The words landed softer than Mary expected. She searched for the cold pragmatism she had come to associate with his decisions and found consideration underneath. The kind of man offered when he could not yet bring himself to offer more.
“Very well,” she said. “Send for your modiste.”
Evander nodded, finished his coffee, and rose from the table. He paused at the door.
“The color should suit you,” he said. “Not the family. You.”
He left before she could respond.
“Stand straight, Your Grace. Arms out. Yes, like that.”
Madame Laurent circled Mary with a measuring tape draped around her neck and a mouthful of pins. She was a small, sharp-eyed Frenchwoman who moved with the efficiency of a general conducting maneuvers, and she had arrived with two assistants, a trunk of fabric, and the absolute certainty that she could produce a masterpiece in less than a week.
“His Grace selected these two.” She held up the sapphire and the silver, one in each hand. “Both would serve. The sapphire is bolder. The silver is more refined.”
Mary touched the sapphire silk. The fabric was heavier than she expected, cool and liquid under her fingers. “He chose these?”
“From the six I sent this morning.” Madame Laurent pinned a length of the sapphire against Mary’s shoulder and stepped back, tilting her head. “He has a good eye, your husband. The sapphire brings out the warmth in your complexion. The silver would make you look like a painting. Both are correct.” She met Mary’s eyes in the mirror. “Which would you prefer? To be warm, or to be admired?”
Mary looked at herself in the glass. The sapphire silk caught the light and held it, rich and alive against her skin. Beside her,Hattie hovered with a pincushion, her eyes wide at the quality of the fabric.
“Warm,” Mary said.
Madame Laurent smiled. “The sapphire, then. An excellent choice. His Grace will approve.”
“Is that important?” Mary asked. “His approval?”
Madame Laurent looked at her over the top of her spectacles. “A woman dresses for herself, Your Grace. But there is nothing wrong with enjoying the effect.” She snapped her fingers at her assistants. “The sapphire. Full skirt. We will do a fitted bodice with the natural waist, and the neckline will be square. Not too deep. Elegant. Your collarbones will do the rest.”
The fitting took an hour. Madame Laurent measured and pinned and draped, her assistants scribbling notes, and Hattie fetched tea and watched from the corner with barely concealed excitement.
“You will be the talk of the ball, Your Grace,” Hattie said, bringing over a fresh cup. “I heard Mrs. Cahill say that His Grace hasn’t attended a society event in over a year.”
“Longer, by my count,” Madame Laurent said through a mouthful of pins. She removed them one by one and tucked them into her cuff. “His Grace is not a man who tolerates ballrooms willingly. If he is choosing to attend, he has hisreasons. And if he is commissioning a gown from me on a day’s notice, the reason is standing in my silk.”
Mary felt the color rise in her cheeks. She looked at herself in the glass and saw the sapphire fabric draped across her shoulders, the bodice pinned to suggest the shape Madame Laurent would build overnight.
For the first time since her wedding, she allowed herself to feel like something other than a solution to someone else’s problem.
The woman in the glass wore sapphire silk and stood with her chin lifted, and she looked like a duchess because she had chosen to, not because a man had arranged it.
The afternoon passed. Dinner was the most civil meal they had shared since the wedding. Evander asked about the fitting, and Mary told him she had chosen the sapphire.
“The sapphire.” He set down his wine glass. Something passed across his face, brief and quickly mastered. “That was the right choice.”
“Madame Laurent said you would approve.”
“Did she?”
“She also said that a man who commissions a gown on a day’s notice has his reasons.” Mary held his gaze across the table. “What are your reasons, Evander?”
He picked up his glass again. “I told you. The ton will be watching.”
“And that is the only reason.”
“That is the only reason I intend to discuss at dinner.” But the corner of his mouth moved, just slightly, and Mary filed the image away beside the smile she had caught in the nursery and the way his voice had softened when he told her the color should suit her, not the family.
They finished the meal in something that felt, for the first time, almost like companionship. Not warmth, not yet. But the absence of frost.
