Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“ I daresay I know someone who enjoys a good waltz,” Bess teased the next morning over breakfast. Scarlett had, it seemed, finally succumbed to town hours and had risen at the shocking hour of half past ten. She was still tired, her feet ached, and she had a slight headache from all the candles…but she had never been so happy in all her life.

“Lady Tipton sent a note this morning,” Lady Leighton informed her. “She would like to take you shopping. Bess, you were invited as well—very good of her!—but I told her you had a prior engagement.”

“What?” Bess said. “Do I?”

“Viscount Mallory said he would call,” Lady Leighton said excitedly. “You would not wish to be out gadding about Bond Street and miss him!”

Bess smiled, although to Scarlett’s eye, it seemed a trifle forced. “No, of course not, Mama. ”

The very elegant equipage commanded by Lady Tipton came to collect Scarlett only an hour later. She had been required, once again, to purloin some things from Bess’s closet to attire herself suitably, and it had reminded her of her present uncertainty. It weighed on her still as she, along with Lady Tipton and Adelaide, made their way through the exclusive shops.

So absent-minded was she that it nearly escaped her notice that Lady Tipton was ordering a great quantity of items for her . The shopgirl was nearly agog with joy by the time Scarlett put a halt to things, remembering just in time that her ladyship did not wish to be called Lady Tipton, but Aunt Louisa.

“Aunt,” she said quietly, “I must tell you that my circumstances?—”

“What circumstances might those be?” Lady Tipton asked blithely. “Niece of an earl?”

“No,” Scarlett said with a gentle smile. “No, um, the reverend he does not…he does not approve of shopping, save for necessity.”

“Well…” Lady Tipton drew the word out as she took the page from the shopgirl’s hand. Her eyes went over the articles written: material for two day gowns and two ball gowns, innumerable petticoats and underthings, three reticules, a nightgown, fine muslin for handkerchiefs, dance slippers…and that was merely the first page. “I think all of this is necessary. How shall you get through an entire Season with less?”

“Will you excuse us for a moment?” Scarlett asked the shopgirl. She curtseyed and left, retreating behind her counter some distance away. Although most of London by now knew the story, that Scarlett had been adopted by a parson and his wife and raised in the country, she still did not wish to bandy private matters about.

With her voice low, Scarlett said, “I fear that the reverend will not permit me to remain in town.”

“Then his lordship will tell him that he must,” Lady Tipton replied with smiling confidence.

From a nearby table where she had been examining the gloves, Adelaide drew near. “Who has charge over her?”

“Lord Tipton, of course,” Lady Tipton replied with the same aplomb. Then her brow wrinkled. “That is to say, I believe he should.”

“Have you written to the reverend?” Adelaide asked Scarlett.

Scarlett nodded. “The morning you came in with the gowns, I had just finished writing to him. I told him all about finding you, and the family.”

“So I daresay we must await his reply,” Adelaide concluded.

“Lord Tipton has also written to him,” Lady Tipton told the two younger girls. “These things are generally better left to the menfolk to sort out, in any case.”

“I hope so,” Scarlett replied. “For I fear his reply, I truly do. But in the meantime, I surely cannot accept such generosity as all of this.” She gestured towards the page, still in her aunt’s hand .

Lady Tipton looked like she might protest, but Adelaide was quickly into the breach. “A very prudent notion,” she said. “And how fortunate that you happen to have an identical twin sister whose closets and dressing room are simply bursting with new gowns that you can wear any time you choose.”

“But perhaps just some of it.” Lady Tipton protested. “After all, you can hardly share stockings and chemises, can you?”

The shopgirl was decidedly less happy to see the vast reduction in the number of items that would be purchased. “Leave it all written up just as you have it, and let us take Scarlett’s measurements,” Lady Tipton said definitively. “I think this will all be sorted out in the next days and then we shall return for it.”

Scarlett could only wish that she might be so confident.

The plans that Lady Tipton had arranged included an opera for that night. As Scarlett required a gown, they went to Tipton House to find one for her in Adelaide’s closet. “And jewels!” Lady Tipton added. “Pray do not forget that, or the fact that all eyes are likely to be upon her.”

“On me?” Scarlett exclaimed. “At the opera? Why should anyone look at me?”

“Oh, no one cares about the actual performance,” Adelaide told her. “The opera is just an excuse to see and be seen, and you of course are of much interest. Do not worry, Aunt Louisa and I shall see to it that you are resplendent. She has more jewellery than most of the rest of the ton put together. She is sure to have something that will suit you.”

In a short time, the ladies had procured all the needed items for Scarlett’s appearance at the opera. “My deepest regret,” Adelaide said from where she was seated on the floor, looking through her shoes, “is that I do not have two gowns alike. Would it not be hilarious to dress the same and then see what they had to say about it!”

A footman took Scarlett’s planned opera attire down to the carriage, with Adelaide and Scarlett trailing behind him. Just as they reached the vestibule, the door was opened and Oakley, with Worthe beside him, entered.

“Ladies,” said Oakley and appeared quite prepared to go right past them, but Worthe stopped.

“Miss Scarlett,” he said very formally. “How do you do?”

She wondered what he was about in being so droll. She decided to play along and curtseyed deeply. “Lord Worthe. Very well, and I hope you are too.”

“You were out shopping with your sister, I believe?”

“I was,” she said.

“Was it a successful morning?” he enquired.

“Yes, yes!” Oakley cried out impatiently. “Whenever you mix ladies with money and shops, success is all but guaranteed, particularly if the ladies are as pretty as Adelaide and Scarlett. The only true loser in any of it is his lordship’s coffers. Now come on! We will be late!”

So saying, he grabbed his friend by the arm and propelled him towards the stair. Adelaide and Scarlett both watched them go with some confusion. “Well that was certainly peculiar,” Scarlett remarked at last.

“They must truly be late for something,” Adelaide decided, “else surely Oakley would have stopped. Come, let us get you situated in the carriage, for soon enough it will be time to send it back to you to take you to the opera!”