“Thank you for bringing Georgiana, Mr. Darcy. And for the budget. And for hovering, which I am sure you will deny, but which I recognize because you, sir, are a guardian who concerns yourself with everyone but yourself.” She paused. “Now, please stop hovering. We have shopping to do, you have accounts to review, and Wednesdays, sir, are not yours.”
She vanished into the hall, leaving behind the scent of lavender and the echo of her laughter.
CHAPTER TEN
THE ADVANTAGE OF FIFTEEN THOUSAND A YEAR
Bruton Street feltlike a different country, one Elizabeth had never dreamt of setting foot into. The bow windows of Madame Delacroix’s establishment were so clean they were invisible, offering a view of a world where practicality and budget had no meaning.
The first thing Elizabeth and her sisters noticed was the hush. It was the quiet of a temple dedicated to the vanity of theton, where the prices were never shouted because anyone who had to ask was already unworthy of the answer. She caught Jane’s eye, and they traded a silent, wide-eyed glance—the universal sister-code for:Are we truly doing this?
Elizabeth let her finger drift over a bolt of silk the color of a stormy Atlantic and wondered if Darcy would have found her more tolerable wrapped in something so magnificent.
The modiste herself appeared within seconds, “Good day, Miss Courtenay. You bring me a challenge.”
“I bring you young ladies in need of everything, Madame. Morning dresses, walking costumes, evening gowns, and at least two ballgowns each by the end of the month. Miss Elizabeth Bennet,” she indicated, “is the priority. She is to be presented this Season.”
Madame Delacroix circled Elizabeth with the unhurried focus of an artist considering a canvas. “The figure is good. The coloring, yes, very good. Dark hair, dark eyes, the complexion takes color well. We shall want ivory and deep green and that shade of blue that makes English roses weep with envy.”
She turned to Jane and stopped. The professional composure cracked by a single, reverent degree. “Mon Dieu.This one needs nothing. I shall dress her in white, and she will ruin every woman at every ball she attends.”
“That is my sister Jane,” Elizabeth said. “She has been ruining women’s composure since she was fourteen. It is her only fault.”
Jane colored beautifully—the exact shade of a crushed carnation—which only made Madame Delacroix’s hands fly up in Gallic triumph.
Mary, however, was not so easily won. She squinted at a fashion plate on the display table with the same skeptical intensity she usually applied to a difficult passage of Fordyce’s Sermons.
“I do not need a ball gown,” Mary stated, her voice a flat anchor in the sea of silk. “I shall be at the pianoforte. A train is merely a tripping hazard for a musician.”
“But Mary,” Georgiana Darcy whispered, stepping closer. “Madame Delacroix made me a gown last year with sleeves that do not interfere with the keys. And the silk… it catches the candlelight when one plays theAdagio. It makes the music feel more… complete.”
“Complete?” Mary echoed, her finger hovering over a plate of a very modest, deep violet gown.
“Think of the acoustics of silk, Mary,” Elizabeth added, leaning in with a grin. “And surely a Clementi duet requires at least one impressive hemline?”
Mary paused, her gaze shifting from the fashion plate to Georgiana’s encouraging face. “Perhaps,” she conceded, a small smile touching her lips, “if the silk does not rustle too loudly during the softer movements.”
“Its rustling will be most delightful,” Allegra said. “Besides, even musicians leave the pianoforte occasionally, and when you do, you will want to look as though you chose to be there. Madame, something in lavender for Miss Mary? She has the coloring for it.”
Madame Delacroix nodded, already sketching in the air with her tape measure. “Lavender, yes. Like a twilight sky. And now, Miss Elizabeth, let us begin with an enchanting green. I wish to see you look like a dryad who has inherited a kingdom.”
Elizabeth stepped toward the fitting dais. She felt like a doll, her arms extended, as Madame Delacroix and two assistants swarmed around her, a flurry of silks, tapes, and pins.
“But Madame,” Elizabeth gasped as a measuring tape cinched her ribs, “we need these gowns within the week. Surely even you cannot weave silk from the air in such time?”
“Weave? No, Mademoiselle,” Madame Delacroix muttered through a mouthful of pins. “We adapt! We conquer! I have three gowns in the back—originally for a Comtesse who… decided she preferred Italy to her debts. They are near your measure. We shall strip the old lace, add the new, and no one will know they were not born for you.”
“A recycled Comtesse,” Elizabeth remarked, catching Jane’s eye in the mirror. “How very thrifty of us, Jane.”
“Thrifty is not the word I would use for that emerald silk,” Jane said, rising from her chair to help steady a draped sleeve. “Oh, Lizzy! Look at the way the light catches the folds. It makes your eyes look like… well, like trouble.”
“Good. I have spent twenty years being sensible; I should like to try being ‘trouble’ for an evening.”
Georgiana, who had been shyly turning the pages ofLa Belle Assemblée, suddenly stood up and drifted toward a display of delicate, pre-made bodices. “Miss Elizabeth, look—the silver net overlay. If Madame added that to the emerald, it would look like moonlight on a forest floor. It would be… exquisite.”
Madame Delacroix paused, her head cocking to the side like a curious bird. “The silver net…Oui. Miss Darcy, you have the eye of a true artist! It would soften the drama for a debut.”
“See? Georgiana is already plotting my social conquest,” Elizabeth laughed. “What of the blue, Madame? The one you promised would make roses weep? Will it go well for Jane?”
