They departed within the half-hour, Lady Upton armed with calling cards, intentions, and a list already half-formed in her mind of colours, fabrics, and social events, which she expounded upon. The carriage rolled through the late-afternoon streets while her ladyship discoursed upon the uses of clothing with the same seriousness that Lord Upton probably reserved for parliamentary tactics.
Francesca sat opposite and listened with the same baffled respect she might have accorded a foreign military theory. It was ridiculous. It was exacting. It was, apparently, indispensable.
“Is lavender acceptable?” she asked, before she had quite realized that she had.
Lady Upton looked up, then smiled. “Lavender is a wise choice for your colouring. Why?”
Francesca looked out of the window. “I merely thought to reassure myself.”
The answer was not quite true. She had seen Major Manners’ face when she had come downstairs that afternoon. She had not imagined it; nor had she misunderstood the quality of his attention in the Park afterward. It had altered something in her—subtly, unhelpfully, and perhaps irreversibly. She found herself aware of him now in ways that seemed to multiply rather than diminish—the firmness of his hand at the small of her back in a crowd; the way he listened when she spoke, as though words mattered because she had chosen them and not merely because he must answer politely. She ought not to have noticed such things.
“Then I shall put you in lavender again,” Lady Upton said with satisfaction, proving that mothers and generals had at least one instinct in common: they observed what was not said. “And blues, and perhaps silver-grey. Madame Monique understands that distinction and will not insult us with dove.”
Francesca surrendered to the current. It was easier.
Madame Monique’s establishment was exactly what one might expect from a woman to whom the elite of London entrusted their appearance. The rooms were elegant without vulgar display, scented faintly of starch, perfume and money, and full of fabric so beautiful that it almost succeeded in excusing the industries of fashion. Lady Upton entered as one accustomed to being assured welcome. Madame herselfemerged through a door with fluent gratitude, foreign charm, and that professional expertise which made every client feel singular and every decision urgent.
There followed a blur of measuring, pinning, draping, and pronouncements. Francesca stood upon a low platform while Lady Upton and Madame Monique discussed her as though she were both a diplomatic project and a column of architecture. The words shoulders, waist, line, movement, complexion, evening effect, candlelight, importance, distinction, freshness and authority tripped from their tongues. The language would have been absurd had it not been delivered with such absolute seriousness.
“Miss Vale is quite intelligent,” Lady Upton confided to the modiste, much to Francesca’s amusement.
Madame Monique placed a hand dramatically upon her heart. “Oui. I can see this,” she said while circling her.
“I do not think it can be disguised, so I think we should celebrate it.”
“Mais naturellement.”
“She is one-and-twenty, after all, so we will have more flexibility.”
Francesca nearly laughed aloud.
Hours later, when she was finally restored to Sir Percival’s house, she felt as if she had lived several separate days in one. Hyde Park; politics; patronesses; a political dinner for princesses and countesses; a modiste who was booked for years… and beneath all of it, still, the ledgers. Kendall, Arch—Major Manners—and the slow, uncomfortable rearranging of trust.
Sir Percival was in his library, his spectacles low on his nose, and one hand resting upon a sheaf of parliamentary papers that looked as though they had already suffered greatly beneath his opinion.
“Well?” he asked, as soon as she entered. “Has Augusta Upton finished with you?”
Francesca went to him at once and bent to kiss his cheek. “No one could finish me in an afternoon.”
“Nonsense! I meant for the day.”
She laughed and sank into the chair opposite him. There was comfort in Uncle Percival’s presence that London had not yet managed to spoil. He was worldly enough to understand manoeuvre, affectionate enough not to make affection feel forced, and secure enough in his own intelligence to appreciate hers without being alarmed by it.
Lady Upton might be the architect of the campaign, but Uncle Percival was the old fortress one still trusted to protect the battalion.
“She is to host a political dinner, to present me as a good hostess,” Francesca said.
Sir Percival took off his spectacles and stared at her. “Of course, she will.”
“You are not surprised?”
“My dear girl, Augusta sees a young woman with a fortune, a mind, and a taste for reform, and immediately begins a campaign to emphasize her—your—assets. I have known her these twenty years. She has been rearranging cabinets from dinner-tables since before half the present ministers were out of the schoolroom.”
Francesca laughed despite herself. “She intends to invite Countess Lieven and Princess Esterházy,” she said.
Sir Percival let out a low whistle. “Then she means business.”
“So I gather.”
