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With a sinking feeling, he remembered that he sent everything to his mother’s direction, who then refused acceptance. It seemed a strange decision on his part, now he thought of it.

He had chosen beautiful pieces and put them to the side, sending them home with instructions that they be delivered to the duchess. It was only now dawning on him that there really were—and had been for years—two duchesses.

The mantua-maker was matching the silvery fabric with a delicate lace tinted a faint blue. Isidore would look like the snow princess in a Russian fairy tale, the ones in which the princess had a heart of ice.

“I don’t like it,” he said abruptly.

Signora Angelico was clearly not used to being interrupted—nor to being countered. She flew into a paroxysm of exclamations, half in English, half in Italian.

Isidore turned to him and hissed, “You can’t say that sort of thing to Signora Angelico! The Queen of France herself has ordered night clothing from signora.”

“I don’t care whether she sews the king’s slippers with her teeth,” Simeon said. “This fabric isn’t of the quality I’d like you to wear. I may not care much for polite society, Isidore, but I know fabric.”

“You wouldn’t—”

He turned to Signora Angelico. She was as ruffled as a hen in the rain, her cheeks stained with crimson, her hands waving wildly around her head.

But Simeon had bargained with many a tradesman in places where to lose the bargain was to lose one’s head. “This fabric isn’t good enough,” he said.

“Not good enough!” Signora Angelico’s face took on a purple hue. “This is the very best, magnifico, lovely in every way, fit for—”

Simeon rubbed it between his fingers and shook his head. “Indian silk.”

“Silk from the looms of the Maharaja himself—”

Simeon shook his head. “Signora, signora…surely you don’t take me for a dunce?” He pushed the fabric to the side and sat on the table.

“Get up!” Isidore said to him in an urgent undertone. “You can’t sit before us.”

Simeon snapped his fingers at one of the girls, who were flocking nervously against the wall as if they thought he would faint merely from the signora’s frown. “Chairs for Her Grace and Signora Angelico.”

Two of them scuttled over with straight-backed chairs, used by the girls while they engaged in hand-sewing. Perfect. Signora Angelico was now seated just below him. He smiled down at her. “I can tell that you are a woman who adores fabric,” he cooed. “A woman ravished by antherine silk, so glossy and light, perhaps with a touch of mignonette lace.”

Signora’s whole face changed. “You know your fabrics, Your Grace.”

He smiled at her. “Now this—” he put a finger disdainfully on the silk she proposed. “Paduasoy. A nice strong silk. Perhaps good enough for some. But not,” and he gave every word a tiny emphasis, “not for my wife, signora.”

“You!” she said. “You are going to lead my poor little duchess on a chase, are you not?” Her black eyes snapped, but he could feel the rigid backs of her girls relax.

“It is a man’s duty when faced with such beauty as graces my wife,” he said solemnly, reaching down and bringing her hand to his lips. “Of course, had I seen you in my youth…”

Signora bounced to her feet. “As if I could have been tempted by such a callow young thing as a raw duke!” She clapped her hands. “Lucia! Bring me that bolt of tiffany.”

“Dare I hope the tiffany harks from the looms of Margilan?”

“You will see!” she crowed.

Isidore sat in her chair, stunned into silence. After that, Signora Angelico was putty in Simeon’s hands. He rejected the tiffany as too harsh; they finally found a taffeta he found acceptable. It was cherry red, with only a touch of stiffness to it.

“I see it falling to the ground with a froth at the feet and a small train.”

“But the color…” Signora Angelico shook her head. “If only I had a—”

“Wash it in tea.”

“Wash this fabric in tea?” She looked down at the fabric. It looked as if it had been woven by fairies; if you let it fall through your fingers it sounded like a whispered song.

“Of course,” Simeon said. He kissed her hand again, and that was that. Isidore was to have a gown of tea-washed taffeta, edged in a thin border of glossy lace made in Brussels.