But both Edmund and Madame Minion ignored her.
"The fabric is exquisite." Edmund fingered the material. "It flows."
"Exactly! The movement is graceful and supple."
"It skims and glides with stealth."
Ellen wrinkled her forehead. "Are we talking about the fabric or a predatory animal?"
Both heads turned to look at her. Edmund raised the cloth to her face. "Lovely," he murmured. "We'll take it. She'll need a shawl to go with it. Spencer, bonnet, slippers, gloves, reticule."
"But ... "
Madame Minion beamed. "Excellent. You read my mind, as usual. She will also need at least two walking dresses, a carriage dress, a morning dress, two evening dresses and a ball gown. You are in luck. I have several such gowns that will suit her perfectly. She has a wonderful figure, does she not?"
They both eyed her figure, Madame with a calculating eye as she took measurements, and he with open appreciation.
Ellen blushed.
"She does, indeed."
"She must also try on the new silk that has just arrived. It will fit her like—" she kissed her fingers.
Ellen tried on a shocking number of dresses behind a screen, while Tewkbury flipped through the latest fashion plates fromLa Belle Assemblée, and Madame Minion danced around her, poking her with pins. She put on wraps, shawls, spencers, pelisses, redingotes, fichus. Not to mention gloves, hats, bonnets and, with a twinkle in Mme Minion's eye, a nightdress so flimsy it left nothing to the imagination.
After Mme Minion had taken her measurements and talked about various stays, undergarments and petticoats, Ellen decided that enough was enough.
"We must have a talk," she hissed to Tewkbury after Madame Minion had gone to look for some silks at the back of the shop. "This can't go on. She's putting together an enormous wardrobe for a lady."
A corner of his lip curled upwards. "I say. Aren't you a lady?"
"Of course I am. I mean, not in the way she thinks I am." She tugged at her right earlobe. "You know what I mean!" She leaned forward and whispered. "You are spending a fortune on a pretence."
Tewkbury sighed. "I refuse to be married to a woman who walks around in dull, grey clothes, looking like a schoolmistress. It depresses me. Consider all this," he raised a hand, "as part of the contract. You must look the part. Remember the house party next week? Dobberham is waiting outside like a shark. Keep the new walking dress on. It suits you to perfection."
If the baron wanted to go bankrupt, buying a new wardrobe for his new pretend wife, that was his problem, wasn't it? But look at that glorious gold ball gown with silver trimmings, roses and a gauze net! She'd never touched anything so lovely in her entire life.
"Excellent. You will be the belle of the ball, the diamond of the Season!" Madame Minion clasped her hands together. "Leave the fabric you bought here." Mme Minion took the parcel from the maid. "You will not need it. I'll make pillowcases out of it." She wrinkled her nose. "No, not even pillowcases. They will scratch your cheeks. Sacks for storing turnips."
"But ... " Ellen protested. "It is good, solid fabric!"
Edmund pushed Ellen out of the shop. "Thank you, Mme Minion. It was a pleasure, as always."
"She kept my fabric!"
"So she did."
"Ah, took you ages.” Dobberham pounced on them as soon as they set foot on the street. "I was about to grow roots here."
"Dobberham." Edmund took Ellen's hand in his. "Ellen, may I present my good friend, Lord Dunstan Dobberham? We are to be his guests next week."
Dobberham made a flourishing bow, then took her hand and planted a wet kiss on it. "Lady Tewkbury. So he wasn't lying, the scoundrel. And now I understand why he felt he had to hide you and marry you in secret. So you wouldn't be carried off by someone else."
"I say. Talking nonsense is my speciality," Tewkbury put in.
"Louisa will be delighted to meet you."
“Louisa is his wife," Tewkbury explained.
