“Iknewit had to do with him! You’re right, this is some sort of trick. For God’s sake, Hat, what have you gotten yourself into?”
“Nothing!” she insisted. “I can’t imagine why I should be invited. I can’t imagine whyyoushould be invited.”
“Why me indeed,” he scoffed. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“No. Why?”
Daniel sighed and rolled his eyes. “Think about it, Hat. You can’t traipse off to a fancy dinner without an escort or companion.That’swhy me—because you’re not married and have no prospects for marriage, so your dear old brother has been invited to do the deed.”
He was right, of course. But who would see her invited only to humiliate her?
“It’s just as well. I don’t care to attend anything quite as fussy as I’m sure that will be,” Daniel said. He picked up a bottle of perfume from her vanity and sniffed it before putting it down.
It was a trick, but what Hattie wouldn’t give to have even a glimpse inside the event of the Season. Her heart began to pound with excitement or fear or something she didn’t quite understand. She had an invitation into a rarified world, and suddenly she was desperately curious. “Daniel! We can’t turn down an invitation like this!”
“Oh, but we can. What do you care for a lot of hobnobbing? Sounds like a bore.”
“Flora has been invited. I can help her. She’s one of the ladies being considered for a match.”
He snorted. “Help her what?”
“Charm the viscount, obviously. Don’t you see? That’s what this is all about.”
Something in Daniel’s countenance shifted slightly. “What do you mean?”
“I told you—this dinner is so that he might be introduced to ladies who are a potential match for him.”
“Your friend? The haughty one? She’s no more of a match for him than you are,” he scoffed.
Hattie clucked her tongue. “You don’t know anything. She is the daughter of an influential viscount. Of course she’s a match for him.”
Daniel put his hands on his waist. “Are you saying that there will be young women there, and not spinsters and hags?”
Hattie gave him a withering look.
“You know what I mean.”
“I certainly know how you think.” Another thought occurred to her—she had nothing to wear to something as fancy as this dinner would be.
“Have a care, Hat. You’ll need me if you want to attend.” He strolled to the door. “I don’t see why you’d want to, but all the same, you can’t go without me.” He walked out of her room.
Hattie looked again at the invitation. Then she looked at her wardrobe, where her few serviceable gowns hung next to her new one that had the distinctive smell. Daniel was right—why would she want to attend? She was not one of them, as her mother had so bluntly pointed out. Shewantedto be there—what person in their right mind would turn down such an invitation?
She didn’t care to think of herself as the laughingstock of all thehaute ton, but with her wardrobe and her family situation, she didn’t see how she could be anything but that.
ATTHERANEYHOUSEHOLD, a maid showed Hattie to Flora’s suite of rooms. She could hear Flora muttering to herself before she stepped foot into the room. “Flora?”
Flora appeared in the doorway between her bedroom and dressing room, her hair down her back, clad in only a chemise and a petticoat. “Hattie!” she exclaimed, as if Hattie’s appearance was a complete surprise. But she was expected. “Come, come,” she said, and hurried across the room, grabbed Hattie’s hand, and pulled her into the dressing room. “Look!”
Hattie looked. There were at least two dozen gowns of various hues hanging along the wall. “What?”
“I don’t know what towear!” Flora cried, using both hands to indicate all the gowns.
“To dine with Moses?” Hattie couldn’t recall a single time Flora had felt the slightest concern for her appearance for an evening with her cousin.
“NotMoses. The Forsythe dinner! It’s two days away and I have absolutely nothing suitable to wear! And my father won’t allow a new gown. He said I had so many I couldn’t possibly wear them all in my lifetime, which ispatentlyuntrue.”
Maybe not her entire lifetime, but Flora did possess alotof gowns. And they were all beautiful, made by the best dressmakers, expertly embroidered and fitted. “Any of them would do.Anyone of them, Flora. You will be the envy of every woman in attendance at the dinner.”
