a Mr. Harry Vance. He is to be a baron, which is all well and good, however, his grandfather was in trade. He is very recent, you see.”
Isabel did see. Recent was not steady or substantial.
“We think it will not be a love match, at least not on his side, but serviceable all the same. Her dowry is large and her family is old. Exactly what a gentleman recently arrived will require. I think he will see that fact this season. Orfacethat fact, as the case may be.”
“So the dinner is to give them an opportunity to meet?” Isabel asked.
“Precisely,” the duchess said. “Goodness, I did send out the invitations last minute. I do hope he’s accepted and I shall be very put out if he has not.”
Isabel thought Mr. Vance would do well to accept. She would not personally wish to put out the duchess.
“As for your own prospects, Lady Isabel, we will aim far higher of course.”
“My primary requirement, if I am indulged to have one,” Isabel said daringly, “is a gentleman who can provide a suitable household with no danger of it ever becoming less so. I would like to have a firm foundation and unassailable position.”
The duchess nodded vigorously. “Very well said, entirely wise, my girl. So many other young ladies would have had stars in their eyes and said their primary requirement was love. You have seen for yourself what can happen when one stands on shaky ground, and you are right to think of security first. Love can come later.”
“Yes,” Isabel said, feeling very encouraged, “that is just what I thought.”
“Fear nothing, I will guide you,” the duchess said with supreme confidence. “Plantagenet blood has the right to marry at the highest strata of society. With that idea, I have also invited Lord Percy Lymington to dinner. He is to be a duke, his estates are vast, and that family could burn money for heat and not feel the pinch.”
Isabel’s heart leapt at the description. That was precisely what she looked for. A well-funded duke was unassailable. His duchess would be unassailable. Further, she’d never heard of a duke who struggled for money and this one certainly did not. She would be very interested in being introduced to this Lord Lymington. Would it not be something if he were pleasant too? And perhaps handsome?
The duchess went on to describe the dress that a certain Madame LeGrange would arrive to fit and take in on the morrow. It was a pale green chiffon with dyed lace edging and it sounded divine. She’d never owned a chiffon dress—the material was too dear in cost, too easy to tear, and too difficult to mend.
“I considered a brocade,” the duchess said, “but Madame LeGrange assures me that a young person cannot carry off that noble fabric.”
Isabel was rather glad that brocade had been ruled out. While it might suit the duchess, she could not imagine it on herself. She might well look like a pair of walking and talking curtains.
Chiffon would do very nicely.
*
Mr. Harry Vancestared down at two items of paper that had arrived to his house on Bedford Square.
“Interesting,” he said.
One was an invitation from the Duchess of Stanbury for a dinner, no doubt to ensure Miss Rightstone had somebody to partner who would not complain too loudly about it. The other was a letter from Bertridge explaining that the very same duchess had brought Lady Isabel Beaufort to London to launch her as a project ofThe Society of Sponsoring Ladies.
Bertridge, careful and considerate gentleman that he was, had written to him and a few select others to alert them to Lady Isabel’s arrival and request that they look after her when they saw the opportunity. Specifically, to steer her clear of any man who might not be quite the gentleman.
According to Bertridge, the girl was penniless, but exceedingly pretty, intelligent, and well-mannered, with a very fine background.
