Chapter 24
“Did everyone have enough cones?” Selina asked with a nervous laugh upon entering her chambers. Chambers that had been transformed into a dressing room while she had been… enjoying herself in Philip’s study.
Indeed, she was somewhat shocked by the Dowager Duchess’s industriousness.
“I wouldn’t have minded playing a while longer,” Melody said, pushing her spectacles up to the bridge of her nose.
“I was bored out of my mind,” Lizzy replied with a wink at her grandmother.
The Dowager Duchess rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her wrinkled lips. She was clearly no stranger to her granddaughter’s bluntness.
“You were not,” Melody countered. “You were tired of being beaten.”
“Well, the gentlemen were not playing fairly,” Lizzy protested as she reached forward in the armchair by the fireplace and poured tea for everyone.
Selina relaxed, a little more confident that what she had just done was not somehow etched on her face. “How so?”
“They are used to games of that sort,” Lizzy explained. “As such, they ought to have some disadvantage or other—a blindfold or a greater throwing distance.”
Melody sighed. “I won against Lord Ramsbury.”
“You did?” Selina clasped her hands together. “Oh, how wonderful. Well done!”
A bright smile, positively giddy, stretched across Melody’s face. “I was rather proud of it.”
“He is in want of a wife now, if you were interested?” Selina said with a sly wink of her own.
The next instant, she wished she could take it back, as Melody turned rather pink and dropped her chin to her chest. She fidgeted with the cuffs of her sensible day dress, her spectacles slipping back down her nose.
“I have no interest in such matters,” she muttered. “A husband would be an unwelcome distraction from my studies, if not an outright end to them. You know this.”
Selina grimaced. “Apologies. It was a poor jest at the Marquess’s expense, not yours.”
“Yes… Yes, I can see how that might be amusing,” Melody mumbled. When she raised her head, she was smiling again. “Now, let us concentrate on this wedding dress.”
The Dowager Duchess seemed pleased. “I did not know your taste, Selina, but the modiste sent several options.”
“In nature, the gaudier the better. To attract a mate, one must be the most colorful and diverting.” Melody paused to sip her tea, frowning. “Although in nature it is usually the male trying to fight for the attention of the female. Really, it should be your betrothed wearing something bright.”
The Dowager Duchess chuckled. “I shall bear that in mind when it comes to choosing my grandson’s attire.”
“Where are the gowns?” Lizzy asked, half-sprawled across the armchair. “I have been promised fashion, but I see nothing.”
The Dowager Duchess rang a small silver bell, and a moment later, the chamber door opened… to reveal someone who made Selina’s heart drop straight through her chest and into her stomach.
Mary carried in five gowns, the fabric draped over her arms like she was holding a very strange, very flat person.
Philip said you were gone from here.
Obviously, Selina couldn’t very well ask what the maid was still doing at the manor. Not in front of everyone. If she did that, she would have to explain why it was of such… difficulty for her.
Mary didn’t look at her. Eyes down, the beautiful woman turned and hung the gowns on the frame of the bed.
Selina barely registered the dresses.
Had Philip lied? Had he been hiding his… paramour somewhere in the manor to make her think that the issue had been dealt with?
“What do you think, my dear?” the Dowager Duchess asked.
The question knocked Selina out of her thoughts, though it couldn’t knock the confusion from her mind.
“I think… they are all very lovely,” she replied.
The five gowns could not have been more different from one another: an emerald green with silver spangles; a summery marigold with ornate golden embellishments; a pale blue with fine beading; a pretty lavender, the simplest of the five; and one of ivory silk with gold spangles and beading.
Mary withdrew to the edge of the room, right there in Selina’s periphery. Mocking her, almost.
“You do not like them?” The Dowager Duchess seemed crestfallen.
“It is just that everything is happening so quickly. If I had more time, I could have taken you to the modiste, and you could have designed the dress you have always imagined for your wedding day. Oh, is it the colors you do not favor?”
Selina forced her distracted attention away from the maid and focused entirely on the old woman. “The dresses are absolutely beautiful, Your Grace. Exquisite. I adore them, I promise. It is just so difficult to choose.”
The Dowager Duchess relaxed. “Oh, I am so glad. Please, take a closer look.”
All of the women got up and approached the display of gowns. Lizzy was the one who knew the most about fashion, but Melody seemed unusually drawn to the glittering spangles and fine fabrics, almost shy as she lightly touched her fingertips to the dresses.
“Darker colors become you well,” Lizzy said, “but I think the lighter colors would be better for a wedding.”
Melody nodded. “This one is exceptional.” She gingerly touched the ivory gown, as if worried she might mark it.
“It is very beautiful,” Selina agreed, glancing at the maid out of the corner of her eye.
“Am I late?” The door opened, and her mother hurried inside. “I lost my way.”
Selina should have been comforted by the reinforcements—all of her friends and her mother in the room, on her side. But how was she meant to think about her wedding and what to wear when Philip’s former lover was right there when she should not be?
“Oh, these are wonderful,” her mother cooed, her hands clasped together. “You would look beautiful in any one of them.”
Selina blushed. “Maybe you can choose for me, Mama.”
Her mother turned to her with misty eyes. “You would grant me that privilege?”
“I trust you implicitly,” Selina replied, meaning it.
And I cannot think with that woman in the room.
“Well then,” her mother said, “I think you should wear the ivory gown. You would look remarkable in it. The others are lovely too, do not mistake me, but the ivory one is so… perfect.”
The Dowager Duchess nodded her head. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Perhaps some additional embroidery?” her mother suggested. “It is missing something on the neckline and the hems. I do not know what, but it needs… more.”
“Yes, I agree,” the Dowager Duchess replied.
Seeing an opportunity, Selina smiled at the two older women. “Perhaps you two could take the dress to the modiste and give her your thoughts. I am entirely hopeless when it comes to what suits me best, but I trust you both.”
“I was wondering what I might do with the rest of my day,” the Dowager Duchess mused, leaning forward on her cane. “What do you say, Charity?”
Selina hadn’t realized that the Dowager Duchess and her mother were on a first-name basis. It cheered her up to see it, for it had been a long while since her mother had had someone that she could call a friend.
“I think that is a fine idea, Aurelia,” her mother replied, a note of excitement in her voice. “Yes, I should like that very much. I shall have to speak to my husband first, but—”
“Nonsense. You do not need his permission,” the Dowager Duchess insisted, somewhat crossly.
“You are your own woman, Charity, and this is of vital importance. It is not long at all until the wedding, and your daughter shall have the most perfect dress in Christendom. If we wait for the opinion of gentlemen, Selina will have nothing to wear on her wedding day but what she already has.”
A frown creased her mother’s forehead. A frown that hardened her expression into something Selina had never seen before: strength. Determination.
“Of course, you are right,” her mother said with a sharp, decisive nod. “Let us venture into town. Let us not wait for permission.”
Selina’s heart swelled, and she suddenly felt the urge to embrace her mother. But her mother was already taking down the chosen dress, leading the way out of the room.
At the threshold, she doubled back to take hold of Aurelia’s free arm, helping the older woman along.
Yes, I do believe this marriage might be very good for us all.
It was progress unlike anything Selina had ever seen.
At home, her mother would never have dared to do anything without consulting her father.
Every tiny thing had to be passed by him first, where it would undoubtedly be stamped down, or he would roll his eyes, or he would snap at her for bothering him.
For once, her mother was doing something of her own volition. Maybe she would learn a few more things about independence after the trip into town.
“Lizzy, Melody, do you think you could give me a moment?” Selina asked.
She did not look at Mary directly, but the maid bristled. She must have known that a conversation was coming.
“To do what?” Lizzy asked, retrieving her cup of tea.
Heat bloomed in Selina’s cheeks, her skin itchy as if she had brushed by a horde of nettles. “I just want a moment with the gowns I didn’t choose. To give… instructions to the maid as to what is to be done with them.”
“And you can’t do that with us here?” Lizzy raised an eyebrow.
It was Melody who seemed to realize that there was something more to the request. Her keen eyes narrowed behind her spectacles, flitting from Selina to Mary and back again.
“Come on, Elizabeth,” she said in a jesting tone, though her hand on Lizzy’s arm was anything but playful. “I need to show you something in the library anyway. A book I found that I think you will like.”
“Mel, if it is another plant book, I shall scream,” Lizzy complained. “I do not deny that they are beautiful and interesting, but I have reached the limits of my desire to understand botany.”
“It is not,” Melody retorted, dragging her right out of the bedchamber.
At the door, Melody looked back at Selina. Her expression said what she did not. We shall talk about this later.