“It was a private sort of thing,” Charity said. “Just family, really.” And she had liked it that way. “Besides, I could not have invited just the two of you. It would have to be Diana’s family as well, and Lydia’s, and Emma’s.” And suddenly her little wedding would have ballooned to a veritable crushofpeople. “Mercy and Thomas have space, yes, but not nearlythat much. And it’s not my home to which to invite people.” She lifted a gown from the pile of them strewn across the arm of the sofa. “What do you think?”
“Hmm,” Phoebe said, her blue gaze narrowing as she eyed the gown critically. “It is scandalously low-cut, don’t you think?”
“So it is,” Charity said. “I’ll take it, then.” If one had got the bosom for such gowns—which she had, in spades—one might as well let the world take note of it.
“And have several more done up, besides,” Phoebe remarked. “Really, youarea duchess. You could have one in every color.”
“I could indeed,” Charity said. “But I have resolved to so shock the dowager duchess only on Tuesdays and alternate Thursdays. For the sake of maintaining a peaceful household, you understand.”
“Is she so bad, then?” Phoebe asked.
“No, not really. She is rather more pleasant than I had expected…when she has got it into her mind to be so.” Which she expected to be often, so long as Charity plied her with the biscuits she favored and kept quiet the fact that she baked them herself.
A brief rap upon the door on the floor below, and then there was the creak of hinges and the stampede of feet up the stairs. Diana entered first, with Emma fast on her heels.
“We arrived together,” Diana announced, as Emma veered straight for the plate of biscuits upon the low table. Diana skirted the large trunk that lay open upon the floor, into which Charity had been tossing the things she meant to bring back home with her. It fairly dominated her small flat, and had required two footmen only to maneuver it up the stairs.
“Well! I hear congratulations are in order,” Diana said as she sank into a chair.
“Married,” Emma mumbled around a mouthful of biscuit. “I do wish we had merited an invitation.”
“Family only,” Phoebe said with a wrinkle of her nose. “I complained of it already.”
“And to think! You could have had such a grand wedding here in London,” Diana sighed as she collapsed into a chair, pushing her spectacles up her nose. “It would have been the event of the year.”
“Yes, well, I didn’t want my wedding to be anevent,” Charity said, holding up another gown. “This one?”
“Tootame,” Phoebe said.
“Too many flounces,” Diana added.
“Too pink,” Emma pronounced. “You look much better in red.”
“I do, don’t I?” Charity cast the gown aside. “And anyway, it was exactly as I wanted it. No spectacle. No fuss. Just—a perfectly lovely, perfectlyprivatewedding.”
“But you lovea spectacle,” Phoebe said. “I would have thought you’d relish the chance to thumb your nose at the aristocracy.”
“Not to worry. I imagine I’ll have plenty of opportunities for that.” Another thump at the door. “Ah, that must be Lydia,” Charity said, as she heard the door open, and then at last the creak of the stairs. And indeed, Lydia swanned in with all of the drama of which she was capable.
“Married! And I had to read about it in the paper!” Lydia exclaimed, fisting her hands upon her hips.
Charity snorted. “If you did, it is only because you neglected to read your correspondence in a timely manner.” But she had, clearly, received the invitation she had been issued to today’s little gathering.
“Oh, all right,” Lydia said. “I confess I have not been quite so attentive to such things as I might have been.”
“I suppose I cannot hold it too much against you,” Charity said, since she had been rather lax about it herself. She’d only just gotten round to retrieving her correspondence, which had stacked up significantly while she and Anthony had been buried in the countryside, from the post office where they had languished these last weeks. “That stack of letters on the shelf behind you—would you hand it to me?”
“What, and leave all the work of packing to us?” Emma said as Lydia handed over the letters to Charity.
“Why not? I’m satisfied my wardrobe is in good hands,” Charity said as she peeled off the wax seal upon a letter.
“We’re selecting which gowns Charity should take with her,” Diana confided as Lydia took up a chair. “We’ve decided upon only the most shocking ones, naturally.”
“Oh, of course,” Lydia said with all due gravity as she poured herself a cup of tea. “Not that one,” she said with a wrinkle of her nose to a gown Emma lifted up for inspection. “It’s very nearly demure.”
Charity chuckled to herself as she began to sort through her correspondence. A surprising number of well-wishes—at least from those among her echelon of society.
“Will you have a bridal trip?” Emma asked as she tossed another suitablyindecorous gown into the trunk.
