“Oh, I forgot something,” Sarah said, clapping her hand to her forehead. “Let me get it from my chamber.” She hurried to the door on the other side of the sitting room, ducked in, and came back holding a bonnet. It was the one Eva had tried at the milliner’s that day in Birmingham.
“I liked it so much I purchased it,” Sarah explained. “However, it looks far better on you, Eva. Why don’t you wear it today? The dark blue ribbon will even set off your pelisse nicely.”
“Yes, Eva. Why don’t you borrow it?” Rebecca encouraged.
Eva untied her own bonnet, and accepted the one Sarah held. This was all a lot of bother over nothing. Rebecca was the one to be put on display to lure a good husband. Her own plans envisioned a different path devoted to her art, not matrimony. In fact, working seriously as an artist required independence.
When she checked the bonnet in the looking glass, she had to admit it flattered her as much as she remembered. In the reflection she also spied Rebecca’s relief being communicated to Sarah with another meaningful look. She realized Sarah had not offered the bonnet to make her more attractive to potential suitors. Rather, her cousin and sister did not want to walk in the park with an Eva turned out poorly.
The door to the sitting room opened and Gareth and Wesley walked in.
“France or the Netherlands?” Wesley was asking. “The French economy still suffers from the war.”
“There is money enough there, but the industries have not recovered, so it may actually be the better choice. You must go yourself and see how things lie, however.”
Wesley turned his attention to his wife. “Are you quite ready, Sarah?”
“Don’t I appear ready?” Sarah made a little turn on her toes.
“Ready and lovely, I would say.”
Eva agreed with the compliment. Sarah’s ensemble of greens and yellow set off her red hair. She wore a darling hat that angled just so on her carefully clustered curls. Rebecca’s muslin dress with the primroses had been transformed by a primrose pelisse. Her bonnet played up her innocence and brought attention to her lovely face.
“I will be the envy of every man in the park,” Wesley said, offering one arm to his wife and one to Rebecca.
A different arm presented itself to Eva. “No, I will be,” Gareth said in her ear.
***
“They are all so beautiful,” Eva said. She moved her head this way and that to see the ladies in the carriages and along the path.
Gareth paced alongside her, in the wake of Wesley and the others. “They are more wealthy than beautiful,” he said. “A bit of silk, a bit of paint, a flattering dress and hat—they go far to create an illusion.”
“Perhaps, but some of these women are undeniably beautiful in their own right, and you know it.”
“Every woman is, in her own way, Eva.”
She smiled ruefully and shook her head. “You are a charmer, Mr. Fitzallen. There is no denying that.”
“I am too conceited to deny it. It comes naturally to me. Would that more people endeavored to be charmers. Charm is oil on the machinery of society.”
“That sounds philosophical. Take care or I will call Rebecca to join us and she can explain what every sage from Plato on said on the matter.”
Up ahead, the young lady in question was turning a lot of heads in the park. “Did she spend enough time with Mr. Mansfield while in Birmingham to numb his interest with her discourses?”
“Sarah fears so. My sister is normally not boring, so I think it was deliberate. I suspect when the poetic Mr. Trenton called on her, she did not mention Plato or Rousseau at all.”
“You will marry her off within the year, I am sure, unless she takes a dislike to the notion.”
“I hope so. I would not want her and me to become like the sisters Neville.” She regaled him with an accounting of the sisters’ bickering, mimicking the older sister’s booming voice and the younger sister’s tiny one, until they both laughed hard enough to make further speech impossible.
“When Rebecca marries the fine man you and Sarah choose, what will you do?” he asked when they could talk again.
Her eyes lit. “I intend to improve my art. You said I had talent, and Jasmine Neville agrees, but I have a lot of work to do, and a lot of catching up. Jasmine even gave me a letter of introduction to Mary Moser. Can you believe it? I wrote to her when I was a girl, and she even responded, so I think she is a kind person, but I will still be nervous making a call on such a famous lady painter.”
“One of her pictures hangs in the gallery at Langley House. You can study it and ask her about it.”
“Do you think I can study the others too?”
