“You’re so kind,” Flora said sweetly.
She wasn’t kind, she was practical. She’d give anything to have even one of these gowns to wear.
Flora suddenly sank onto the lone chair in her dressing room. “I don’t know what is the matter with me. I’m soanxiousabout this dinner.”
“But why?” Hattie said, her voice light. “You’ve been to scores of such dinners.”
“Yes, but...” She looked to the open door of her dressing room. She hopped up and hurried to close it, then turned back to Hattie. “What I’m about to say, you mustn’t tellanyone, Hattie. Do you swear it?”
“Never,” Hattie agreed. Who would she tell?
Flora got very close to Hattie, looked her in the eye and whispered, “Mama has heard that I’m considered one of the top potential matches for the viscount.” Her eyes went wide. She bit her lower lip. She hugged herself tightly. She looked as if this was the worst news she could have possibly received.
“That’swonderful, Flora,” Hattie insisted.
Flora was already shaking her head. “No, no, no, it’s not. I don’t know what to say or do! I’ll make a cake of myself!”
“What do you mean? You’re so elegant—”
“I’m not! You know how I am, how my words get twisted and I can’t think properly.”
“In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never once heard you get your words twisted. You mustn’t fret so—you’ll know what to say when the time comes, I’m certain of it.”
Flora did not look convinced. She fell back into the chair, her head resting against the back, her eyes closed.
“Flora! I’ve never seen you so wrought over the prospect of attention from a handsome man. You love that sort of thing.”
“I do,” Flora agreed. She opened her eyes and idly picked at a string that had come loose in the arm of the chair. “But this is different. He’s so desirable, and everyone is watching to see who he admires. Everyone there will be at their best. How am I to compete with that? How am I to compete with Christiana Porter?”
So that was the real angst—Flora was at sixes and sevens because she was afraid of how she would compare to Miss Porter. “Shall I tell you something that no one else knows about him?”
Flora looked up. “What?”
“He likes to read. And he reads in French.”
Flora’s brow knit. “What has that to do with anything?”
“It’s an interest of his that you can mention. No one else knows he likes to read. And you speak French. And you must like to read. You’ll have something in common with him before he even knows Miss Porter’s name.”
“I don’t like to read,” Flora said, confused by Hattie’s assertion.
How could anyone not like to read? Of all the girls at school, Hattie had been the most fond of reading. Any book she could get her hands on, she read. “It doesn’t matter—you could say that you do,” she insisted. “You could say something poetic about reading, how it opens your mind to the larger world.”
For a moment, Flora looked as if she might agree...but then her expression fell. “But what if he asks me about a book?”
Hattie thought the odds of that were quite low, given how taciturn he was. “Mention one you’ve read. He won’t have read the same thing.”
Flora pondered this. “I suppose not. Oh, Hattie...I wish you would be there. I need your encouragement so desperately.”
“Yes, well...that’s the most amazing thing.”
“What?”
“Something truly astounding has happened.” She opened her reticule and withdrew the invitation and handed it to Flora.
Flora gasped. “Hattie!This is wonderful! But how did you manage it?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea! No one is more astounded than me. But I can’t go.”
