“Olivia,” Pippa said quietly, shaking her head. “You are . . .”
“Gorgeous!” the marchioness exclaimed, clapping her hands together in maternal glee.
Olivia fluffed the skirts of the lovely ivory lace and grinned. “Absolutely stunning, aren’t I?”
“Stunning,” Pippa agreed. It was the truth after all. But she could not resist adding, “And so modest.”
“Oh, tosh,” Olivia said, turning to look more carefully in the mirror. “If you cannot tell the truth in Hebert’s back room, where can you? Dressmaker’s shops are for gossip and honesty.”
The seamstress—widely acknowledged as the best in Britain—removed a pin from between her lips and pinned the bodice of the gown before winking at Pippa from her position behind Olivia’s shoulder. “I could not agree more.”
Olivia was unable to take her eyes off her reflection in one of the score of mirrors placed around the room. “Yes. It’s perfect.”
It was, of course. Not that Olivia needed a dress to make her beautiful. The youngest, prettiest Marbury sister could wear a length of feed sack fetched from the Needham Manor stables and still look more beautiful than most women on their very best days. No, there was little doubt that two weeks hence, when Olivia and Viscount Tottenham stood in St. George’s in front of all of London society, she would be a stunning bride—the talk of the ton.
Pippa would no doubt pale in comparison as she played her part in the double wedding.
“Lady Philippa, Alys is ready for you.” The dressmaker pulled her from her thoughts with a wave of one long arm, adorned with a scarlet pincushion, in the direction of a young assistant standing near a tall screen on one end of the room, a mass of lace and silk in her hands.
Pippa’s wedding gown.
Something turned deep within, and she hesitated.
“Go on, Pippa. Put it on.” Olivia looked down at the dressmaker. “It’s very different, I hope. I wouldn’t like us to be thought to wear the same dress.”
Pippa had no doubt that, even if the dresses were an exact copy, there would be no mistaking the two brides on the fast-approaching day.
Where the four older Marbury daughters had been landed with flat, ashy blond hair, skin either too ruddy (Victoria and Valerie) or too pale (Pippa and Penelope), and bodies either too plump (Penelope and Victoria) or too lean (Pippa and Valerie), Olivia was perfect. Her hair was a lush, sparkling gold that shimmered in the sunlight, her skin was clear and pink, and her shape—the ideal combination of curved and trim. She had a body that was made for French fashion, and Madame Hebert had designed her a dress to prove it.
Pippa doubted the dressmaker—best in London or no—could do the same for her.
The gown was over her head then, the sound of fabric rustling in her ears chasing away her thoughts as the young seamstress tightened and fastened, buttoned and tied. Pippa fidgeted through the process, keenly aware of the harsh lace edging against her skin, of the way the stays threatened to suffocate.
She had not yet seen herself in it, but the dress was remarkably uncomfortable.
When Alys had completed her work, she waved Pippa out into the main room, and for one small moment, Pippa wondered what would happen if, instead of emerging to the critical gaze of her sister and mother and the finest dressmaker this side of the English Channel, she fled into the rear of the shop and out the back door.
Perhaps then she and Castleton could forgo the entire wedding and simply get to the marriage bit. That was, after all, the important part of it all, wasn’t it?
“This shall be the wedding of the season!” Lady Needham crowed from beyond the screen.
Well . . . perhaps marriage was not the most important part for mothers.
“Of course it shall,” Olivia agreed. “Didn’t I tell you that, Penny-disaster or no, I would marry well?”
“You did, my darling. You always achieve that which you set your mind to.”
Lucky Olivia.
“My lady?” The young seamstress looked confused. Pippa gathered that it was not every day that a bride was so hesitant to show off her wedding gown.
She stepped around the screen. “Well? Here I am.”
“Oh!” Lady Needham nearly toppled from her place on a lavishly appointed divan, tea sloshing from her cup as she bounced up and down on the sapphire fabric. “Oh! What a fine countess you shall make!”
Pippa looked past her mother to Olivia, who was already back to watching the half dozen young seamstresses on their knees, pinning the hem of her gown, lifting flounces and moving ribbons. “Very nice, Pippa.” She paused. “Not as nice as mine, of course . . .”
Some things did not change. Thankfully. “Of course not.”
Madame Hebert was already helping Pippa up onto her own raised platform, pins lodged firmly between the dressmaker’s teeth as she cast a disparaging gaze along the bodice of the gown. Pippa turned to look at herself in a large mirror, and the Frenchwoman immediately stepped into her line of vision. “Not yet.”
The seamstresses worked in silence as Pippa ran the tips of her fingers over the bodice of the gown, tracing the curves of lace and the stretches of silk. “Silk comes from caterpillars,” she said, the information a comfort in the odd moment. “Well, not precisely caterpillars—the cocoons of the silkworm.” When no one replied, she looked down at her hands, and added, “The Bombyx mori pupates, and before it can emerge as a moth—we get silk.”
There was silence for long moments, and Pippa looked up to discover everyone in the room staring at her as though she had sprouted a second head. Olivia was the first to reply. “You are so odd.”