She reached for her sister’s hand, squeezed it once. "We will go to the party, Frances. And if Mr. Hemsworth is present, I shall contrive to make him notice you, even if I must spill a teacup in his lap."
Frances looked up, hope lighting her face. "Truly?"
"Truly. I may even wear the blue, if it is not in rags." She softened her voice. "But you must be yourself. No more talk of old maids and wasted chances, all right?"
Frances nodded, her spirits restored. She took the letter, spun on her heel, and danced up the staircase, calling, "I must tell Mrs. Down to ready my white muslin! And Lavinia—if you do see Mr. Hemsworth, you must not call him a dunderhead again, even in jest!"
Lavinia snorted as soon as Frances was out of sight. She leaned against the hall table, the letter still clutched in her hand. She read it again, slower this time, and allowed herself the smallest measure of anticipation.
Nancy’s parties were more than mere diversions. They were battlefields, and every well-dressed lady was a general, plotting her way toward victory.
But what, precisely, is your objective, Lavinia?The question drifted in her mind.To find a match for Frances? Or for yourself?
Her eyes dropped to the last line of Nancy’s letter—You know the one I mean—and a ghost of a laugh escaped her. The blue dress. A relic from her own debut, which she’d worn to three assemblies before her father’s illness made further appearances impossible.
It would be out of fashion. It would be the only thing in the room not acquired within the past twelve months.
Still, it was better than nothing.
She set the invitation aside and went up the stairs to her room, determined to plan for the garden party with the discipline of a field marshal.
If Mr. Crawley’s threats were to be believed, her time was short. One week. Enough for one last attempt—one last, spectacular attempt—to change the fate of the Pembroke family.
You are not yet defeated, she told her reflection in the smudged glass of her dressing table.Not so long as you have your wits, your blue dress, and a single invitation.
She sat, pen in hand, and began a list of everything they would need for Thursday.
And everything she would need to do before the Scarfields’ garden was even within sight.
"It is a fine thing to see you both here!" Nancy said, arms open as if she meant to sweep the entire world into a single, perfumed embrace. She advanced upon Lavinia and Frances in the graveled drive before they had even mounted the steps to the Scarfields’ portico, her dress a confection of chartreuse silk that would have looked dreadful on anyone else.
"It is half past twelve, Nancy. We are practically late," Lavinia replied, dipping into a curtsy so exaggerated it could have been used to instruct Queen Charlotte herself.
"Not to me, you aren’t," Nancy whispered. "The real guests never arrive before the hour. That gives us time to choose the best seats and sample the pastries before the rest." She turned a scrutinizing eye on them both. "Lavinia, you wore the blue. I am gratified and a little surprised."
"It was either that or Frances’s white muslin, and we agreed I am too old for angelic hues," Lavinia replied, glancing down at the bodice where Frances’s careful mending had almost disguised the seam at the waist.
Frances executed a perfect, if somewhat breathless, curtsy of her own. "Thank you for inviting us, Your Grace."
Nancy snorted, "If you call me Your Grace in my own garden, I shall have you both forcibly ejected."
"I should like to see you try," said Lavinia, but the reply was muffled as Nancy, true to her threat, pulled them both into an embrace that threatened to topple all three.
The Duke of Scarfield appeared at the threshold, stony of jaw and so conservatively dressed he might have been summoned from the previous century. "Lady Lavinia, Lady Frances. Welcome. My wife has been looking forward to your company all week."
"Has she, indeed?" Lavinia replied, smoothing her hair and recovering her dignity.
"I have," Nancy said, "and I mean to keep you both entirely to myself for the first half-hour, Oscar, so you may go and preside over your cheeses and wines and whatever else it is you find so absorbing." She handed him a small list, which he accepted with the air of a man who long ago surrendered all control of his household.
"Frances, Nancy tells me you have taken up the art of French conversation," the Duke said.
Frances blushed prettily. "Lady Lavinia insists on it, Your Grace. Though I am afraid I shall never master the accent."
"One must simply pronounce everything as though in great pain," Nancy said. "That’s how the Parisians do it."
The Duke’s eyebrow twitched. "Charming. I must attend to the gardeners." He bowed and withdrew, leaving a wake of silence that Nancy wasted no time in filling.
"Come, I must show you the arrangements. I have set up two pavilions—one for those who wish to roast like chestnuts in the sun, and one for the paler, weaker half of society, to which I am certain I now belong." She linked arms with both sisters and led them onto the lawn, where rows of chairs and scattered tables already hosted the earliest arrivals.
