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debutante ball, and that’s important. Why, I might meet my future husband there.”
    “Imagine!” Fern gasped. “Just like Cinderella.”
    “Or some high-society Austin man. It is at the governor’s mansion, you know.”
    “I know.” Fern’s brown eyes widened. “Except I’d rather go to a barn dance with Luke Jeffries. Neither of us would feel comfortable at a fancy shindig like this.”
    “Well, this is my first ball,” Turquoise reminded her. “I’ve always dreamed of being married to an important man and no one sneering at me again and wondering if I’m really Mexican.”
    “Oh, Turquoise, half the people in Texas are part Mexican. They just don’t talk about it.”
    “Well, I want to marry someone so important, no one would dare make rude remarks about me.”
    “You really want to marry some stuffy city man?” Fern asked.
    For just a moment, she remembered the man she had met this morning, the sweaty sheen of his muscular brown body, the way his dark eyes had devoured her. She shookher head to clear it. “I’ve got to wash up. Then would you please help me with my hair?”
    “Sure,” Fern said. “I can hardly wait to see you in that dress. Get your curling iron and I’ll get a lamp.”
    Turquoise washed and dried her long black hair while Fern put the curling iron over the oil lamp to heat. Then they curled her hair and put it up on her head in a mass of ebony curls with several turquoise and silver combs.
    Next Turquoise put on a fine lace petticoat, a lace bodice, and long silk stockings under her lace drawers. “Do you think I dare put on makeup?”
    Fern rolled her eyes. “You want to be taken for one of those girls on the street?”
    “Good point. I’ll just pinch my cheeks and bite my lips to give them some color.”
    “At least you don’t freckle like I do,” Fern said.
    Turquoise looked in the mirror again. “I hope Uncle Trace doesn’t forget and comes up in time to get dressed.”
    She took the dress out of its box and Fern helped her slip it on.
    “My word!” Fern gasped as she surveyed the low bodice. “Your uncle let you buy this?”
    “Well, actually, he didn’t see it,” Turquoise said defensively, “and I do have a shawl and some jewelry.”
    “Maybe you won’t look so bare with the jewelry,” Fern suggested.
    She was having her doubts as she stared at her reflection in the mirror. The silk clung to her generous curves. She wasn’t sure Uncle Trace would let her leave the hotel if he saw her in this dress. “It is the latest fashion, Mrs. Whittle assured me. She said I’d really fit in among the debutantes.”
    “I don’t know about that,” Fern said, still wide-eyed and doubtful.
    Turquoise looked at the clock ticking on the bureau,sprayed herself with forget-me-not perfume, and put on the fine turquoise and silver jewelry she owned.
    Next door, she heard the key turning in the lock as Uncle Trace came into the adjoining room. “Hey darlin’, are you about ready?” he yelled.
    She looked at Fern and now she was spooked, too. “Actually, I’m ready, Uncle Trace. Why don’t I go on ahead and you meet me there? I think there’s supposed to be some kind of practice for the girls.”
    “Alone at night in a big city?”
    “Stop worrying about me. I’ll get a carriage and go directly to the ball.”
    “All right.” He sounded uncertain. “It’s at the governor’s mansion, right?”
    “
Si,
” she said and picked up her tiny reticule and her shawl. “Fern, walk down with me.”
    “Sure.”
    The two girls walked out into the hall and down the stairs. Turquoise had draped the shawl around her shoulders, but as they passed gentlemen, the men turned and gave Turquoise a wide-eyed look.
    “My word,” Fern whispered, “you are attracting attention, all right. I reckon I’m just too old-fashioned to keep up with high style.”
    Turquoise put her head in the air and walked proudly, as a society lady should, as she went to the desk and asked for a