“Welcome to the London season, Miss Ramsey,” Hyacinth murmured, so only Isla could hear her. “Where fashion takes precedence over respiration, every time.”
“Perhaps I can learn to breathe through my ears,” Isla murmured back with a grin.
“We must make the most of her figure.” Lady Chase pointed at Isla, the biscuit still clutched in her hand. “Such a tiny waist you have, Miss Ramsey! Oh, I remember those days. Did you know, Hyacinth, your grandfather could span my waist with his hands when we were courting?” She stuffed the biscuit into her mouth with a dramatic sigh. “Oh, my, yes. I had the narrowest waist in London in my day.”
Madame Bell stuck a few last pins into the bodice of the gown, then stood back and assessed her handiwork with a satisfied smile. “Ah, such a gown!”
“Such a gown!” Lady Chase, Hyacinth and Isla echoed the sentiment with rapturous sighs, because there was no denying the gown was a masterpiece—a young lady’s dream come true. It was a symphony, an aria, a shimmering confection in the finest silk, every line of it so graceful a lady’s heart ached to behold it, and the color just as glorious as the cut and fabric. It was the softest sky blue imaginable, and trimmed with Belgian lace so delicate it could bring a lady to tears.
Hyacinth fluffed a stray fold of the skirt and indulged in a private little sigh of her own. She didn’t regret not having a season—of course she didn’t, she wasquitereconciled to it—but she couldn’t help a quiet sigh of yearning for all the beautiful gowns she’d never have the chance to wear. Her youthful heart delighted in fine silks and brightly-colored satin ribbons as much as the next young lady’s did, and this gown in particular, oh, that delicious blue! It looked like a slice of the morning sky, and the lace, so dainty, like woven threads of gossamer. It was quite simply the most perfect gown she’d ever beheld, and she had the dearest little blue slippers to match it—
“What are all those scraps of white at the neckline? They’re all over the waist, too. They look like bits of those old lace caps Mrs. McGurty, our housekeeper in Lochinver used to wear. Don’t they, Lach?”
Lachlan only grunted, but Madame Bell’s assistant, Eliza, who was on her knees pinning the hem of the gown let out an appalled gasp, and Hyacinth, Isla, Lady Chase and Madame Bell all whipped their heads around to gape at Ciaran Ramsey, their mouths open in identical expressions of feminine outrage.
Ciaran, who didn’t seem to have the faintest idea of the devastation he’d wrought, stepped closer to peer at Isla’s gown, then drew back with a cheerful laugh. “Good Lord, I’d forgotten all about those lace caps until now. Poor Mrs. McGurty. She was a kind old soul, but I used to have nightmares about her when I was a boy.”
“Lace caps?” Madame Bell staggered backwards, her hand pressed to her chest as if to keep her heart from bursting out of her bodice. “Housekeeper?”
“Scraps of white?” Lady Chase’s face had gone purple. “Thosescraps, Mr. Ciaran Ramsey, happen to be the finest Belgian lace that can be had in London!”
Hyacinth squeezed her eyes closed. After a great deal of effort she’d almost managed to forget Ciaran and Lachlan were here at all, but now Ciaran had gone and given Madame Bell an apoplexy, and her grandmother looked as if she were about to collapse face first into her plate of biscuits.
“Ciaran Ramsey!” Isla turned a furious gaze on her brother, who was poking cautiously at the lace trim with the tip of his finger, as if he thought it might rear up and bite him.
Ciaran gave her a surprised look. “Why, Isla, what’s made you so cross?”
Isla slapped his hand away. “You and Lachlan promised you’d remainutterly silentif I didn’t fuss about your coming with me today.”
“I have been silent. Mostly. Why, I’m sure you hardly knew I was here.”
Isla planted her hands on her hips. “Do you call chattering on about white strings and lace caps beingsilent, Ciaran?”
Ciaran turned to Lachlan with a helpless look. “What did I do?”
Lachlan had hardly spoken a word since he arrived, but now he roused himself for long enough to scowl at Ciaran. “Never mind him, Isla. Just go on with your fitting as if neither of us are here.”
Hyacinth couldn’t prevent her soft snort of disbelief. Weren’t here, indeed. One was as likely to forget Lachlan Ramsey as they were to forget a lion pacing from one end of the room to the other. The sprawl of his long, muscular legs in those tight blue breeches seemed to take up every spare inch of floor space, and the way he kept fondling the head of his walking stick with those enormous hands was so distracting Hyacinth wanted to snatch it away from him and hurl it into the fire.
Whatever she might think of Lachlan Ramsey, there was noforgettinghim.
After their argument in the hallway yesterday, she hadn’t expected to see him again until she returned from Brighton. For pity’s sake, what gentleman insisted on sitting through an entire afternoon of gown fittings?
But here he was, his hazel eyes following her every move.
If she spoke, he sat up in his chair to hear what she said. If she sighed, his gaze jerked toward her to see why. If she so much as stroked a fold of silk or fingered a ribbon, he noticed it. She’d been so disconcerted by him she’d pricked herself at least a dozen times with Madame Bell’s pins. Her poor fingertips looked like pincushions.
“I’ve got it, Lach!” Ciaran had gone back to studying Isla’s lace, and now he turned to his brother with a triumphant smile. “It’s the same as the lace on Mrs. McGurty’s night rails!”
“Madame Bell!” Hyacinth leapt forward, caught the modiste, and hurried her to a chair just as the poor lady’s legs gave out beneath her.
Ciaran attempted to give the lace another poke, but Isla slapped at him again, and he jerked his hand away. “Ow! That stung. Good Lord, Isla. All this fuss to protect you from theton, when it’s thetonwho needs protection fromyou.”
Isla pointed toward the door. “Out. Both of you. This instant.”
“Why? What did we do?” Ciaran looked from one outraged lady to another with a baffled expression. “It wasn’t thelacethat gave me nightmares. It was Mrs. McGurty.”
Isla stamped her foot. “Never mind Mrs. McGurty! I don’t want to hear another word about her. I want you togo, right this second. I don’t know why you insisted on coming. You’re both obviously bored to tears.”
