“I cannot allow you to wear gowns like this,” she said briskly, waving a hand to make a seamstress take her measurements. “You would look lovely in anything, Dear, but there is no harm in giving you something to trulyfeelbeautiful in.”
“It is quite all right,” she tried to explain. “This gown was my mother’s. It makes me feel more connected to her. It is a choice, I assure you.”
“It is not,” Elizabeth said.
“Elizabeth!” Jackie hissed.
“They are all aware of our situation, Sister,” Elizabeth pointed out. “There is no harm in honesty.”
Jackie scowled at her; her younger sister was not one to talk about honesty at that moment.
“There is no reason to feel any shame,” the dowager duchess smiled. “Consider it a gift. It would be my pleasure. After all, I bought your sister that perfume.”
It was true; Elizabeth had found a perfume scented with roses and marveled at it and then the dowager duchess had purchasedit without second thought. A gown, however, was far more expensive.
“Your Grace, it is too much—”
“Anne,” she corrected her. “Please, I cannot have my daughter-in-law call me by such formalities forever, and so we might as well put an end to it now.”
The words rang in her ears. Daughter-in-law. Was the woman thinking too far ahead, or was she partaking in heavily wishful thinking? Either way, Jackie did not like it too much, in fact feeling quite threatened by it. She did not like the suggestion that she would be marrying the duke as yet, but she knew that the lady was harmless.
And so Anne it would be.
Jackie nodded, at last allowing the seamstress to take her measurements and write them down.
“Do you enjoy writing, Lady Jacqueline?” Anne asked. “I could purchase a quill for you, if you wish.”
“In truth, I have never been much good at it. I smear the ink all over the paper, and it is practically illegible at the end of it.”
“Then what do you enjoy?”
“I like painting well enough, as well as playing the pianoforte.”
“Then wait right here, and finish with this lovely lady. I shall be right back!”
“Anne, wait—”
But the older lady was surprisingly nimble for her age, and had disappeared before Jackie could stop her. Elizabeth, meanwhile, giggled away at her.
“I must say, it has been most enjoyable watching you receive the goodness for a change. You deserve this, Sister.”
“Be that as it may, this is too much too soon. I am not engaged to her son, even if that is her wish, and it concerns me how set she is on it.”
“But you are going to be his fiancée, are you not?”
Suddenly, Jackie could see fear in her sister’s eyes, and for the first time in her life she was not made miserable by it. For one short moment, she felt almost a sense of vindication, as that was precisely how her sister had made her feel of late.
“Who is to say?” She replied, neglecting to mention the duke’s offer. “After all, he might not fall for me and cancel it all. You know his terms; if he chooses to marry me, then we shall marry. If he does not, then we will be back where we started. There shall be no harm done though.”
There would of course, to Elizabeth, but under the circumstances her younger sister was not about to say as much. Jackie felt awful toying with her in such a way, but she knew that she would tell her the truth eventually. It was not revenge, exactly. It was more a matter of telling her sister the reality of the situation.
After all, it was not a given that she would allow the duke to help her regardless of whether or not they married. Elizabeth couldn’t know of the offer either, for she would be too set on Jackie leaving the duke behind and she was not ready to do that.
And the realization of that made her quite concerned, indeed.
Chapter 8
“How is your bride?”
