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“ M aybe it would be best,” Catherine mused the next afternoon as she moodily stared at the glowing coals in the fireplace in her bedroom, “if I cut my hair, bound my breasts, and ran away to be a groom.”

Susannah shook out the flounces of the dress she was mending for her cousin. “You’re becoming maudlin."

"No, I’m not,” contradicted Catherine. “I can’t become maudlin. I already am.”

Susannah laughed and laid the dress on the bed. “Catherine, this is not like you. You’re always so decisive and independent. I thought you didn’t care a fig about what Aunt Alicia thinks of you.”

“I lied. At least, I’m beginning to realize it was all a lie. As insubstantial as fairy dust.”

“Goodness, such die-away airs. Perhaps your calling is the stage after all!”

That drew a reluctant smile. “All right. I stand properly chastised. I’ve finished feeling sorry for myself. Now, if only Aunt Alicia would start talking to me again, even if it is only to rail at me! Unfortunately, I don’t think she will until her back stops hurting.”

“I’ll admit, I’ve never seen anyone take a tumble in that manner before, feet up in the air and petticoats down over her head!”

“It’s the screeching I’ll not forget.”

“Or how it increased when Pennymore burst into the room to see what the uproar was about. The poor man. I’ve never seen him so flustered as when he realized it was Aunt Alicia’s drawers and petticoats he was seeing.”

“I think it was Pennymore’s seeing her in that predicament that fueled her anger against me,” Catherine ventured. “Truthfully, Susannah, I don’t know how I should go on.”

“Excuse me, Miss Catherine,” Bethie said from the doorway. “But this box just come for you.” She laid a large dressmaker’s box on the bed.

“That looks like it’s from Madame Vaussard! I haven’t ordered anything else from her,” Catherine said, crossing to the bed.

“Do you think the Marquis would send anything?” suggested Susannah, moving the mended dress aside.

“Coo, but that would plop the fat in the fire,” Bethie said.

Catherine frowned and shook her head. “No, I don’t think he would.

He has too nice a sense of propriety.” She pulled the lid off.

On top of the white muslin covering the contents of the box was a letter.

Catherine exchanged perplexed glances with Susannah and Bethie before slowly unfolding the note written with a fine, spidery scrawl.

My dearest Mademoiselle Shreveton,

On the day you visited my shop for your riding habit and told me of your circumstances, I knew you would one day need a gown befitting your true station. I took the liberty of making such a gown. Since it was finished, I have been waiting for a time when you would need it.

The world comes to my shop and the world gossips.

A wise businesswoman listens. When I heard of your contretemps with the Countess of Seaverness at Almack’s, I say to myself, "Augustine, the time has come. Miss Shreveton must now turn from the petite, ugly hatchling to the glorious swan and so bemuse the bon ton. Now it is the time for this dress.” Here it is, ma petite.

Bon chance,

Augustine Vaussard

P. S. I have taken the liberty of forwarding the bill to your uncle’s place of business.

Catherine laughed at the postscript and silently handed the note to Susannah. With shaking fingers she pulled back the covering material. The dress lying folded in the box was a shimmering blend of green, gold, and white. Slowly she pulled it out of its nest of protective fabric.

“Oh, Miss Shreveton!” breathed Bethie. She helped Catherine free it from the last of its covering and swept the box aside so Catherine could lay the dress out on the bed.

The dress was white lace over a white silk slip, finished with a rouleau of pale green silk edged with gold cording.

The lower third of the skirt was embroidered with bunches of gold grapes and shaded green leaves.

The bodice was of pale green silk cut square with a fall of white lace embroidered with gold lozenges set across the neckline.

The sleeves of pale green silk were slashed with white lace and edged with gold cording and more lace embroidered with gold.

Susannah grabbed her cousin’s arm. “It’s beautiful! It’s perfect!” she cried, giving a little jump.

A slow smile emerged on Catherine’s face, her eyes shining as she stared transfixed at Madame Vaussard’s creation. “It’s not all white, which we know I look insipid in, but it is not so heavily colored as to offend Society sticklers, particularly given my age.”

“A pox on comments about your age,” scolded Susannah. “Still, you are right. The amount of color is enough to counteract the effect of stark white. And that green is a brilliant choice with your coloring!”

“Will you try it on now, Miss?” Bethie asked.

Catherine touched an embroidered grape motif with her fingertips.

“Not right now, I think, Bethie. But just receiving this has put me in better spirits. It has certainly chased away my depression and makes me feel ready to greet the world again. Clever, clever Madame Vaussard,” she murmured, shaking her head in wonder.

“Bethie put the dress away. The ball is still several days away, time enough to try it on. Right now, I have to brave Aunt Alicia’s wrath and see what comes. Shall we go downstairs, Susannah?”

For answer, Susannah picked up her shawl from the bench at the end of the bed, draping its long length elegantly over her arms, and walked toward the door.

Laughing, Catherine quickly tossed her shawl about her shoulders and followed her cousin downstairs.

Hearing masculine voices in the drawing room, they paused by the door.

“Oh, Miss Catherine, Miss Susannah,” loudly whispered Pennymore as he hurried toward them.

“Have we guests, Pennymore? Why weren’t we informed?” asked Susannah.

“Yes, miss. But I was told to tell any gentlemen who called that you and Miss Catherine were indisposed,” explained a pained Pennymore.

“Indisposed? Really? Well, I don’t know about you, Susannah, but I seem to have just effected a miraculous recovery,” Catherine said, a spark of mischief in her eyes.

“I don’t know how it is, cousin, but I also seem to be much recovered. What was ailing us, Pennymore?”

“I—I couldn’t say, Miss,” stammered the hapless butler.

“Whatever it was, it has passed. I think we are healthy enough to entertain visitors,” Catherine said, her hand on the door latch. She smiled reassuringly at the butler as she pushed open the door.

The Countess of Seaverness and Lady Iris and Lady Dahlia were entertaining four gentlemen: Mr. Dabernathy, Sir Richard Chartrist, the Earl of Soothcoor, and Captain Chilberlain.

The countess, in a nest of eiderdown pillows, was enthroned on a red damask chaise longue.

She barely turned at the sound of the opening door, for she was busy lamenting the absence of her other two nieces.

She promised she would convey the gentlemen’s regards.

"That won’t be necessary, Aunt Alicia,” Catherine said brightly.

The twins gasped, Lady Harth scowled, and the gentlemen surged to their feet.

“You will be happy to know we are quite recovered,” she said, walking briskly into the room.

She turned toward the gentlemen. “You must know, Aunt Alicia is an inspiration for Susannah and me. Look at her, in agony after a nasty fall, and still, she insists on entertaining visitors when scarcely out of her bed of pain. She is an inspiration to us all,” Catherine declared, coming forward to bestow a kiss on her aunt’s cheek, then solicitously plumping up her pillows.

Lady Harth compressed her lips, displeasure evident in the sharp glance she gave Catherine. Her niece merely smiled blandly at her before sitting in a nearby chair.

“We were just proposing a walk in the park for this afternoon,” said Sir Richard. “If you ladies are feeling better, might you consider joining us?”

“We should be delighted,” Catherine said quickly, ignoring the pouting faces of the twins.

She knew they would be disappointed that each would not command the attention of two gentlemen.

No matter. Catherine decided it was more important that they all be seen together than to worry over the twins’ perceived injured sensibilities.

“We will leave you to entertain our dear aunt while we change. We won’t be long.

” She quickly shepherded her cousins out of the room before anyone, particularly Lady Harth, could think to comment.

“You always spoil everything,” Iris accused as they mounted the stairs. “Now, I suppose you’ll monopolize the Earl of Soothcoor again, leaving me with boring Mr. Dabernathy.”

“Nonsense. But if you wish, I will confine my attentions to whichever of the gentlemen you don’t want,” Catherine returned coolly.

“You would? Why, what have you to gain?” her cousin asked suspiciously.

“Nothing whatsoever. But neither do I wish to gain anything, as you so crudely put it. I was speaking the truth the other evening when I said I have no wish to marry. I have financial independence, and quite frankly, I see nothing in the eligible bachelors I have met to recommend them.”

“What about the Marquis of Stefton?” Dahlia asked slyly. “You spend an inordinate amount of time in his company.”

Catherine felt her heart jump in her chest at Dahlia’s statement but willed herself to maintain a calm manner.

“The Marquis is a friend of my uncle’s. He has spent much of the time we’ve been together berating me for pretending to be something I am not.

Does that sound like a gentleman about to make an offer?

He seems more like another uncle to me!” She said the words lightly enough, but they twisted painfully in her throat.

The Marquis’s manner was akin to an uncle’s, and that knowledge depressed her.

She wished to stir other feelings in the Marquis that were not at all those of a relative.