Recalled to her soup, Agatha nodded, adding, “The most important person you’ll ever have to convince of your beauty.”
Soup spoon suspended, Lenore stared. “But I’m no beauty.”
Dismissively, Agatha waved the point aside. “Used the wrong word—attractiveness, style, call it what you will. That certain something that some women have that makes them stand out in a crowd. That’s what Lafarge will be looking for. She’s agreed to consider taking you on as a client, but she could change her mind.”
Appalled, Lenore considered this unexpected hurdle. She had rather thought that, as the customer, she would choose her supplier. Obviously, in the case of fashionable modistes, this was not the case.
“Don’t concern yourself over the matter,” Agatha said, pushing her plate away. “No reason she won’t see something interesting in you.”
Lenore had no answer to that.
“I’d thought to take this opportunity to fill you in about Eversleigh and the family. Once it’s known you’re here, we’ll be inundated with invitations—unlikely we’ll get much chance of quiet nights.”
Lenore noted the satisfied glint in her ladyship’s dark eyes. Her hostess was clearly looking forward to being the cynosure of all attention.
“I take it you’re aware of Ricky’s death?”
Lenore frowned. “Eversleigh’s brother?” When Agatha nodded, she said, “Jack told me he was killed at Waterloo.”
“Hougoumont,” Agatha supplied. “Gloriously tragic. Typical of Ricky, really.”
When her hostess did not immediately continue, Lenore hesitantly asked, “What I wasn’t clear about was why Jack thought that was the reason Eversleigh had to wed.”
“Now that,” said Agatha, helping herself to a dish of mussels in white wine, “is a typical piece of Eversleigh organisation.” She glanced shrewdly at Lenore before adding, “Always felt you were one young woman I did not need to beat about the bush with, so I’ll tell you simply. Eversleigh never intended to marry. Something of a cold fish, Jason, not given to the warmer emotions. At least,” she amended, considering her point, “that’s what he thinks. Deeply cynical and all that. He and Ricky had a…a pact, so that Ricky was to be the one to marry and his son would ultimately inherit the title.”
“And Waterloo dashed that plan?”
“Indeed, yes.” Agatha
nodded portentously. “And rather more besides.” She paused pensively, then shook herself and looked at Lenore. “Jason and Ricky were very close, so Hougoumont smashed more than Jason’s plans for a fancy-free future. Even I would not care to mention Hougoumont in Jason’s hearing.”
“I understand.” Lenore stared unseeing at the slice of turbot on her plate.
“Mind you,” Agatha continued, waving her fork to dispel the sudden gloom, “I’m beginning to wonder if that wasn’t an example of the Almighty moving in strange ways.”
Lenore looked up. “How so?”
“Well, I dare say Ricky would have made an acceptable duke—he was trained to it, as was Jason. And the family would have accepted his sons to succeed him.” Pushing a mussel about on her plate, Agatha grimaced. “It’s just that we would all prefer Eversleigh—that is, Jason—to be succeeded by his own son. Particularly, if you were there to ensure said son did not take after his father in absolutely all respects.” Agatha waved her knife at Lenore. “Jason’s plan was well enough, but he was always one to assume others could perform any task as well as he. But Ricky could never have been as decisive as Jason—no, nor as commanding. He simply wasn’t as powerful, as unshakeably strong. And, when it comes to ruling a very large family, and very large estates, it’s precisely that quality which makes all the difference.”
Lenore raised her brows to indicate her interest but made no other reply. As she had hoped, Agatha rambled on, giving her a sketchy outline of the family estates together with an abbreviated history of the Montgomerys, refreshing her memory of Eversleigh’s aunts and their numerous offspring. By the time Agatha waved her upstairs for an early night, Lenore’s head was spinning with the effort to store all the information her hostess had let fall.
She rose early the next morning, still attuned to country hours. Trencher was there, bubbling with suppressed excitement at the thought of her mistress’s visit to Lafarge’s famous salon. As she allowed herself to be gowned in the gold muslin, the most acceptable dress she possessed, Lenore viewed her maid’s affliction with a lenient eye, aware that no such emotion had yet touched her. Breakfast was served on a tray in her room, as was Agatha’s habit. Afterwards, Lenore strolled in the small gardens behind the house, waiting for her hostess, trying to quell the trepidatious flutter of her nerves and the strange yearning for Eversleigh’s large figure to appear, to lend her strength for the coming ordeal—her first crucial step into his fashionable world.
* * *
AGATHA’S CARRIAGE pulled up outside a plain door wedged between two shops on Bruton Street. Above the door hung a simple sign—“Mme Lafarge, Modiste”.
Handed down from the carriage, Agatha shook out her skirts and eyed the door shrewdly. “Lafarge only makes for a select few. Hideously expensive, so I’ve heard.”
Joining her hostess on the pavement, Lenore turned to stare. “Isn’t she your dressmaker?”
“Heavens, no! I might be well-to-do but I’m not that rich.” Agatha straightened her straight back and headed for the door. “No—Eversleigh arranged it.”
Of course. Lenore’s lips tightened momentarily. She permitted herself a frown, then shrugged and followed her mentor up the steep stairs beyond the plain door.
Madame Lafarge was waiting in the large salon on the first floor. The room was elegantly furnished, gilt chairs upholstered in satin damask set in a tight circle facing outwards from the centre of the floor. Mirrors were discreetly placed around the walls, interspersed with wall hangings in a soothing shade of pale green. Madame herself proved to be a small, severely neat, black-haired Frenchwoman who stared unblinkingly at Lenore throughout the introductions.
These completed, she reached for Lenore’s hand. “Walk for me, Miss Lester,” she commanded in heavily accented English, drawing Lenore clear of the chairs. “To the windows and back.”