nerves danced in Caro's stomach, and she glanced down at her rose-colored brocade. Festooned around her neck and down the front with ribbons—it had been her father's favorite. "Do you think Foxhaven will approve of this gown?" Lucas had recommended she order a new wardrobe in London.
Lizzie glowered into the mirror. "He should be glad to see his bride when he hasn't seen you for two weeks, no matter what you have on. You are newlyweds."
Caro grew a little warm. She hated the lies that tripped off her tongue, but she could hardly announce the agreement she and Lucas had made. "Foxhaven says all the best houses in Town are snapped up early in the season. He had to go ahead to ensure us decent accommodations."
Lizzie snorted. "I've never heard the like of it, leaving a bride on her honeymoon."
She would never have a honeymoon, and there was no sense mourning the fact. Aware of Lizzie's suspicious glance, she blinked away the mistiness in her eyes.
"That last pin made my eyes run."
"Be careful, Lizzie," Alex said.
"You can't reform a rake." Lizzie's tone was dark as she fixed another wisp in place. "You said that to your poor dear papa, rest his soul. And he supported you. Why didn't you say yes at the time? Then at least Lord Stockbridge wouldn't have badgered him into an early grave."
Oppressed by the sense of guilt she'd carried since her father died, her shoulders sagged. "I don't wish to discuss it, Lizzie."
Running feet sounded on the stairs outside, followed by stifled giggles.
"Are you finished yet?" called Jacqueline on the other side of the door. "May we come in?" The younger girls had escaped the drawing room and Miss Salter, their governess, for the second time that morning.
Stepping back to admire her handiwork, Lizzie frowned. "It's the best I can do."
Caro nodded. "You have done your best, Lizzie. Thank you. No one can turn a sow's ear into a silk purse." Nor yet a sow into a fashionable gazelle.
"Caro!" Alex exclaimed crossly, and threw open the door. Lucy and Jacqueline danced over the threshold in new green muslin gowns. It was as if her parents had had two families. First her, and then seven years later, Alex, Lucy, and Jacqueline in quick succession. If only Mother had not died giving birth to the stillborn son and heir, who would have kept their home within the family, things might have turned out very differently for them all.
Lucy glued her gaze on Caro, her eyes like jade medallions, her curly red hair springing in little corkscrews around her face. "You look scrumptious."
Caro laughed. She knew she was mousy, not a glorious auburn like Lucy, nor blonde and blue-eyed like the other two. Mouse, plain and simple. With emphasis on the plain. The worst possible combination of her exotic French mother and sandy-haired father: brown hair, nondescript light-brown eyes, skin that would never be alabaster, no matter how much milk she used, and a figure like an overblown rose, when the fashion required elegant willows. But her younger sisters' youthful adoration glowed in her heart.
"You look like an iced cake," pronounced Jacqueline, dancing around her.
"A cake?" Caro said, uncomfortably aware of a surfeit of ruffles covering her overly bountiful bosom and generous hips. She darted a glance in the mirror.
"Silly," Lucy said. "She looks all grand, like a titled lady."
A small shiver ran through Caro at the thought of the title and all it should mean, but did not.
"I don't want you to go." Jacqueline's voice sounded as thick and damp as a foggy morning.
A shadow passed through the room, glowing faces dimmed, eyes clouded.
Caro forced a bright smile. "The season ends in July. I will be back before you notice I'm gone, and in a year's time, it will be Alex's turn to comeout. Then we will all go to London."
"A whole year." Alex flounced to the window.
"I
Patricia D. Eddy, Jennifer Senhaji
Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead)