This was the final fitting of the most important of Alex’s new gowns—the one she would wear to her first ball at Almack’s in a little over a week’s time. An appearance at Almack’s was essential for any debutante. Here, London’s most revered aristocrats—collectively referred to as the ton—were given a good look at the fresh young faces of the season. Like livestock going to market, Alex thought to herself, a single eyebrow rising in wry amusement as the corner of her mouth kicked up. The simile was too apt. Of course, most of the other girls who would join Alex for her coming-out had been dreaming of the moment their entire lives. Alas, there was simply no accounting for taste.
A quiet throat-clearing came from the door of the room and Alex, being careful not to move too much for fear of being skewered again, craned her head around to look at Eliza, her lady’s maid.
“Excuse me, Your Grace,” Eliza directed her words to the duchess while dropping into a quick curtsy. “Lady Alexandra has visitors…Lady Eleanor and Lady Vivian are in the downstairs sitting room.”
“Thank goodness. I’m saved,” Alex muttered under her breath and snapped her head around to send a pleading look at her mother. “Please? I’ve been standing here forever. The dress must be perfect by now.”
Madame Fernaud stepped back from her work and spoke for the first time. “Perfect is right, Mademoiselle.” She turned to the duchess and said, “Et voilà. Your Grace…she is a masterpiece…do you not think?”
Alex pounced on this statement. “A masterpiece, Mother. I rather think we shouldn’t fuss with such a tour de force, don’t you?”
The duchess, ever a perfectionist, stood and walked a slow circle around her daughter, casting a critical eye at a seam here, a detail there. After what seemed like an eternity, she raised her gaze to meet Alex’s. “You are lovely, Alexandra. You’re going to set the ton on its ear.”
Alex knew she’d won. Her face broke into a wide smile. “Well, with a mother like you, how could I not?”
The duchess chuckled at her daughter’s blatant flattery. “Rather excessive, Alexandra. Off with you.”
Alex clapped her hands and hopped down from the raised platform where she had been standing, throwing herself into the arms of her mother and planting a kiss on the duchess’s cheek. “Thank you, Mama!” Alex bolted for the door, tossing back a complimentary, “Merci, Madame Fernaud! The dress is just gorgeous! Oui, c’est magnifique! Thank you!”
Behind her, Her Grace spoke to no one in particular. “What am I going to do with that girl?” If Madame Fernaud hadn’t been caught up in her own indignant sputtering at the atrocious treatment her creation was suffering at the hands of Alexandra, she would have detected a hint of laughter in the duchess’s voice.
two
Alex bounded down the wide staircase of Worthington House and skidded to a halt in front of the sitting room doors. Harquist, the long-suffering butler who had been with the Stafford family since Alex’s grandfather held the dukedom, was standing at the ready. As Alex’s heavy skirts swirled to a stop around her legs, he opened the door to let her into the room.
Casting a twinkling glance at the butler, Alex stiffened her spine and offered her most ladylike “Thank you, Harquist” in his direction as she exaggeratedly flounced into the room.
His somber “my lady” was still hanging in the air when two sets of giggles exploded from across the room. Alex’s serious expression dissolved into a grin as she threw herself most indelicately onto the nearest chaise—across from her closest friends in the world, Ella and Vivi.
The three had been friends since birth. Their fathers’ boyhood camaraderie had carried on into adulthood and fate had given them each a daughter, born in three consecutive weeks of the year. It was only logical that the girls would become friends, confidantes, and partners in crime.
Lady Vivian Markwell, the only daughter of the Marquess of Langford, was the eldest of the trio—tall and slender, with her father’s dark hair and violet eyes, Vivi’s beauty betrayed a sharp mind and a strong will also inherited from her father, who was not only wealthy and charming but also a national hero and a high-ranking member of the British War Office.
Vivi’s mother had died when Vivi was only seven years old and her father had never remarried. Instead, he had poured his energy into raising Vivi and her twin brother, Sebastian. While Sebastian spent his days at Eton, studying to inherit his father’s title and become a peer of the realm, Vivi had grown into a perfectly mannered, distractingly exotic beauty.
The youngest of the three by a mere five days was Lady Eleanor Redburn, the eldest daughter of the Earl and Countess of Marlborough. Ella’s delicate features and petite frame, combined with her corn-silk-blond hair and blue eyes, afforded her the exact features that most ladies of the ton would have sold their souls to have for themselves. Ella’s personality defied her porcelain looks—she preferred books to balls and had even less interest than Alex in the trappings of London society. While Ella recognized and embraced the fact that her interests would likely leave her without a husband, Ella’s mother was beside herself with horror at the prospect of such a life for her daughter. Not that such a reaction bothered Ella in the least…in fact, Alex had a sneaking suspicion that her friend considered irritating the countess an added bonus.
Vivi and Ella had been with Alex for every step of her life and she couldn’t imagine a day without them. And, at that particular moment, she couldn’t have been happier that they were there.