Of a similarly flummoxed state, the best response from Sterling was a hesitant, “You’re…welcome?”
Lady Ellinwood delivered a brisk nod. “Now that that matter is settled, please direct your driver to return us home with all haste.” Her cheeks drew inwards as she pursed her thin lips. “We’ve much to prepare for before the Royal Gala. And do advise your driver to take more care with the corners. His handling of a carriage of this size is really quite atrocious. My husband could do a better job at the reins, and he has been dead for nearly thirty years.”
Sterling twisted behind him to tap his driver (who was incredibly skilled at his profession) on the shoulder. “You heard Lady Ellinwood, Bentley. Back to Mayfair.” He lowered his voice. “An extra ten pounds if you drive like the bloody wheels are on fire.”
Bentley tipped his felt bowler. “As you wish, Your Grace.”
Chapter Fifteen
Rosemary floated onair for the rest of the morning and into the afternoon. The things Sterling had said about her…the ways he’d described her…no one had ever seen her as he did. No one had ever made herfeelas he did. Appreciated for who she was, not what she was lacking.
The clouds carried her all the way up until her lady’s maid, Rebecca, a mousy young woman with bulbous eyes and tiny teeth, entered her bedchamber carrying what could only be described as the most atrocious ball gown she had ever seen.
Pink and fluffy, with layers upon layers of bows and ruffles, it was so blindingly ugly that it made the bonnet Sterling had pulled off her head and tossed in the bushes look like a crown befit for Queen Victoria. And Rosemary, who had never–not once–bothered to comment on any of the dresses and various accompanying articles of clothing that her grandmother’s modiste had made for her, no matter how frumpy or out of style they were (according to Evie), held up her hand and stopped Rebecca at the door.
“Please don’t bring that in here,” she said, almost pleadingly.
“I am sorry, Miss Rosemary.” In Rebecca’s favor, she appeared as if she genuinely meant it. “It just arrived, and Lady Ellinwood requested I bring it up straightaway in case any adjustments need to be made. Do you mind if I set it down on the bed? It’s quite heavy.”
Yes, Rosemary imagined that 780 bows weighed a lot.
“It’s so…pink,” she said as she and her maid stepped back from the mattress to study the gown as they might a frog that had been laid open for scientific dissection.
“Lady Ellinwood seemed very pleased with it.”
“Well, she doesn’t have to be the one to wear it,” Rosemary muttered.
Normally, she didn’t care what she wore.
But there wasn’t anything normal about the evening that awaited her.
For one thing, it was the Royal Gala. For another, she was attending as the wife-to-be of one of the most prominent men in all of England. Dozens, if not hundreds, of eyes would be trained upon her from the moment she entered the grand ballroom.
And she was going dressed as a poor flamingo that had inadvertently stumbled into the scrap fabric bin.
If she was only representing herself, it wouldn’t have mattered. Oh, people would have undoubtedly stared and snickered. But that wasn’t out of the ordinary. Between the books she carried tucked under her arm and the squirrel in her pocket, people were always staring and snickering. In a world of great beauty and dresses that might as well have been walking works of art, she was accustomed to sticking out like a frumpy sore thumb.
But just for one night–forthisnight–she’d wanted her peers to look at her and think to themselves,“There goes the future Duchess of Hanover. Isn’t she lovely?”
Yes, it was a superficial need.
More of a want, really.
But did that make it wrong?
She fervently wished that Evie was here. If there was anyone talented enough to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, it was her cousin. But Evie and Joanna were still in Scotland, which meant that she was on her own.
“Do you think we’d be able to remove any of the bows?” she asked. “I’ve shears in my writing desk.”
“Perhaps,” said Rebecca, although she sounded doubtful.
“That’s all right. I’d probably just end up with a dress covered in holes instead of ribbon.” Resigning herself to her fate, Rosemary untied her wrapper and held her arms above her head. “A flamingo it is.”
“It is notthatbad,” Rebecca said some two hours later after she’d helped Rosemary don her undergarments, including a hoop skirt made of flattened steel wire, and the gown itself, which, impossibly, appeared even worseonthan it had off.
Staring at herself in the full-length dressing mirror propped against the wall, Rosemary exchanged a rueful smile with her reflection.
The dress began with puffed sleeves that sat high on her shoulders and ended just above her elbows. The bodice, generously curved to emphasize her breasts, might have actually been flattering if not for the scalloped trim that most closely resembled a jester’s neck ruff. A line of bows ran down the front to the waist. Round as a bell, the skirt was comprised of multiple layers of coral gauze, each slightly longer than the last, which culminated in a hemline made of even more bows. The bustle, padded from the mohair of surely no less than half a dozen angora goats, sat upon her rump like its very own island. It, too, was pink, albeit swathed in a covering of white lace.
