Lily felt a keen spear of jealousy as she watched them, imagining how her life might have been different, if only. If only her father hadn’t died. The duke followed suit and the others, like little toy soldiers, all in a row. Perhaps she would not have been alone on Michaelmas. Perhaps she never would have met Derek. Never sat for the painting.

Never met Alec.

She inhaled sharply at the thought, rejecting it instantly. She would not trade meeting Alec. Not even if she had driven him away. Not even if she never saw him again.

“Dear Lily,” Sesily said, breaking into her thoughts, more than welcome to do so. “Would you like to tell us why we are here?”

I have found it.

We attend Hawkins’s performance tomorrow. With Stanhope.

You require a gown. No dogs.

The missive had arrived along with directions to a modiste shop on Bond Street that morning, unsigned. It had not required signing. And still she wished for it, some kind of personal acknowledgment. What would he have chosen? Alec? His initials? His title?

Not the last, certainly.

Ugh. She was disgusting herself. He’d invited another man to join them. If that weren’t enough to prove her simpering was cabbageheaded, she did not know what was. She looked to Sesily, trying for brightness. “I require a gown.”

Sesily raised a brow. “And the bit where you look as though you are a lad missing his favorite pup?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Because we are friends, I shall be patient and wait for you to tell me.”

Friends. The unexpected word, one that Sesily used so quickly, as though friendship were natural and honest for her. As though it could be for Lily.

The ache in Lily’s chest grew more insistent.

“My ladies.” Madame Hebert, widely believed to be the best dressmaker in all of London—the scandal sheets claimed that she was rescued from Josephine’s court at the height of the wars—stepped through a nearby set of curtains. “It is a pleasure to see my favorite sisters again—” She looked to Lily. “Non! Not only sisters! Three and a new face.” She drew closer, setting a hand to Lily’s jaw, turning it left, then right. “You might be the most beautiful woman I’ve ever had in my shop.”

It was not a compliment, but instead stated as fact. Lily blinked. “Thank you?”

“This is Lillian Hargrove,” Sesily interjected. “Ward to the Duke of Warnick.”

One perfect black brow rose, the only indication that the modiste heard the words.

“Or simply Lily,” Lily replied.

The dressmaker nodded. “You are here for Warnick.”

If wishing made it so. She pushed the thought aside. “No.”

“For another,” Seleste interjected with glee. “Earl Stanhope.”

Except she wasn’t. Not really.

Madame Hebert did not look away from Lily. “I heard you wore a dog dress to the Eversley ball.”

“You did?”

The Frenchwoman narrowed her gaze. “It is true?”

“I was trying to prove a point,” Lily said, suddenly even more embarrassed than she was the night of the ball.

“To Stanhope?”

She straightened her shoulders. “To Warnick.”

There was a long moment while the dressmaker considered the words. And then, “Oui. I shall dress you.”

“Oh, excellent!” The trio of sisters clapped their hands excitedly. “She’s obviously going to need everything.”

“Not everything,” Lily corrected, “Only a dress for—”

Madame Hebert was already moving, pushing through the curtains as though Lily would simply follow. And she did, the Talbot sisters nearly carrying her along. “She does not dress just anyone,” Seline whispered. “She’s very particular.”

“You’d think if she were particular, she’d avoid the scandal,” Lily whispered back. “Do you think she knows about me?” They entered the workspace and fitting rooms of the dress shop, revealing several seamstresses sewing beneath windows along the far wall, along with a woman poised on a raised platform, back to the door, young woman at her feet, pinning the hem of a lush amethyst silk.

“I never avoid the scandal,” Hebert replied, as though she’d been a part of the conversation all along. “It’s scandals who are seen. And I like my clothing to be seen.” She turned to face Lily, indicating a platform nearby. “I would have avoided you before you were a scandal, Lovely Lily. When you were Lonely Lily.”

“I do adore Hebert.” Sesily sank onto a nearby chaise and repeated herself to the older woman. “She’s going to need everything.”

The dressmaker tilted her head, considering Lily for a long moment before she said, “Oui.”

“Non,” Lily said. “I only need a dress for the theater.”

“Valerie,” Hebert was already turning away, summoning a younger woman nearby. “Bring me the blues.” Turning back, she said, “I’ve a handful of dresses that shall work for you, and require minimal adjustments before tomorrow night. But as I told your duke, the rest of the trousseau will have to come in time.”

“He’s not my—” she began the denial before the Frenchwoman’s entire sentence settled. “Trousseau?”

“One of my very favorite words.” Seline sighed from her place next to her sisters on the settee nearby. “The best part of marriage.”

“Well, the second best part,” Seleste said dryly, sending her sisters into giggles.

“Lily will learn about that bit,” Seline replied. “And with Stanhope—what a treat.”

“He is terribly handsome,” Seleste agreed.

Sesily, however, remained quiet, watching Lily carefully, through eyes that seemed far too knowing.

“The Earl of Stanhope is not going to marry me,” Lily said, turning away to the modiste, who was busy sifting through Valerie’s armful of gowns, finally extracting a stunning cerulean gown. When she held it up for viewing, Lily nearly gasped at the rich color. “It is beautiful,” she said, unable to stop herself from reaching for it.

Madame Hebert nodded. “Oui. And you shall be beautiful in it.” She thrust it into Lily’s hands and pointed to a dressing room. Lily did as she was told and returned within minutes, the gown a shockingly near-perfect fit for her.