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“Your sister,” said the marchioness. “You must make us acquainted.”

Wynford made the introductions with stiff correctness, relegating Harriet to the role of governess rather than relation without a blink. Harriet had not seen him so ill at ease and so little able to conceal it, his brusque manner at odds with his words. He did not wish his sister to become acquainted with the Frenchwoman.

“Ah, little cousin,” said the marchioness to Octavia with a sly smile. “We shall become acquainted, n’est-ce pas? Your mother was my cousin, too.”

“Marchioness, you will want your seat,” said Wynford, “as the lecture begins promptly with the hour.”

Harriet quietly abandoned the notion that she would learn much from Mr. Wallis’s lecture. Gravity might be the universal law that governed everything, from apples or the coins in one’s pocket to the planets in their orbits around the sun, but other laws governed the motion of hearts.

There are in London, besides the hundred or more churches built by men such as Wren, Gibbs, and Hawksmoor, certain secular temples of fashion to which the female worshipper of style is drawn. These commercial temples have their lofty ceilings, vast expanses, and high priests. And the husband hunter who wishes to step out of the common mold and assume a style of her own must repair to them nearly as often as she attends Sunday services at the Chapel Royal.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter 5

An opportunity arose the following morning for Harriet to fulfill her promise of a shopping expedition. She was able to invite Octavia to Luxborough House, where Lady Luxborough and her two eldest daughters were making a serious study of the latest fashion plates in preparation for a visit to the linen drapers Harding Howell & Co. Each girl was to have a gown for the Luxboroughs’ annual Twelfth Night Ball, marking the family’s January return to London from their Hampshire estate.

For the most part Octavia was a silent onlooker, observing the frank sisterly exchange of Anne and Camille. The sisters did not hesitate to abuse each other’s taste and shortcomings of face and figure. Camille told Anne that with her short neck she could not wear a much-admired teal blue velvet choker, while Anne, just as pointedly, told Camille that lace puff sleeves on a rose silk gown would not do for her plump arms. When Octavia sighed over a bold plaid, both sisters firmly turned the page. But when they came to the plate of a ball gown in lavender satin with a silver gauze overdress and tiny pearl-studded cap sleeves, both sisters turned to their guest.

“Octavia, this would look lovely on you,” said Anne. “Neither Camille nor I could wear it, but on you it would be just right. What do you think, Harry? Do you think it would suit her?”

Harriet had to agree—and to feel a certain satisfaction that her lessons had not entirely gone awry. Her pupils were capable of taste and kindness, and their opinion appeared to sway Octavia from choosing a gown more appropriate to the bold Frenchwoman they had seen at the Royal Institution the day before.

“Do come with us to the shops,” Camille begged. “I’m sure we can find you some of this lavender satin, and you can have your gown made up with ours in time for Twelfth Night.”

With a little more conversation it was settled that Octavia would send a message to her brother about her shopping plans. Lady Luxborough gave her approval to the more modest of her daughters’ dress choices, and with as much dispatch as five ladies could manage, they were off.

At the linen draper’s, Octavia was taken with the great bolts of Turkish satin in lemon, lavender, and cerulean blue. She looked wistfully at a Pomona green striped gros de Naples before settling down in earnest to the purchase of the necessary yards of lavender satin and silver gauze. She flushed with pleasure as the clerk tallied her purchases at the counter.

“Of course,” she told Harriet with a certain wistfulness, “I will have a husband by Twelfth Night, but even a married woman can be fashionable.”

“What’s this?” A husky voice made them turn. The marchioness, as strikingly elegant as the day before in a geranium-colored silk pelisse with a full chemisette of French cambric at the collar and her chinchilla muff, laid a gloved hand on Octavia’s silk.

“How charming!” she said. “Just the sort of tender shade that becomes a young girl. Alas, one can never wear that pale look again after twenty. But are you so soon to marry, cousin?”

Octavia, looking awestruck, simply nodded.

Harriet tucked Octavia’s arm in hers. “It is the way with our loveliest girls. They are soon claimed.” It was irrational, she knew, but she, who was used to endless careless slights, disliked the superiority of the Frenchwoman’s tone.

The marchioness smiled, and Harriet reined in the mad impulse to drag Octavia away. It was the most ordinary of London scenes. Nothing threatened. Harriet had no reason for the foolish alarm Wynford seemed to feel. Around them, ladies continued their chatter and their buying. Lady Luxborough stood not three feet away, engaged in arranging for her footmen to collect their purchases. Harriet supposed she simply had insufficient experience of French persons to judge the woman’s behavior. She thought it coldly calculated to undermine Octavia’s confidence in her fashion choice, but perhaps it was merely the woman’s unfamiliarity with the rules that governed young English girls.

“But why the rush to marriage?” the marchioness asked. “Surely, cousin, you wish to know the world a little before you turn...matron.”

If the marchioness thought to frighten Octavia with such an unfashionable word, she was mistaken. Octavia stuck out her chin. “Oh, I’ve quite made up my mind in the matter.”

The marchioness shrugged. “How very English. Tell me, does your governess insist on Gowland’s lotion for the complexion and a milk-and-water style gown for balls?”

“Oh, Miss Swanley is not—”

Harriet stopped Octavia with a squeeze of her arm. “Lady Luxborough wants us. Pray excuse us, Marchioness.”

Nods were exchanged, and Harriet and Octavia moved toward the Luxborough party.

“Wasn’t her hat marvelous?” Octavia whispered.

Harriet laughed. “It was,” she agreed, her sense of grievance melting away. Admiration for the marchioness’s good taste in bonnets was not likely to harm Octavia in any way.

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