“Lucinda and I don’t have dragons,” Millie said helpfully. “We don’t mind, do we, Lucinda?”
Elinor winced. Penelope’s face, which had looked so hopeful for a moment, was beginning once again to crumple.
Lucinda and Millie, of course, could not afford to have dragons any more than they could afford to have expensive London seasons afterwards. Penelope had flaunted her own dragon in front of her friends as the greatest symbol of her triumph.
If Elinor didn’t act fast, she would lose all the ground that she had gained…and some other poor dragon would be in for a miserable servitude. Elinor leaned forward, her eyes intent and her voice infused with certainty.
“You,” Elinor said to her cousin, “willchoosenot to have a dragon, unlike all those dreary, unoriginal young misses you meet in London. You will carry something else instead, something that will make you stand out from the crowd.”
“I will?” Penelope said, with tearful hope.
“She will?” Lucinda frowned.
“Butwhatwill she carry?” Millie asked.
Benedict raised his eyebrows and waited.
Elinor searched her brain for inspiration…and came up empty-handed.
“You will carry…”
Even Sir Jessamyn was looking up at her expectantly now.
Elinor searched the room around her for anything suitable.Nothing, nothing, nothing. She swallowed hard. “You will carry…”
A raucous cry split the moment in two. Elinor jumped; so did everyone else, even Sir Jessamyn.
“Oh, those peacocks.” Penelope rolled her eyes, laughing as she re-settled herself on the couch. “They are beautiful, but so noisy! Now, what were you saying, Mrs. De Lacey?”
“That’s it,” Elinor said.All or nothing. She fixed a smile of pure, blazing Mrs. De Lacey confidence on her face. “You will carry…a feather!”
“I beg your pardon?” Penelope blinked rapidly.
Lucinda and Millie stared. Benedict’s eyes narrowed.
Elinor seized the moment, before anyone could spoil it. “You will carry a single feather from one of your father’s peacocks—and you will wear it attached to your shoulder, exactly where everyone would expect a dragon to sit!”
“But…” Penelope’s brow furrowed. “I don’t quite see—”
“It will make a daring statement.” Elinor summoned the power of every description she had ever read about the latest London fashions to infuse her voice with certainty. “It will say:I know what you expect from me…but I shall not bow down to fashion!It will be amusing, it will be powerful, and it will mark you out as a force to be reckoned with.”
“Well…” Penelope’s frown became more thoughtful.
Millie leaned over to whisper excitedly in Lucinda’s ear.
Could they actually be persuaded? Elinor held herself as still as she could, not even daring to breathe in case it broke the spell.
Benedict Hawkins shook his head…but a smile was tugging at his lips. “Do you know, Mrs. De Lacey, I believe you may be right.”
Elinor let out the breath she had been holding. “Of course I am. When have I ever been wrong about fashion?”
As she saw the look of excitement grow on her cousin’s face, though, a wave of unexpected guilt attacked her. Even after everything Penelope had ever said or done, it still felt cruel to do this…but truly, Elinor asked herself, was a shoulder-feather any more ridiculous than the real Mrs. De Lacey’s many more famous sartorial inventions?
“Do you really think people will be impressed?” Penelope said. Her eyelashes fluttered appealingly, but her blue eyes were full of intense calculation.
Elinor thrust aside her guilty conscience and nodded firmly. “Trust me,” she said. “With me standing by your side at your début, you will set the fashionable world alight.”
And ithadto be better than letting Penelope buy another dragon.
