“Lacking? Georgiana Tolliver!” Lady Tolliver threw up her hands. “One had a baronetcy, another had ten thousand a year and property in Surrey, and a third drove a curricle worth more than this entire street! I shall tell you what islacking: a well-negotiated, ironclad betrothal contract!”
At this, Lottie – who had been observing the exchange with an expression of bored amusement – tilted her head and said, far too innocently: “But really, Mama, if we are to lament our family’s prospects, ought we not begin with the far more pressing matter of the male line? After all, Hetty’s unmarried state is hardly a crisis compared to the absence of an heir.” Lottie let that hang in the air just long enough before adding, “You know, Mama, I have an excellent solution. If Ben insists upon avoiding matrimony, I see no alternative but to put him in a gown, powder his hair, and present him to the Queen. A curtsey here, a fan flutter there… he shall be the toast of the Season in no time.”
Lady Tolliver huffed and sank into a chair, fanning herself with a dramatic air. “Someone fetch the undertaker. I should like to choose a coffin that compliments my complexion, as I am clearly not long for this world.”
Hetty exchanged a look of silent amusement with her sisters, before Georgie reached into her reticule for the vinaigrette she kept on hand for precisely such occasions.
“Come now, Mama,” said Georgie. “You mustn’t distress yourself. We all know how very delicate your nerves are.”
Lady Tolliver made a great show of inhaling from the vinaigrette and closing her eyes. “Delicate nerves, indeed… Delicate nerves are precisely what one develops after nearly two decades shepherding six unmanageable children through society without collapsing entirely.”
“Surely the physician ought to forbid you excitement altogether, Mama,” said Lottie. “Balls, musicales, charitable fêtes… anything remotely stimulating.”
Lady Tolliver cracked one eye open and levelled a look over the vinaigrette. “If that were the case, child, I should have packed you off to a convent long ago and preserved what little peace I have left.”
Georgie gave her hand a pat. “There now. A few deep breaths and you shall find yourself quite restored.”
Lady Tolliver inhaled heroically, clutching the vinaigrette. With one final, valiant sniff, she waved it away. “Thank you, Georgiana. I am much improved.” She gestured towards the nearest shop girl, who had been hovering nearby, anxiously clutching a tray of silk-covered buttons. “You, there! A thimble of cordial, if you please – not that dreadful cherry abomination, something refreshing. Lemon, perhaps. Or elderflower, if it is very cold.” She paused, placing a hand on her forehead. “And do fetch a cooling cloth. The exertion has quite overwhelmed me. I feel a distinct fluttering in my temples. Possibly even my ankles.”
The poor shop girl bobbed a curtsy and fled.
“Might I suggest a drop of laudanum and a month’s retreat to the country?” Lottie muttered under her breath, low enough to escape their mother’s ears.
“You are absolutely no help whatsoever,” Georgie whispered.
Now sniffling delicately, Lady Tolliver turned back to her true burden: her eldest daughter, standing on the fitting platform, a lace-edged fichu pinned at her throat while the modiste bustled about with a new selection of trims.
“Now then,” she continued, “Henrietta. Let us fall back to the matter at hand. Your attire for the Season. Do you recall poor Miss Pembroke? A perfectlylovelygirl… until Lady Beaumont’s charity ball. Her gown, my dear, was nothing short of a catastrophe. A neckline so low it might as well have been a hemline. The poor creature’s bosom was practically greeting guests on her behalf.” She sniffed again. “Utterly ruined. She might as well have arrived barefoot, clutching a gin bottle. I have never seen so many monocles drop in unison.”
“Oh dear,” said Hetty. “A true cautionary tale.”
“I should say so!” Lady Tolliver exclaimed. “One moment she was the darling of the Season, and the next – well, one hardly dares speak her name. The scandal was whispered from London to Bath in under a fortnight. There were sketches.” She lowered her voice. “Caricatures, Henrietta. In colour!”
“Dreadful,” Hetty said, biting the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. She caught her mother’s eye and bestowed upon her a smile that could only belong to a daughter who had taken every one of her mother’s lessons to heart. “You may rest easy, Mama. I shall be most mindful of my choices this Season. Nothing too French. Nothing too forward. And my bosom will remain entirely within my bodice.”
Lady Tolliver, clearly pacified, relaxed back in her chair with an approving nod. “Very good. That is all I ask.” She closed her eyesagain. “A neckline may flatter, but it must never announce. Remember that.”
Hetty turned gracefully from the mirror, making her way towards the modesty screen, where a shop assistant waited to unfasten the row of tiny hooks and eyes running down the back of the unfortunate lemon-yellow gown.
When the Madame Celestine stepped behind the screen with pins and a measuring tape, Hetty lowered her voice. “Madame, I should like to make a small adjustment to the fit of my gowns this season.”
“Of course, Miss Tolliver. What is it that you require? A finer seam? A touch more structure in the bodice, perhaps?
Hetty lowered her gaze as though making a perfectly ordinary request. “I should like the bustlines of all my gowns lowered. As far as gravity will allow.”
The modiste only lifted her brows, for a woman in her profession had learnt the art of discretion. “Miss Tolliver, I beg your pardon. I must have misheard.”
Hetty smiled. “You did not.”
The modiste cleared her throat, clearly weighing a lifetime of professional discretion against the probable wrath of Lady Tolliver. “You are quite certain, miss? The Viscountess may not approve.”
“Oh, I daresay she shan’t,” Hetty whispered back. “But I am not dressing for Mama this Season.” She reached for her gloves. “Only, do ensure the stitching is exceedingly secure. I should hate for thetonto see me fall apart.”
Chapter 4
It was, as all inaugural balls of the Season must be, a dizzying spectacle of gowns vying for notice, mothers angling for introductions, and young gentlemen doing their utmost to appear either eligible or artfully indifferent. The ballroom, aglow beneath a hundred wax candles, had already filled to stifling capacity as thetonassembled to admire, speculate, and, above all, pass judgement on who had wintered well and who had decidedly not. Spring fashions were on full display, newly minted debutantes floating past in pastels and lace gloves, blissfully unaware that by evening’s end the scandal sheets would have already crowned their favourites and selected a few promising victims. Miss Ellington, for example, had arrived in a gown of such blazing orange it could be seen from across the ballroom without the aid of opera glasses. Paired with a towering green Easter bonnet, the overall effect was that of a giant carrot. The Fairchild twins, meanwhile, had already managed to confuse one hapless suitor into proposing to the wrong sister, a mishap their mother declared “entirely understandable,” though her pallor suggested she thought otherwise.
However, amidst the usual absurdities of the Season’s first grand ball, there was one particular shock upon which every eye fell – that shock being, naturally, Miss Henrietta Tolliver, or more precisely, her scandalously indecent gown.
