Chapter 14
Augusta had expected the morning to be pleasant. She had not expected it to become an argument before the first bolt of silk had been unrolled.
“You cannot possibly wear that shade again,” Temperance declared, standing before Augusta with one hand planted on her hip and the other holding up a length of pale blue silk as though it had personally offended her.
“I refuse to believe that the Duchess of Ravenhill intends to appear at her first ball after marriage dressed exactly as she did during her second Season. There must be some distinction between Augusta Cluett, perfect debutante, and Augusta Parsons, married woman with a duke at home.”
Augusta, who had been perfectly fond of the blue until Temperance began insulting it, looked from the silk to her friend.
“I was unaware that marriage altered one’s complexion.
The color suited me before, and unless something dramatic happened to my skin during the wedding ceremony, I imagine it still does. ”
“It does suit you,” Charity said from the settee nearby, where she had arranged half a dozen samples according to some system known only to herself.
“That is precisely why she keeps choosing it. Augusta has always preferred colors she knows she can wear without thinking about them. Blue, green, cream, occasionally lavender when Mama insisted upon it. She has never been adventurous with color, and I do not see why becoming a duchess should suddenly require her to dress like a tropical bird.”
Temperance turned slowly toward her. “I said nothing about tropical birds. I merely suggested she might wear something that announces her arrival before she has crossed half the room.”
“That sounds remarkably like a tropical bird,” Alethea observed from beside the window, where she was examining a length of ivory silk with considerably more interest than she had shown Temperance’s collection of jewel tones.
Temperance gave her a wounded look. “You are both determined to destroy my vision.”
“Your vision,” Alethea replied, carrying the ivory toward Augusta, “appears to involve distracting everyone from Augusta herself. She does not require scarlet silk, gold embroidery, three rows of pearls, feathers, or whatever else you have been attempting to persuade Madame Laroque to sew onto her. She is already beautiful. If you put too much around her face, people will spend the evening admiring the gown instead of the woman wearing it.”
Augusta looked at Alethea with gratitude. “Thank you. At last, someone remembers that I am intended to remain visible beneath the dress.”
Temperance narrowed her eyes. “You are all cowards. That is what this is.”
Charity laughed and rose, carrying a dark green silk across the room. “No, we simply know Augusta. And Augusta will agree to something outrageous today because you have exhausted her, then wake tomorrow morning horrified and send the entire gown back before breakfast. Save us all the trouble.”
She held the green against Augusta’s shoulder, smoothing the fabric so that it caught the light, and Augusta’s attention finally sharpened.
It was neither the soft green she often wore during the day nor the emerald Temperance had attempted to force upon her earlier.
The shade was deeper, richer, almost like the leaves at Blackstone after rain.
“There,” Charity said, and her expression became immediately satisfied when Augusta reached out to touch it. “That is the one. I knew you would like it. You have always liked green when it is dark enough not to look childish.”
Temperance stepped closer and considered the effect in the mirror.
“I admit the color is not terrible. But if we are permitting her to choose something sensible, then I insist upon having some influence over the cut. She is married now. There is absolutely no reason for her neckline to remain at the same respectable height it occupied when every mother in London was inspecting her as a potential daughter-in-law.”
Augusta turned her head. “I do hope you realize there are people in this shop who can hear you.”
“Of course there are. They are all women, Augusta. I assure you, none of them will be shocked to discover that you possess a bosom.”
Alethea closed her eyes.
Charity laughed outright.
Augusta felt heat rush into her cheeks. “Temperance, I invited you because you said you had excellent taste. You did not mention that this excellent taste came attached to public humiliation.”
“I am trying to help your marriage.”
“My marriage does not depend upon a neckline.”
Temperance gave her a long, meaningful look. “That is a very confident statement from a woman who has been married for only a few weeks.”
Alethea rescued Augusta before she could decide whether throwing a cushion at a duchess would be considered a serious breach of etiquette.
“Leave her alone. A modest neckline need not be childish, and Augusta does not need to be displayed like a painting at auction merely because she has a husband. Let Madame Laroque shape the bodice properly, keep the sleeves simple, and perhaps add some embroidery at the hem. Nothing more.”
Temperance sighed so heavily that Madame Laroque, who had been pretending not to listen from the other side of the room, glanced over.
“This is what marriage to sensible men has done to both of you,” Temperance complained. “You have become practical.”
Alethea smiled. “Oliver would be astonished to hear that anyone has ever accused him of encouraging practicality.”
“That depends upon the subject,” Charity said. “Duncan is very practical until our son is involved. Then apparently every rule in the house ceases to apply because the child has smiled at him.”
Temperance immediately brightened. “Harper is the same with our daughter. He spent the first year insisting that he would be the strict parent because I am too indulgent. Do you know what I discovered last week? He has been giving her sugared almonds after dinner.”
Alethea laughed. “And did Joseph tell you?”
“Immediately. With great pleasure. Harper has apparently forgotten that children possess no loyalty when there is an opportunity to expose one another.”
Augusta smiled as the conversation moved away from her gown and toward their households.
She had heard versions of these stories before, yet she never tired of them.
There was something fascinating about seeing the women she had once known in ballrooms and drawing rooms speaking so casually now of husbands, children, breakfast arguments, misplaced toys, and nursery disasters.
Their lives had expanded in ways that did not seem grand from the outside, yet those ordinary details carried a happiness Augusta had once imagined marriage itself would somehow produce automatically.
It had not happened automatically for any of them.
She knew that now.
Charity had fought for Duncan. Temperance had survived enough confusion with Harper to make most women despair of romance entirely.
Alethea and Oliver had misunderstood each other often enough that Augusta sometimes wondered how either of them had found the courage to remain patient.
Yet here they were, not living in some endless state of perfect romantic bliss but laughing over children and household disasters as though the ordinary difficulties belonged to the happiness rather than interrupting it.
Temperance had moved on to describing an argument with Harper over whether their daughter was old enough to have her own pony when Augusta’s attention began to drift.
She tried to follow.
She truly did.
But all it took was the mention of husbands to bring Ronan back into her thoughts.
His hand at her waist.
The warmth of his palm through her gown and the way his expression had changed when she finally looked at him.
Augusta stared at the green silk in Charity’s hands without seeing it.
He had nearly kissed her.
She was certain of it now.
At the time she had not been certain of anything.
Her heart had been beating so violently that coherent thought had become impossible.
She remembered only the way his eyes had dropped toward her mouth, the slight tightening of his hand at her waist, and the awful, thrilling second when she had known that if he moved even slightly closer she would not step away.
And then he had wiped the mark from her face and released her.
The disappointment that followed had been almost as humiliating as the anticipation.
She had lain awake far too long afterward, wondering whether she had imagined the entire thing.
Perhaps he had only been looking at her because she was behaving strangely.
Perhaps he had not wanted to kiss her at all.
Perhaps….
“Augusta.”
She blinked.
Her friends were staring at her with concern now.
Augusta straightened. “What?” she asked, even though she still felt a little lightheaded from her reverie.
“I honestly do not know what is going on with you today.” Temperance crossed her arms. “That is the third time that you have done this.”
“The third time what?”
“The third time you have vanished while standing directly in front of us. What is weighing on your mind?”
Him. Somehow, it was always the duke who was weighing on her mind. Though she didn’t prefer to think of him as a weight.
“I was thinking,” she said after a moment. “Sorry, I’ve been a little distracted all evening.”
“That much is obvious,” Temperance replied. “The question is what you were thinking about.”
“Nothing important.”
Charity’s brows rose. Of all people, she could read her sister the best. And there was no lying to her, or anyone else now, for that matter.
Augusta immediately regretted answering. They knew her far too well.
Alethea, kinder than either of the others, said, “She may simply be tired. We have been here for nearly an hour, and Temperance has forced her to consider enough gowns to clothe a small court. Maybe we need to give her a little break?”
“Yes, a break is lovely,” Augusta tried to interject.