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‘Something suitable for afternoon wear and less dressy occasions. Your diamonds and pearls will be with you again before you need formal evening wear, I imagine. Some citrines, perhaps. Or what do you have with aquamarines and pearls, Sedgwyck?’
Trays of necklaces and earrings were brought and displayed. They were pretty, clearly of the highest quality, but to Madelyn they seemed too fine, too delicate, for her. She was tall, she preferred strong colours and bold shapes and these dainty pieces felt wrong, bloodless even. They had no life, no past, no romance.
She tried necklaces, slipped on bracelets, held up earrings and pretended delight with everything Jack chose for her. They were going to disagree, if she could find the courage to argue, but she was not going to fight her battles in front of shopkeepers and over a few trinkets. For a moment she wished she did not have to fight at all, that she could just give in. Jack was persuasive, attractive and reassuringly certain about everything. It would be so easy...
Chapter Seven
‘We will take them,’ Jack said, apparently making the decision for both of them. Sedgwyck bustled out to have them boxed and wrapped and Madelyn made a sudden resolution not to take the easy path, not to lose herself and what she needed.
Lady Fairfield roused herself from her silent contemplation of a display of tiaras. ‘Lady Dalesford is holding a soirée tomorrow evening. I thought it would be a suitable occasion to make your acquaintance aware of your impending marriage and the fact that you will be using the title, Lord Dersington. A word in a few ears and it will be all around town within twenty-four hours without unnecessary fuss, don’t you agree?’
‘I believe not. Better for Madelyn to become known and to feel easier in society before we complicate matters, in my opinion.’
No, I do not agree.
For a moment Madelyn thought she’d had the courage to say it out loud, but, of course she had not. She wanted to get her debut over with and, surely, the status of being betrothed would help her reception?
And all the attention will be on Jack if he announces he is assuming the title, a small voice whispered. They won’t be looking at me...
Surely Louisa would counter his argument, stand up for her proposal? But, no.
‘If you think it best, of course. Now, the gown with the white silk gauze over the ice-blue under-slip and the floss trim will be just the thing. I do not think you have tried it on yet, Madelyn—it is one of those I ordered when I selected the day dresses I sent down to Kent for you.’
Madelyn knew exactly how she would look in it and repressed a grimace. Her protests about how little pale colours and flimsy fabrics suited her had been firmly set aside the second time she raised the subject—young ladies, especially those not yet presented at Court, wore only the palest colours and, as for fabrics, what she liked was apparently so far removed from the mode that she would be a laughing stock.
‘Fatal, my dear, quite fatal,’ Louisa had assured
her. ‘Especially in your situation.’
‘Which is?’
‘One in which you must avoid all suspicion of being an eccentric. What is allowable in a scholarly gentleman is quite impossible for a young lady and, given your intended’s own somewhat irregular career up to now, it would be most unfortunate. You must not stand out in any way.’
So Madelyn had bitten her tongue, yet again, and had applied herself to reading the latest editions of the journals Lady Fairfield ordered, the most fashionable novels from the circulating library and the Court and Society columns in all the newspapers. Dancing lessons would begin tomorrow and those, she was assured, would help with her deportment.
‘You are so very tall,’ Louisa had lamented. ‘And you have...’ she had waved her hands vaguely at Madelyn’s shoulders and bust ‘...presence. You walk like a duchess—you command the room. And that will not do for an unmarried girl, especially one who is, if you will forgive me, not yet in the current...er...fashionable style.’
Tiny steps, chin down, modestly lowered eyes, absolute observance of every rule and she would pass muster until she was married and by then she would know how to go on, Louisa had assured her.
Now she followed behind as Jack, very correctly, escorted the older woman out of the shop to the waiting carriage. She smiled sweetly at everyone and sat looking blankly out of the window at the thronged pavements as Harper settled herself with the purchases on the rear-facing seat. The feeling of dizziness that had come over her in the inn on their way to London was threatening again, along with a strange sense of being quite dissociated from everything around her.
I want to go home, I want to pull up the drawbridge and tend my garden and ride my mare in the water meadows. I want Mist with me to talk to.
A flicker of colour jerked her back to the City: a woman in a bright red spencer over a blue gown was making her way up the hill, a fat white pug at her heels. Heads turned as she passed and Madelyn’s mood lifted. She had given her word, agreed to marry, agreed to live in this strange new world. If she wanted children, wanted a future that was not a dream, then she had to do this, had to make it work. And somehow had to hang on to this temper that she had not known she possessed.
‘Now,’ Louisa said brightly, ‘you wanted to match some curtain fabric, I think, Madelyn. St James’s Square, then Harding, Howell in Schomberg House,’ she said to the footman who was holding the carriage door and waiting for orders.
‘That is in Pall Mall,’ she explained as they set off. ‘Just around the corner from the town house. We will drop off Harper with the jewellery first. Do you have your fabric sample?’ Her eyebrows rose at the sight of the square of heavy silk that Madelyn unfolded. ‘But that is very faded.’
‘I want to find something that looks as this did thirty years ago, but not brand new,’ Madelyn explained. If nothing else, she was used to recreating the past. The real question was whether she could create herself a present.
* * *
The half-dress evening gown was every bit as unflattering as Madelyn had expected. The fit was perfect once Harper had worked her magic, but inside the dainty pale perfection Madelyn knew she looked clumsy, awkward and plain. Jack’s choice of refined jewellery did not help. She simply could not manage the baffling requirements of being an acceptable young lady—modest yet responsive, shy yet poised, pretty but not seductive. The creature she was attempting to ape seemed a mass of contradictions. She knew herself to be reticent and unused to company, yet Louisa criticised her confident deportment, lamenting that she seemed more like a young matron than the blushing debutante she was supposed to be.
‘No, no, do not round your shoulders and stoop!’ she cried as Madelyn made another attempt to walk towards her and curtsy.
‘But you say I am too tall and clumsy. I was trying to look smaller.’
