Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Icannot believe I am actually going to do this,” Ophelia muttered, staring up at the modiste’s store front.
All of her friends gathered around her, hugging her and giving her support.
“Deep breaths,” Theo encouraged. “Amelia and I have acquired you invitations to several parties.”
“And Rose and I have started some very lovely whispers that you have changed much about yourself and are now looking for a husband,” Seraphina added.
“All lies, I am sure,” Ophelia grunted.
Seraphina gave her a sheepish smile.
“Let us not call them lies,” she said cheerfully. “Let us say…creative tellings of your new desire to be married.”
Ophelia gave her well-meaning friend a wary look.
“So lies,” she reiterated.
Her friends laughed around her, the sound of it managing to put a smile on her own face.
Husband hunting was the last thing on earth she had ever wanted to do.
She would rather walk through Tristan’s club bare faced and buck naked if it meant she could get out of binding herself to a man.
Sadly, that was not an option. Which was why they had all gathered at the modiste.
The first party Theo and Alistair were escorting her to was only a week away, and she needed a new dress if she was going to impress whatever suitors were left after the summer season.
“We will find you someone perfectly suitable,” Rose promised. “Someone who can appreciate you for exactly who you are.”
“Someone who can nurture your talent,” Amelia added.
Someone who can balance my family’s debt, Ophelia added silently.
“I am sorry, my darlings, but I am simply not excited about this,” she confessed. “I am looking for a husband to make my father happy, no more. Come, let us just get this over with, please?”
Theo, Seraphina, Rose, and Amelia, all gave her sympathetic smiles, then followed her into the modiste’s shop.
She wrinkled her nose in distaste the moment she stepped inside.
It had been over a year since she had ordered a new dress and was disappointed to see that ruffled collars and puffed sleeves had made their way back in style along with the cold weather.
“Ah! My favorite ladies!” Mrs. Tate, the modiste sang as she spotted the five of them. She whispered something the noblewoman she was making alterations to and hurried over.
“Good day, Mrs. Tate,” Ophelia and everyone else greeted.
“What a lovely surprise to see you, Miss Wexley!” Mrs. Tate exclaimed warmly. “It has been too long since you have allowed me to make you a new gown.”
“Yes, well,” Ophelia cleared her throat, struggling with what to say. She dreaded parties. Dreaded what it took to get ready for a party. She had thought, finally, that all such fuss was gone from her life forever- and she had been thankful for it.
“Our dear Miss Wexley has been so very busy with charity work as of late,” Theo said, coming to her rescue, “And she has finally decided to start attending parties with us once more.”
Ophelia gave her friend a grateful look and Theo winked.
“Since she finally has time to join us again we thought she might deserve something special,” Theo went on, putting a hand on her shoulder.
“Something a little different,” Rose offered.
“Something bold,” Seraphina added.
“Something without ruffles,” Amelia insisted.
“And something blue,” all four of them said in unison.
Ophelia shook her head as her smile grew. She truly loved her friends, especially in this particular moment. They knew her so well.
“Well, you are in luck, Miss Wexley,” Mrs. Tate stated, giving them all a warm smile.
“I have been working on some new designs. They are not precisely what the rest of the ton is wearing right now, but if you want to be set apart then I believe they could be just the thing you are looking for.”
“That already sounds perfect,” Ophelia said, feeling a little more at ease. “However we see that you are busy. We shall take ourselves back and have a look while you finish.”
Mrs. Tate visibly relaxed.
“Oh, you lovely souls, thank you!” She gushed, “I will be back with you as soon as possible.”
“All right,” Ophelia sighed, walking with her friends to Mrs. Tate’s design room, “Tell me of my prospects. I know the four of you have had your ears to the ground.”
“Lord Farley of Dedham is still available,” Rose quickly offered.
Ophelia wrinkled her nose.
“Too young. I do not want a husband still attached to his mother’s apron strings.”
“What about the Duke of Lexington?” Amelia asked as they arrived in the back, “He is your age.”
“No,” Ophelia adamantly replied, “He chews with his mouth open even at parties. I’ll be thrown into the bailey for matricide before our first month together.”
Her friends laughed as they started to peruse the new designs.
“Oh, what of Lord Chancey, the Earl of Devonshire? He has a lovely house by the cliffs,” Seraphina suggested.
Ophelia burst out laughing.
“He is older than my father!” She exclaimed.
“Right,” Seraphina added, quickly, “Widowhood would be right around the corner!”
The five of them burst into giggles; something Ophelia realized she desperately needed. There had not been much laughter in her life since her father’s episode.
“Well what are you looking for in a husband?” Theo asked.
Ophelia thought for a moment.
“Someone older than me, but not decrepit. Financially responsible. Sensible. However not too stern or old-fashioned. Well-educated, but not boorish. Kind, but not a dandy. I do not want someone I can walk all over. Yet I do not want someone who would force me down either. I would not mind a husband that travels often. I do find comfort in my alone time. Taller, too. I am sure I shall have to kiss him at some point and I do not want to bend down to do so.”
Her friends burst into laughter, and Ophelia whirled away from the dress with a curious brow.
“For someone who has never wanted a husband you certainly have a detailed list of requirements for one,” Amelia pointed out.
“Oh,” Ophelia said, then laughed as she turned back to the dresses.
She wasn’t sure what to say. Her friends were right. In fact she was not at all sure where such a list had come from. It seemed to just form in her mind on the spot.
A midnight blue dress caught her attention then, and her thoughts suddenly shifted to a startling possibility. Had she just listed off Tristan’s attributes?
“That one?”
Ophelia shook herself from her thoughts and found Theo looking at her.
“What?” She asked.
“The dress you are staring at,” Theo said, nodding toward it. “Do you like it?”
“Oh,” Ophelia sighed. She stepped toward the dress to take a better look at it, not wanting to admit that it was simply the color that had caught her attention.
It was a beautiful color, the exact shade as the one Tristan had made for her to wear to the Masquerade, and made of silk brocade.
The design of the bodice bared the shoulders, but had long, fitted sleeves that drew down to a point at the hands.
It was beautiful in its simplicity, and had none of the attributes that Ophelia abhorred.
“Yes,” she said, reaching out to stroke her fingertips along the bodice, “Yes, I suppose I do. Perhaps add a fur trim around the neckline.”
“That is what I was thinking as well!” Theo said excitedly.
An hour later, with her fitting and request for a matching dyed fur trim noted down by Mrs. Tate, the five of them left the modiste and strolled contently down the street.
Ophelia knew she needed to get home. Needed to make sure her father was comfortable and was eating, but she was welcoming the brief distraction.
It had been four days since her last summoning to the Masquerade, and she had been going a bit mad with worry as she either kept to her father’s side or continued on organizing his files on her own.
She wondered, suddenly, why it had been so long since she had heard from Tristan.
Had the assailant come back? Had there been trouble?
Or had she pushed her luck with Tristan?
They were not usually in the business of telling each other their lives and perhaps her questions had pushed him a bit too far.
“You need not worry so much,” Rose said, pulling her from her thoughts.
Ophelia looked over to her friend, forcing a smile.
“Oh, I am not sure about that,” she replied, “I am old now. Every man in our society wants a fresh daisy. I am an old, thorn-filled rose bush.”
“While I normally appreciate your blunt tongue, my darling, I simply must protest that statement,” Rose said, her tone lacking of any amusement.
“Yes, when did you start agreeing to society’s standard?,” Theo added.
“Seven and twenty is still very young,” Seraphina noted.
“And you have never looked more beautiful,” Amelia chimed in.
“You are all lovely and kind and I thank you for your words,” Ophelia replied, “but I am not some foolish young girl. I have a mirror. I know I look ages older than those on the marriage mart.”
It wasn’t just her physical age she spoke of.
The responsibility of taking over her father’s estate had aged her spirit.
She’d once spoken often of her spinster home in the country, but every year her father slid their family further and further into debt, a part of that dream faded.
Now that dream truly was gone, and it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
She noted her friends’ silence and immediately regretted her words as she took in their worried expressions. She had not intended to burden her friends with such despondent thoughts.
“Do not listen to me,” she said, pulling on a smile, “I am just nervous, I am sure. This will be my first ball where I truly tried to gain attention. It has me on edge.”
“We will be with you,” Theo promised, hooking her arm around Ophelia’s.
“Every step of the way,” Rose added, taking her other arm.
“And we will sic our husbands on any man that disrespects you,” Amelia promised.
“Hugo would love the chance,” Seraphina added with a devious smirk.
Ophelia smiled wide, genuinely this time. She may not have her freedom. She may be losing her father. But she had her friends, and that was worth everything.