“Magnificent,” Madam Delacroix declared. “The hem takes the air perfectly. You shall indeed appear as the angel of the ballroom.”
“I look—” Jane touched the fabric at her waist as though confirming it was real. “This cannot be how I look.”
“You look like Mamma’s description of you, which I always assumed was exaggerated by at least forty percent.” Elizabeth circled her sister. “I am revising my estimate downward. Mamma has been understating the case.”
“You are being ridiculous.”
“Bingley is going to walk into a pillar,” Georgiana declared.
The name arrived in the room with more weight than Elizabeth had intended, and Jane’s cheeks went pink above the pale blue silk.
“Has Mr. Bingley called this week?” Allegra asked. “Or is he reserving his shock for the ballroom?”
“He sent a note. Very correct. Very—” Jane searched for the word, her fingers smoothing a fold of the blue silk. “Restrained.”
“A gentleman showing restraint is promising,” Elizabeth encouraged.
“It is merely polite, Lizzy. I am not reading more into his script than its words contain.”
Elizabeth let it rest, because Jane’s self-protection was not a wall to be breached but a boundary to be respected.
A sharp rustle came from the third fitting area, followed by Madame Delacroix’s voice at its most authoritative: “Miss Mary Bennet. Come out where we can see the fit.”
“I look absurd,” came Mary’s muffled reply from behind the fabric.
Elizabeth marshaled her elder-sister authority and marched toward the partition. “You look nothing of the kind. Come out this instant, or I shall come in and fetch you.”
The curtain parted, and Mary appeared, her shoulders hunched. Georgiana immediately went to her side, her face lighting up. “Miss Mary, you look like a princess.”
Mary stood in deep rose silk, blushing as if she’d been caught reading poetry aloud. The color suited her: not golden-pretty like Jane, but striking, with eyes that missed nothing and a jaw that could hold its own in any argument.
“I cannot wear this,” Mary whispered, her fingers plucking at the skirt. “It is far too much.”
“Please, Miss Mary Bennet, onto the platform, if you will.” Madame Delacroix unwound the tape measure from her neck with a practiced flick. “I shall check the hems.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Mary argued, shrinking back. “It is immodest to display oneself so.”
“Stand here then.” Allegra steered her firmly before the glass. “Look.”
Mary blinked, at first not daring to face her reflection, but then her countenance underwent a transformation Elizabeth had never witnessed before. The habitual tightness around her mouth, the defensive set of her jaw, and the pinched expression that had always masked her true features eased by slow degrees. It was as though the rose silk had given her face permission to soften.
“Oh,” Mary breathed.
The sound was small and private, and Elizabeth felt it in her chest like the deep vibration of a cello rather than mere noise.
“The rose,” Allegra told Madame Delacroix, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “And the cream for musicales, the blue stripe for promenades, and we shall require something in green for the afternoons.”
“Four gowns,” Mary said faintly, the numbers dizzying her. “Elizabeth, the expense?—”
“The expense is what the Season requires, and you will have it. Alice Gardiner would never forgive us if we sent you into a London drawing room in gray.”
Mary’s hand rose to touch the silk at her collarbone. The gesture was the same, a wondering, tentative reach Elizabeth had made on her own platform. The shared astonishment connected them across the old distance that had existed between the musical sister and the witty one for as long as Elizabeth could remember. London was closing that gap, quietly and persistently, one gown at a time.
The shop bell jangled as the door opened, and a voice, thoroughly displeased, preceded its owner into the salon.
“Madame Delacroix, I was told the alterations to my trim would be complete by Tuesday. It is now Thursday, and I have received neither the gown nor an explanation.”
A second voice, softer and more anxious, trailed in its wake: “Lady Matlock is quite right, it is most inconvenient. We are all of us in desperate need of?—”
