Chapter Six
London residence of the Duke of Montague
Same day
“We’ll pack all your best gowns,” the duchess announced at luncheon. “And your riding habit. It is the country, and one must make the effort, I suppose. But not that trimmed habit you were wearing in the park last week. Trimming suddenly looks rather tawdry.”
“Plain is best,” Anne agreed. “Lady Festle wore such a cunning riding habit the other day. It had a waistcoat of ribbed white dimity…”
Eleanor wasn’t listening, which didn’t matter, as her mother didn’t consider conversation to be an occasion for interaction. Her sister Anne had appeared that morning in a costume that Eleanor would never have dreamed of ordering: a close-fitting coat of sky-blue taffety with a low neckline. It flared into folds at her hips, with a short petticoat of white linen underneath. In short, Madam Bouchon looked like the dashing and delectable young matron she was.
Whereas her own gown was a perfectly good stone-colored muslin. It was definitely serviceable. In fact, she thought it had served her for at least two or three seasons. The petticoat had a deep flounce, which was all one could say for its claim to fashion, especially since it also had the dreaded ruffled sleeves.
“I do not wish to pack my best gowns,” Eleanor interrupted, putting her fork down.
Anne raised an eyebrow.
Her mother just kept talking. “I shall send a message to Madame Gasquet and beg her to deliver the costume we ordered a few weeks ago.”
“I no longer want that particular gown,” Eleanor said, thinking of its long sleeves and longer petticoat.
“You simply must make an effort,” her mother scolded, finally looking up from the head of the table. “Anne took me to task this morning for allowing you to look so passé, and she’s right. You have shown so little interest in your appearance that I had lost heart for the battle. But now you are to be a duchess. You must dress à la mode.”
“I intend to,” Eleanor said. “The problem is that I own very few gowns that are akin to what Anne is wearing this morning. I would like to be as fashionable as she is at this moment.”
“The only thing that could make my jacket more modish would be tassels on the collar,” Anne said, with a complete lack of modesty. “I am considering the alteration. Did Villiers effect this miraculous change in your attitude? His coat was rather magnificent.”
“He has little to do with it. Your assessment brought me to my senses.”
“Brought you to your senses?” their mother intervened. “You’ve always been comfortingly sensible, Eleanor. Unlike Lisette.”
“What Eleanor means,” Anne said, “is that she’s agreed to stop hiding her beauty. She intends to dress like a desirable lady instead of a frump.”
“No daughter of mine could be a frump,” the duchess said. “I wouldn’t allow it.” Still, Eleanor could see that the idea was sinking into her mother’s head. She picked up her lorgnette and frowned through it at her. “I wouldn’t want you to dress like trollopy slattern. I find some current styles unacceptable.”
“Certainly not,” said Anne, who prided herself on wearing the most risqué fashions in all London. “You needn’t worry, Mother. I’ll send the footman for an armful of my gowns. Another footman must go to Madame Gasquet because I have three gowns on order, and I’ll donate them to the cause. Perhaps she will even have time to adjust for Eleanor’s bosom. If not, the necklines are quite low, and I doubt it will matter much.”
Eleanor bit her lip. She was apparently going from modest to decadent overnight.
“What we must consider,” the duchess announced, “is that your sister made a splendid match in her very first year. She turned down a marquis for Mr. Bouchon; he may not have an illustrious title—”
“But darling Jeremy has that lovely land in the dells,” Anne pointed out. “Acres and acres and acres, all filled with sheep. I am very expensive.”
“That is certainly true,” her mother agreed. “I do believe that your wardrobe this year cost double mine and Eleanor’s put together. Your father complained bitterly.”
Eleanor had never been expensive. If her mother indicated that a new gown was in order, she got through the fitting without fuss and with only one dictate: that she didn’t resemble a hussy.
“You and I are not so dissimilar,” her sister said now, apparently guessing exactly what was going through Eleanor’s mind.
“There I disagree,” the duchess said. “From the moment you debuted, Anne, I lived in fear that you would be compromised, whereas I’ve never had a moment of worry about Eleanor.”
“Eleanor is certainly prudent,” Anne said with a little snort that her mother didn’t hear.
“You must try to look more like your sister,” their mother said, nodding at Eleanor. “Now I think on it, Anne, you’ll have to accompany us.”
“Oh, I couldn’t leave Jeremy!”
“Of course you can. There’s nothing better for marriage than farewells. Your father and I rarely quarrel, a fact I attribute entirely to our lengthy separations.”
Since their father was prone to travel and spent most of his time in foreign climes, it was true that the opportunities for marital strife were limited.
“You needn’t come with me,” Eleanor said to Anne. “I’ll just inform Rackfort that I wish to pay more attention to my attire.” There was a moment of silence as her female relatives examined her. Eleanor raised a self-conscious hand to her hair. “I thought it looked quite nice, given that Rackfort was complaining of a toothache.”
“You’re right, Mother,” Anne said decisively. “I shall come, and I shall bring my maid. No, I shall do even better. I’ll give you Willa for the trip, Eleanor. It will be a true sacrifice and I expect I’ll gain a halo just for it. Let no one say that I don’t love my sister!”
Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Couldn’t Willa just give Rackfort a lesson or two?”
“Rackfort is worse than no maid at all,” Anne stated. “You shall have Willa, and I will make do with my second maid, Marie. I’ve been training her, and she’s quite good with hair.”
“I suspect you want to travel with us just for the sake of gathering gossip.”
“Someone has to make sure that you look your best,” Anne said virtuously.
“I can lend you one of my gowns, if need be,” their mother said. “Luckily, I have retained my figure.”
“Eleanor is not going to wear your gowns,” Anne stated, “though I know you meant it kindly. She already has the knack of dressing like a dowager; now she needs to learn a different style.”
By nine in the morning two days later, the redoubtable Madame Gasquet had sent the gowns ordered for Anne, as well as a deep blue brocade designed for some soon-to-be disappointed lady who happened to have appropriate measurements.
“It’s utterly perfect,” Anne said with satisfaction. “I happened to wander into the back room, and the moment I saw the girls stitching I knew that the color was just right for your eyes.”
“You snatched it away from whomever had ordered the gown?” Eleanor asked, eyeing her sister.
“Snatched has such unpleasant connotations,” Anne said. “I offered Madame Gasquet three times the price. Of course, she was lavishly grateful and practically threw the gown at me. You do know how much your patronage will mean once you are the Duchess of Villiers, don’t you?”
“Because the duke is so fashionable?” Eleanor asked, with a pang of misgiving.
“Precisely,” Anne said with a nod.
Eleanor opened her mouth to say that she couldn’t imagine herself achieving Villiers’s splendor when their mother called from the entrance hall. “I just need to say good-bye to Oyster,” she said, looking about for him. “He was here a moment ago.”
“Oh no, Oyster will come with us,” Anne said. “I’ll tie a bit of white lace on his collar so that he’s more fashionable.”
“Don’t be a fool,” their mother said, appearing in the doorway. “
Of course Eleanor is not bringing her potbellied little horror of a dog.”
“She must,” Anne explained. “She and Villiers had a laugh about Oyster at the benefit the other night. He’s a joke between them, you see. An intimacy.”
“Nothing could make Oyster look fashionable,” Eleanor said flatly.
“I’ll pin one of my ostrich feathers into his collar. Queen Charlotte herself adorned her dog with ostrich feathers. Or was it peacock feathers? This will show Villiers that you are truly à la mode. Everyone has a pug these days.”
“But I am not à la mode,” Eleanor began. “And more to the point, Oyster is not a pug.”
“Part of him is a pug,” Anne said, patting the dog. “Wait until you see how wonderful he looks with an ostrich feather.” She was wearing a wildly fashionable chip hat lined with sarcenet, with a cluster of white feathers on one side. Without pausing for breath, she plucked one of her plumes and knelt beside Oyster.
“He is a pug,” her mother announced. “Mr. Pesnickle said so, and although he might have been more tidy in his dog’s domestic arrangements, we must take him at his word.”
“No pug has those ears,” Eleanor said. “And more to the point, Oyster will not add to the occasion.”
“Your sister, young though she is, is much better at understanding men,” her mother ruled. “You have never shown the faintest interest in attracting a man’s attention, Eleanor; now you must accept advice from a younger sister.”
“Voilà!” Anne cried. “He’s wearing his feather à la conseilleur. See how it tilts sideways?”
“Who could miss it?” Eleanor asked, leaning down to give Oyster a pat. He panted enthusiastically, looking up at her with adoring eyes. She was very fond of Oyster. But he was one of those odd dogs who just missed being attractive. His body was cream, and his nose and muzzle were black, and then he was pop-eyed. The feather didn’t help.
“The point is,” Anne told her, “Oyster gives you something to talk about.”
Oyster’s incontinent habits certainly did generate conversation. “I don’t think he likes that feather, Anne.” It curled over his back and brushed his tail. Not the brightest of dogs, Oyster was convinced a fly was trying to bite him and so he began twisting around to snap at his own tail.
Though he was far too fat to actually reach his tail.
“It’s fashionable,” Anne said stubbornly. “Mother, don’t let her take the feather off. Oyster will get used to it, and the queen’s dog wears one precisely the same. Though I seem to remember hers does wear a peacock feather.”
A pug wearing a peacock feather. That would be a conversation piece, all right.
“When we arrive, you must go down for a nap immediately, Eleanor,” the duchess stated. “I want you to look your best by the time Villiers appears. Certainly better than Lisette!”
“Mother,” Eleanor said, “Lisette is a friend of mine. There’s no reason to use that tone.”
Her mother narrowed her eyes. “Eleanor, you are such a fool that it’s a miracle they’re calling Lisette cracked instead of yourself.”
Eleanor said nothing.
Her mother gave a faint shriek. “I’ll be blessed if I haven’t forgotten to take your grandmother’s silver combs! I want to arrange them on your bedside table.” She trotted from the room.
“Does she think that I’ll invite the duke into my bedchamber to examine my combs?” Eleanor said.
Anne gave her hand a squeeze. “Mother is accustomed to overstating her opinions.”
“I know.”
“She didn’t mean to call you stupid.”
But she did mean it. Eleanor had always been a puzzle to her mother, and not a pleasant one. Part of the problem was that the duchess had never known about Gideon, never known about the glorious year in which they grew closer and closer, fell in love, told each other everything, and finally, in that last delirious month before his birthday, made love.
Because her mother never knew that, she knew nothing about her.
The greater problem was that Eleanor simply didn’t fit in. She said the wrong things. She was too sarcastic.
Eleanor had figured out long ago that her mother was oblivious to her feelings and didn’t mean most of her insults. But the knowledge didn’t help. Every time her mother called her stupid, she felt more bitter, like a knife sharpened in the cold.
Then she would say something sarcastic again, exasperating her mother with her stupidity.
“Mother and I saw Gideon at the Duchess of Beaumont’s benefit ball,” Eleanor said, needing to tell someone. “He was in the refreshment tent and he came up to speak to us.”
“Was he with Ada?”
“She is ill again.”
Anne wrinkled her nose.
“Don’t! It’s not her fault.”
“I think she likes to lie about on a sofa and court attention,” Anne said with the relentless lack of sympathy that only a young healthy person could feel.
“I was there once when she had a coughing attack,” Eleanor said. “It sounded terribly painful. She couldn’t straighten up.”
“I don’t like her.”
“Don’t, don’t say that! It’s not her fault.”
“You’re right about that. It’s not her fault,” Anne said.
Eleanor blinked.
“I don’t mean her illness: I mean the rest of it. It’s Gideon’s fault, Eleanor, and now that you’re finally considering another man, I’m going to say it. He shouldn’t have left you like that. He should have broken that will. He never, ever should have behaved with such dishonor.”
“Dishonor!” Eleanor cried. “Why, that’s the opposite of what he did. He—”
“He dishonored you,” Anne said, steadily, holding her eyes. “Didn’t he, Eleanor?”
Eleanor had never been quite sure whether her sister knew the extent of that summer’s folly. “It wasn’t dishonor,” she said haltingly. “We are—we were in love.”
“If a man falls in love to that tune,” Anne said, “then he incurs some responsibility in the matter. Gideon is a cad, Eleanor. A louse. I’ve thought so forever, but I couldn’t say it because you made him into a saint, and yourself nothing more than a worshipper at his worthless shrine.”
“Not a louse,” Eleanor protested. “He’s honorable, and good. But once he learned of that will, it all became so complicated—”
“He’s a hoity-toity prig,” Anne interrupted. “Do you think he would have broken that will if you hadn’t—” She paused. “You might hate me for this, Eleanor, but I’m going to say it anyway. If you hadn’t given your virginity to Gideon, don’t you think he would have broken that will?”
“That’s a wretched thing to say!” Eleanor snapped. “We were in love! You may not know what that is like, but—”
“I agree with our nanny,” Anne said, overriding her. “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?”
“That’s—you can’t—” Eleanor felt rage rising in her chest and she tightened her grip on Oyster’s leash so suddenly that he gave a sharp yelp. The thought that Anne might be right was heartbreaking, literally.
“All I’m saying is that if you want to marry Villiers, you shouldn’t let him in your bedchamber to look at your combs—or anything else. That’s all I’m saying.”
“We were in love,” Eleanor repeated.
“He sneaked about, and did secret things with you,” Anne retorted. “How would you feel about him if you heard that he had been tupping one of the second footman’s daughters? You were a young girl, not old enough to know better.”
“You just don’t understand. We were both young. I was lucky to have loved like that for a time.” She said it stoutly, even though she didn’t really believe it.
Anne snorted. “I hope I’m never so lucky.”
Eleanor managed to summon up a crooked smile. “I won’t invite anyone into my chamber to examine my silver combs, I promise you that.” It was an easy enough promise to make.
; She and Villiers had an utterly different sort of relationship in mind. If she and Gideon had married, they would have been like twigs caught in a forest fire. They had made love barely ten times, and she remembered every single time. Every single moment.
“Stop smiling like that,” Anne commanded. “Gideon is married, remember? Think about Villiers.”
“I was, actually,” Eleanor said.
“No, you weren’t,” Anne said sourly. “I’ve been your sister for eighteen years. I know what that daffy look means, and it has got nothing to do with the Duke of Villiers.”
“Do you really think that I’ve been worshipping at Gideon’s shrine?” Eleanor wrinkled her nose. “How wet I sound.”
“You were unlucky. He is a debaucher who took the first chance he could to leave you in the dust and marry the oh-so-pretty Ada.”
Eleanor bit her lip.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” Anne said hastily. “You’re pretty too, Eleanor.”
“In my own way.”
“It’s just that Ada has that heart-shaped face and seems so fragile. She’s like a fairy princess. Irresistible, for a man who loves to think of himself as a knight in shining armor.”
“She truly is fragile—and sweet,” Eleanor said. “I’m not, and I can’t pretend that I am.”
“Of course you’re not. And Gideon knows it now,” Anne said with unmistakable satisfaction.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that he’s tired of Ada and her fainting and coughing and carrying on. I saw it last time Mother took me there for tea and he stayed with us for barely a moment or two. I think he probably fell in love with the idea of saving her, poor fragile little darling that she was, but now he—”
“Don’t go on,” Eleanor said. “You’re making everything in my life, everything I care for, seem shabby and nasty. I know you don’t mean it, but I want you to stop now.”
The door bounced open again. “Girls! Don’t keep me waiting, if you please!” Their mother stood in the doorway, ringed by three maids. “Hobson, gather that lace shawl, if you please. Eleanor, hand the dog to Hobson; he can travel with the maids. Oyster may be a source for conversation, but I’d rather arrive without urine on my skirts.”