Page 30 of A Most Improper Duchess
Arley would hear what a bore he had placed her with. He would regret it. After she kissed him. Then she would tell him her mind. She stepped outside onto the landing but instead of her fiancé, she found Cecil.
‘His Grace is detained,’ he explained. ‘But I have orders to escort you to Number 10.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘He made me promise I would not tell until we arrived.’
Vivianne raised her eyebrows. ‘Surely you have learnt that I am not fond of surprises.’
Cecil rolled his lips to suppress a smile. ‘Very well. You have an appointment with the tailor. The couturier if you prefer.’
Arley had promised her a new dress, and something for their wedding. ‘A good tailor?’ she asked.
‘The very best.’
Vivianne clasped her hands together. Her callouses rubbed through the worn leather. ‘I do not mean skill. I mean character.’
‘His Grace thought you might enquire as such. Yes, my lady. Good onbothcounts.’
Vivianne scrunched at her dress, the fancier of the two she had brought, and one she had made herself. Simple, and modified to Parisian fashion, but compared to the lushness of fabrics and embroidery in Mrs Crofts’s sitting room, incredibly austere.
‘What am I to order?’
Now Cecil did smile. ‘Anything you desire.’
They walked the short distance to Number 10, and once inside, Cecil led her to the front room by the entrance, the same room she had sat in the day before. But now, it looked like a couturier’s showrooms, the sort where she had once toiled beneath the floorboards.
A young woman bobbed a curtsy and gestured to a low wooden box in the centre of the room. Vivianne stepped up and spun in a small circle. Ginghams, satin, flannel and cottons draped the furniture, while open tool boxes filled with glass beads and buttons covered the floor and tables. Feathers, beetle shells, silk thread and leather swatches, she recognised all the fabrics and ornamentation from her time with thegrisettes. Three attendants stood waiting, all with a pencil and notebook in hand. A man with a mass of measuring tapes draped around his neck circled her. He pressed one finger to his cheek.
‘Nipped waist. Not much chest. Short stature.’ He took one of her gloved hands and extended her arm before her. ‘Lovely long limbs. And a very pretty face. I can work with this.’ He clapped his hands twice. ‘Mary-Anne! Measurements.’
A woman stepped forward and slid a tape around Vivianne’s waist, then her chest, around her bottom, then her hips. Each time, she called a number over her shoulder.
‘They are not my numbers,’ Vivianne said. ‘They are too low.’
‘Inches,’ the tailor called across the room as he flipped through swatches of fabric. ‘I would love the precision of your French millimetres. Perhaps one day?’ He picked up a length of silk and raised it to the light. ‘Colours?’
‘What of them?’ she asked.
He gave an exasperated huff. ‘Which ones do you like?’
When not on stage, she mostly wore navy, burgundy, and bottle green, the colours that hid the dust and dirt of the city. Practical shades for a woman who tended her own linen.
She was not that woman anymore.
‘Could I see something in pink?’ she asked. The tailor snapped a finger and pointed. A woman gathered a length of fabric, the same shade as a summer peach, and presented it. Hesitantly, Vivianne stripped off her glove and stroked. Muslin, with a soft, fine weave. She’d barely feel it against her body. ‘And blue? Not dark, but like the sky. And violet. Yellow. And all the colours, I want to see them all! How many can I have?’ she asked, her words now tumbling with excitement.
‘I have instructions to measure you for as many as you think you need,’ the tailor replied.
‘How many… I do not know how many. Cecil, how many do I need?’
Cecil tipped a little to the side to address the tailor. ‘The future duchess needs afullwardrobe.’
What full wardrobe meant, Vivianne did not know, but it sent all the staff into a flurry. Papers shuffled and fell, fabrics unfurled, boxes opened, and the tailor scribbled frantically in his notebook.
‘My lady, what do you think of these beads?’
‘My lady, see this charmeuse.’
