Miss Warrington’s Portfolio for Designing a Betrothal (Love from London #5)

Prologue-

If fish and visitors stink in only three days, then what was to be said of a lady on her fourth Season? For she is surely as stale as the stinking fish, and hardly better received.

Dahlia Alexandra Warrington was rather unhappy, but she had little to complain about, and she knew it.

Three years ago, the wealthy Marquess of Salisbury had darkened the doorway of her family’s little cottage and changed her and her sisters’ lives forever.

Seemingly overnight, they'd gone from abject poverty to wealth and comfort.

Dahlia was old enough to remember the change. She would never take it for granted.

Wealth was the difference between plain, watered-down porridge eaten before a smoking fire, and sterling silver racks of buttered toast enjoyed before a roaring flame.

It was the difference between shivering in a coat that had been worn thin long before it was handed down, versus a fine worsted wool that was tailored to perfection.

Dahlia vowed she'd never return to being poor.

Poverty wasn't romantic, the way it was written in some books. It wasn't sweeping pastoral views and wistful sighs. It was fear and panic—the sound of a mighty wolf scratching outside a door too thin to keep it out.

Now Dahlia found herself in a strange season of life. Her two elder sisters were happily married—love matches, both—and her two younger sisters lived with the eldest, at the Marquess of Salisbury’s Devon estate.

Dahlia was aware that their situation was unique—very few young ladies had experienced so much protection and luxury after such a humble start.

Sometimes, Dahlia worried that her younger sisters would forget how freezing an attic garrett was in winter.

Sometimes, she was frightened that they would make foolhardy choices that would put them back in that garrett once more.

But not Dahlia—she was never going back.

Even if that meant remaining unmarried. Even if that meant marrying for security instead of love.

Of course she wanted to marry for love. Anyone who said differently was a liar, or perhaps they loved themselves too well to want anyone else involved in the process.

Dahlia had gone into her first Season as wide-eyed and hopeful as any young miss. She was a rare beauty—golden hair, large blue eyes surrounded by a thick fringe of dark eyelash. Her cheekbones were high, her nose finely formed, her teeth white and straight.

Apparently her figure had a positive effect on the male set, too.

Dahlia thought her best asset were her clavicles—very fine, those clavicles, and she endeavored to show them off whenever possible.

But she suspected it wasn't just her clavicles that had the men very nearly throwing themselves at her feet.

A Frenchman had once wept during a waltz when she'd turned down his offer of marriage. Not that Dahlia could be blamed for it—she could barely understand the fellow. She’d thought he was joking until the tears started. It was their first dance, for heaven's sake. They'd only just been introduced.

But with her two eldest sisters off the marriage mart within the first months, Dahlia had emerged as the premier young lady to court. And court they had. Dahlia had never met so many young men; never received so many smiles, or presents.

She soon found it difficult to keep them all apart, so in desperation, she'd taken up one of her blank sketchbooks and made a list of all the gentlemen—a grid, actually, with spaces for her to fill in with pertinent information.

Attractiveness. Kindness. Intelligence. Title. Gifts. And wealth.

Dahlia distinctly remembered the day she'd crossed the first man off her list. It was only three weeks into that first Season, and a disturbing rumor reached her ears about one Lord Brentley.

Up until that point, the young lord had been the forerunner of the pack.

Young, handsome, charming, witty, and kind.

A title that was well esteemed. A good family, with parents who'd still make voluntary eye contact with one another.

Lord Brentley had her eye. But then she found out that he favored the gambling dens. And whiskey. A heady combination, and one that got the young lord into trouble. He'd lost his favorite horse in a card game.

She was a beautiful grey spotted mare, lovely and kind. Lord Brentley had extolled her features in the park only several days prior, while he and Dahlia rode together in his scrolled curricle. Dahlia had mentally dubbed the horse “Lady Grey.”

He'd loved that horse, but it hadn't stopped him from gambling her away. There was no possible way Dahlia would trust such a man with her future, with her security.

Dahlia had admired the mare as well, so right after she scratched Lord Brentley’s name out in her book, she jotted a quick note to the owner of the gambling hall, found out who'd won her, and made an offer. Lord Brentley’s eyes grew round the next week when Lady Grey pulled Dahlia’s white Stanhope gig through the park.

Dahlia refused to acknowledge him. She remembered the cold, the hunger, the fear. She wouldn't forget now, not when she was finally in a position to stay warm and comfortable and secure. Not even for all of Lord Brentley’s winning smiles.

One by one, the others had been crossed off as well.

The misers would never approve of her ghastly expensive wardrobe habit—they were out.

The young ones had too short of a track record for her to judge.

She wouldn't marry just for money, either.

Lord Fettiwig had offered, and he was wealthy, but she didn't fancy spending the next several years spooning soft foods into an aged, spluttering mouth.

The French were out; so were the Italians. She didn't understand foreign banking systems—their economies might collapse, and then where would she be?

Back in the garrett. She knew that a French or Italian garrett would be every bit as bad as an English one. Every attic garrett was the same, more or less—cold, drafty, and full of beady-eyed rats.

In her first Season, Dahlia scratched out a dozen names. She went through ten options her second Season. Eight, her third. Now, it was her fourth, and she wondered whether she'd bother to make a grid at all.

By this time, more rumors were swirling—rumors about her.

She was frigid, some men claimed. A gold digger—though that was easily disproved, as she'd turned down several wealthy men. One denied suitor had gone so far as to claim that she was touched in the head and should be relegated to Bedlam.

That particular rumor stung a bit, though Dahlia supposed she couldn't blame the man for his ire. She'd told him that she'd rather be trampled to death by horses than be his wife. But what was she to do? She'd already answered him quite firmly three times, and in plain language, too.

Dahlia had always been grateful for the interest the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire had shown to her family, but she possibly had never been more grateful when the duke took four of his largest footmen to Lord Pastial's house and quelled that rumor at the source.

Her fourth Season loomed, and the whirl of balls and theater attendances and dinners would have grown tiresome at best, if it weren't for one thing. The Clothing.

The only thing Dahlia truly loved was clothes.

There was nothing like the subtle shimmer of silk, the zing of light across satin, the warmth and sheen of a fine wool, the structure of a rich brocade.

She adored shopping for new gowns, poring through the fashion plates for ideas.

Dahlia may not have trusted the French economy, but their designs were another thing altogether.

Most of all, she loved sketching her own ideas. She'd been doing it for nigh on four years, the sketching. Before Percy came into their lives, Dahlia would just daydream about dresses. Now, with the welcome addition of paper and fine charcoal pencils, she could record them.

She'd taken up a hobby—a dangerous hobby.

It was simple: she'd sit somewhere she could view other ladies of the peerage without being disturbed.

Then, one by one, she'd sketch the dress they had on, and just next to it, she'd design a new one.

Perhaps she'd move the sleeve length or the neckline to better flatter the wearer.

Or she'd make notations on the color. Peach makes her look sallow and wan.

Aubergine or navy would be much better, she'd scrawl.

Dahlia had found her passion, but she was obliged to keep it private.

None of the ladies she drew would be pleased to know that she'd found fault in their ensembles, especially now that Dahlia was garnering a reputation for being a snob toward the gentlemen the rest of the ladies were clamoring to marry.

Once—only once—had she deviated from the strictness of her secret.

It had been the middle of her first Season, years ago.

Miss Emmaline Acklen was so kind, so lovely, but Dahlia couldn't help but wonder if she, her mother, and her lady's maid had all been struck by the same version of color-blindness. It was something that Lady Ashbury would have chosen for her own daughter—but only to keep the suitors away.

Miss Acklen was wealthy, kind, and witty, but her gowns. They were hideous. Breathtakingly so, in a way that could only be accomplished when one possessed not a single ounce of taste and frequented a modiste who didn’t care what one wore, as long as the notes were paid.

Dahlia had been hiding from Lord Pastial behind a potted fern in the Marquess of Rhodes’s ballroom when she'd heard the exchange.

"Too bad about that one," one gentleman murmured to another, nodding at the serenely ignorant Miss Acklen, who was being swept about in a waltz by some fellow or other.

"Why's that?"

"Lord Pittman wants to marry her, but his mother won't have it. And you know if his mother says no, his father won't stand up to her."

"What's the matter with her?"

"Her style is dreadful."

"Who cares? She's pretty enough."

"Pittman’s mother is afraid she'll insist on redecorating the family seat."

There was a round of chortling, and the conversation moved on.

Dahlia had seethed. Of all the things to preclude a lovely young woman from marriage—her terrible clothing choices?

Dahlia spent the next day cloistered in her bedroom in a furious flurry of deep thought and scribbling. When she'd finished, she'd written an anonymous letter.

Dear Miss Acklen,

You don't know me and therefore have little reason to trust me, but I hope you will anyway. It has come to my attention that Lord Pittman wishes to marry you, but your wardrobe is keeping him from it.

Excuse me for saying so, madam, but your taste is terrible. Please accept these renderings in the spirit they are meant—as a gift to help ensure your future happiness.

Bring them to Madame Aubert, and—if in doubt—accept all of her suggestions moving forward. There's no point in pretending to be good at things we aren't—not when there are experts so readily available to help.

Most Sincerely,

A Secret Friend

PS. Though it is not my place—none of this is—may I suggest that a young man who's unwilling to stand up to his mother before the marriage is far less likely to do so after you're wed? Surely there is one better for you than the aforementioned lord.

Dahlia hadn't thought that Miss Acklen would take her suggestions, not really.

So she'd stifled a surprised cry of delight in the park a fortnight later when she saw Miss Acklen walking in a day dress of her own creation.

It was just as Dahlia had imagined—the palest pink to offset her luminous skin, the trim waist, the bodice decorated with thin bands of trimming.

Miss Acklen hadn't stopped there, apparently—she'd ordered all of Dahlia's designs. Two months later, she wore the emerald-green ball gown when she held the Marquess of Rhodes’s elbow as he announced their betrothal.

Last Dahlia had heard, they were still equally delighted with their marriage, and the new marchioness had been a faithful client of Madame Aubert's ever since.

Dahlia's secret passion had been born. And though she never shared a single sketch with anyone ever again, nearly every lady in the ton—from the elderly Dowager Duchess of Kentbury to the youngest miss to have a Season—had received a new imaginary gown.

The drawings were locked away in a trunk in her bedroom, along with her personal hopes for the future. For Dahlia had yet to meet a man who fulfilled all her requirements.

She was beginning to think he didn’t exist.