“Thank you, I’m not very hungry.” Prudence waved her away. “And why woolgathering?”
The women all exchanged looks, waiting for the others to talk. “Because gathering wool is boring?” Justine suggested.
“Never gathered wool, so I’ll take your word for it. We had cattle.” Prudence stood, stretching her back. “Is there anything stronger than tea to drink?”
“Sherry already?” Ophelia asked, looking positively scandalized.
“Oh, no, I meant instead of tea. Have you coffee?” Prudence shook her hands out, as if she were readying to climb a rope. Shefelt both jittery and lethargic. Leo might come tonight. The idea of seeing him made her feel like her stomach was going to come up and exit her mouth.
“Have you not been sleeping well?” Eleanor asked.
“No, I mean, well, the sleep is fine. I’m just nervous about tonight is all.” Prudence walked away from them, hiding her face as she went to inspect their costumes. Their dresses all matched the shades of blue of the banners that now hung from the ceiling of Ophelia’s ballroom.
Justine’s was the lightest color, as she begged to be the surface, since that’s what everyone thought of her as anyway, she said. Eleanor was the darkest blue, nearly black, the depths of the sea, unable to freeze. Ophelia was the color closest to Justine, and Prudence was the darker color, closer to Eleanor’s. It was a pretty color—almost a cobalt.
And she didn’t want to wear blue. She wanted to wear red, the color of a widow on the hunt for a lover. Because that’s what she wanted to be.
“We’ve sold all the tickets, haven’t we?” Prudence asked, careful to keep her tone even and light.
“Yes,” Ophelia said, sounding puzzled. They had discussed this many times over the past week. “Should be quite the crush.”
There was a scratching at the door before it swung open. The cadre of maids entered, Georgie among them, ready to begin the preparations. Hair would take the longest, and while Georgie was useless with it, she would be good with her needle and thread, as well as providing an extra pair of hands.
The day was here. The day that ended all excuses to see Leo Moon. And she wasn’t seeing him anyway, so this was an easy bookend to that adventure. Her attempt at having a lover. A lump formed in her throat, but she swallowed it down.
“Prudence, you haven’t eaten a thing. If you keep that up, you’ll either be drunk by eight or pass out at nine.” Justineheld out the platter of food for her. “You can go last. Try to get something in there, please?”
Justine was not prone to fits of mothering or overprotection. So if she was insisting, the situation was dire.
“Fine,” Prudence said, accepting the plate. She picked at the summer strawberries and the soft brie. Ophelia was seated at the vanity table first, surrounded by the army of maids. It would take a great deal of engineering to fit them with the eighteenth-century-style wigs they’d ordered.
*
“WHY AREN’T YOUdressed?” his mother asked him, bursting into his study again.
“Mother!” He threw down his papers. “I am working. I am putting food in our mouths, do you mind?”
She thumped her cane on the floor. “Don’t speak to me that way. Go get dressed this instant.”
“I have no intention of going anywhere.” He picked up the paper he’d just thrown—it was a short note from Eyeball. He skimmed it, finding the man was asking for his next lesson. Eyeball wasn’t stupid, so that was fortunate, but he was still tiresome. At the bottom, he scrawled a sentence about seeing him at the charity ball. He could only mean this one. There were barely any parties now that the weather had turned and people were starting to leave for the countryside ahead of the Michaelmas break in Parliament.
“You had better go. If nothing else, then to see our influence in action.” His mother waved him out of the room, which didn’t work, since he was still sitting at his desk.
Mrs. Cabot says your mother assisted with the decorations. I have always enjoyed your mother and look forward to seeing her there to pay my respects.
Eyeball’s respects made it hard to swallow. He didn’t want the man anywhere near his mother. And what was he doing talking to Prudence? He tossed the missive to the desk and saw the stubborn defiance in his mother’s expression. He came by his own, naturally. But there was a time to fight and a time to bend.
“I’ll be ready in fifteen minutes. Please wait for me.” Leo stood, and his mother smiled in triumph. But it wasn’t her insistence. It was Eyeball’s.
*
PRUDENCE WAS UNRECOGNIZABLE.She wore skirts that ballooned sideways instead of bell-shape. Her bejeweled mask revealed only her lips, which were rouged a bright scarlet. The wig pinned on her head must have weighed five pounds, piled high with powdered hair and an absurd cutout featuring the gentle slope of the Ben Nevis peak, crusted in paste jewels, as if it had been covered in a blanket of fresh snow.
Ophelia had the pleasure of wearing Mount Everest, Eleanor sported Mount Fuji, and Justine wore Mount Kilimanjaro. They all wore masks identical to Prudence’s, leaving only lips and chin visible. To Prudence’s eye, they looked strange, but Lady Rascomb clapped her hands when she saw them descend the stairs.
Each dress was a different shade of blue and cut slightly differently to accent each woman’s natural shape. Justine’s was the most true to the older fashion, a light ice-blue gown with a square neckline and sleeves ending in white lace at her elbows, showing off her ample cleavage and small waist. Ophelia’s was the shade darker, and was cut with a high cream-colored lace collar that framed her perfect jawline and then plunged low to a deep vee. Prudence thought Ophelia looked the most regal.Like the portraits of haughty Queen Elizabeth, only far more beautiful.
Prudence looked nothing like Justine or Ophelia or Eleanor, and had several inches on all three women. Prudence’s dress was cobalt, and of the four was by far the most fashionable because of her bare shoulders. The silver embroidery along the bodice stood out, the sinuous curves mimicking the shapes of waves. Eleanor was last, wearing a gown so blue it was almost purple. The silver embroidery was not just on her bodice, but stretched from skirt hem to her sleeves. The collar was high and elegant, as befitted a married woman, but it didn’t look prudish at all. She was covered, but she appeared sleek and graceful.
