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Stella could. But she could also hear her aunt’s faint scream as she toppled into a faint.

“We need a wardrobe that’s suited to you, not to a stalk of grass hoping to catch a husband.” The dowager turned to Mrs. Quimby. “Design the rest of the wardrobe in this fashion. You can see what she looks like.”

Stella flinched, but the dowager kept talking.

“Make her as pretty as she is. Her carroty hair would look well with almost any color. And then there’s her bosom. You’ll want to make the most of that. All her curves, in fact.”

Stella had never heard her hair referred to appreciatively. None of the assembled seamstresses were looking at her figure or her hair with distaste. In fact, they looked excited.

The experience was a stark contrast to her memory of visiting modistes with Mrs. Thyme before her debut. The French seamstresses had been as dismayed as her aunt, suggesting that she swill vinegar and avoid cake.

“Make her look like Cleopatra. That’s what her husband wants,” the dowager concluded.

Mrs. Quimby turned to Stella. “What do you want?”

Stella blinked at her, nonplussed. She had come to the Emporium because she didn’t want to look like Holofernes, but she didn’t know more than that. “I’d like to feel more attractive,” she said, finally.

She almost blurted out that she wanted to look pretty. That would be a humiliating revelation. But what she really wanted was to feel attractive, never mind the fact her face and body didn’t match society’s ideas of beauty. She wanted to feel brave.

“How do you feel in this gown?”

Stella looked at the glass. Facing her was a lady whose cheeks were pink with embarrassment. But that lady was . . .

More than just attractive. She had ample curves, and the azure gown celebrated each one. Freckles scattered over her nose and down her breasts in a way that drew the eye, and white edging enhanced them rather than trying to hide them.

Her mother had been wrong about her freckles. Her aunt had been wrong about her breasts. Neither were disgusting.

“I feel like a duchess,” she said.

“I would suggest a round robe of blossom-colored crepe with a demi-train, gathered in the rear with puckered white satin,” Mrs. Quimby said thoughtfully. “I can shape it to fit Her Grace like a glove. Mind you, the design leaves the back and bosom uncommonly exposed.”

“I don’t mind low bodices,” Stella stated.

She was a married woman now. Her husband appreciated her bosom.

“Then you may leave the rest to me,” Mrs. Quimby said, beaming. “Unless you would like to have a hand in choosing fabric and designs, Your Grace?”

Stella shook her head. “I would not.” Time spent examining illustrations from La Belle Assemblée was time she could be reading. Or dallying with her husband, for that matter.

“An excellent decision,” the dowager stated. “I always leave such matters to those who are experts. I can’t say that has always worked out in the household, but my husband never complained.”

Back in the carriage, Stella couldn’t stop herself. “Did your late husband, the duke, truly never complain about the condition of the Grange?”

She held her gaze steady when the dowager frowned. She couldn’t allow herself to be turned into a doormat by her brusque mother-in-law. “Because I would describe it as unfurnished and rather dirty,” she added.

“It didn’t used to be.”

“Did Silvester tell you that I would prefer to move to the Dower House, if you don’t mind staying in the Grange?”

“He did. As I told him, I would be happy to live among my best memories,” the dowager said, unsurprisingly. “I did promise Silvester that he could begin renovation whenever he wishes. I won’t live forever, so someday, you’ll have to move there. The Dukes of Huntington have always lived in the Grange.”

“For the moment, the Dower House is very comfortable,” Stella said.

“I’ve never been able to care much about comfort,” Silvester’s mother said. “Not when there were so many interesting things to do. Even now, although I have no chimney to work on, I feel as if I’m expiring when I listen to a housekeeper prose on about linens. Who cares if a sheet has a hole or two?”

Stella cared.

But the dowager’s throat bobbled as she swallowed. “I don’t care, and neither did the late duke. We were partners in something far more important than the . . . the society foolishness that seems to amuse my son so much.”