“Let them underestimate you until it behoves you not to be underestimated,” Lady Upton explained patiently.
The distinction was fine, but not negligible.
Francesca leaned back slightly. “When will it benefit me?”
Lady Upton’s eyes brightened. “Ah. There speaks a young lady who may yet enjoy strategy.”
“It is a necessity in my position.”
“You may still be good at it.”
Lady Upton reached for another cake, but seemed to recollect herself and set it down again, untouched. “Now,” she said briskly, “you have been to a ball, the theatre, and the Park, which is an excellent beginning. The world has seen you. It has approved your face. It has discussed your fortune. In short, all the indispensable nonsense has commenced.”
Francesca inclined her head. “Then I am inexpressibly relieved to have satisfied the requirements of superficiality.”
“You have only begun to satisfy them.” Lady Upton smiled. “The true test, however, is not admiration. Admiration is plentiful and often fleeting. The real test will be gaining the approval of the patronesses.”
Francesca had heard enough of the patronesses of Almack’s to know that they possessed, in the collective imagination of Society mothers, something akin to the power of bishops and executioners combined. They admitted, excluded, and sanctified the success of any debutante.
“How,” she asked, “am I to secure the favour of ladies who have made an art out of judging everyone?”
“By giving them something interesting to sanction.”
Francesca narrowed her eyes slightly. That sounded less like a principle than a manoeuvre, which meant Lady Upton was about to enjoy herself.
“Knowing your predilection for reform,” her ladyship continued, “I have decided that we shall emphasize it as an asset.”
Francesca sat very still. “That sounds ominous.”
“Everything in London is ruinous if done badly. Fortunately, we shall do it well.” Lady Upton folded her hands with evident satisfaction. “We shall host a political dinner.”
Francesca stared at her. “Are there dinners in London which are not?”
“Touché, my dear. You are correct. In a sense, everything is political.”
Francesca took a sip of tea and set down her cup. “Lady Upton, that sounds less like presentation and more like provocation.”
“It is presentation shaped by strategy,” Lady Upton said serenely. “There is a difference, though your tone suggests you may not yet appreciate it. Your age gives you some allowance. You were not brought up in the traditional young, innocent and, I daresay, silly manner apportioned to most girls making their come out. As your chaperone, I do appreciate your sense.
Francesca, who had just spent the morning suspecting embezzlement and the afternoon walking through Hyde Park like a brood mare with opinions, thought herself old enough for many things and too young for none. Keeping her reflections to herself, she said only, “Whom do you propose to provoke?”
“Everyone. I wish to be helpful in guiding your Season.”
Francesca had not yet discovered whether Lady Upton’s greatest weapon was her certainty or the fact that it so often appeared absurd right up until the moment it proved effective.
“A dinner,” she said again, because repetition sometimes assisted the understanding of madness.
“A small one,” Lady Upton replied. “No more than twenty persons. Intimacy is influence when properly arranged.”
“Whom would we invite?”
“Countess Lieven, if she may be tempted, which she probably may if one flatters her discernment and does not seat her near a bore. She is the true influence in that marriage. Princess Esterházy, whose husband is enough of an ambassador to be useful and absent enough to be tolerable. A few parliamentary men who matter, a few who mean to matter, and two or three ladies whose approval travels faster than official recommendation.”
Francesca stared, then laughed—not because the notion was genuinely amusing, but because without laughter she might have called it impossible, and somehow that seemed the lesser response.
“Have you already planned this?”
“My dear girl,” said Lady Upton, almost offended, “I had planned it before we reached the end of Rotten Row.”
