Page 49 of The Duke's Auctioned Virgin
“We need to discuss your wardrobe,” Caroline announced, lowering herself into the armchair with the carefulness of a woman whose center of gravity had permanently shifted. She had a stack of fabric swatches in her lap and the determined expression of a general preparing for battle.
“I do not care about my wardrobe,” Valeria protested.
“You said that yesterday. And the day before. And every day since I arrived.” Caroline held up a swatch of deep blue silk. “This one. For the masquerade ball.”
“I thought Mary already chose the ivory.”
“The ivory is for the wedding. The ball requires something different. Something that says you are not a widow anymore. Something that says you are a woman who has made a choice and is not sorry about it.”
Mary stood by the wardrobe, pulling out dresses one by one and holding them up to the lamplight. She had been quiet since she arrived, which meant she was letting Caroline do the talking while she made the actual decisions.
It was how they had always worked. Caroline provided the enthusiasm. Mary provided the results.
“The blue one,” Mary said, holding up a dress Valeria had not seen before.
It was not the blue dress from her wardrobe. This one was new. Deep, rich, the color of a winter sky just before dark. The bodice was fitted, the sleeves hung off the shoulder, and there was gold thread along the neckline that glinted in the lamplight.
“Where did that come from?” Valeria asked.
“I had it made,” Caroline claimed airily, as though commissioning a gown during the final weeks of her pregnancy while simultaneously planning a wedding and a masquerade ball and managing a husband who paced when he was worried were all perfectly normal things to do. “I sent your measurements to Madame Beaumont in London three weeks ago. It arrived this afternoon.”
“Three weeks ago, I had not even announced the engagement.”
“Three weeks ago, I saw the way you looked at the Duke of Welford across the dining hall, and I decided you were going to need a dress.” Caroline folded her hands on her belly. “I am rarely wrong about these things.”
Valeria looked at the dress. It was beautiful. It was the kind of dress she would have chosen for herself before Gordon, before the locked rooms and the counted meals and the blue shawl hidden in the back of her wardrobe. It was the kind of dress a woman wore when she wanted to be seen.
“Try it on,” Mary urged.
“I do not need to try it on.”
“Try it on,” Caroline pressed.
Valeria tried it on. Mary helped her with the laces, the hooks, and the dozen tiny buttons along the back that were clearly designed by someone who had never had to dress themselves.
The fabric was cool against her skin. The bodice fit like it had been made for her—which it had, because Caroline had sent her exact measurements, and Madame Beaumont was the best dressmaker in London and did not make mistakes.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
She did not flinch. That was new. For three years, she had avoided mirrors because the woman who looked back was thin, hollow, and tired, and she did not want to see her.
But the woman in the mirror now looked different. She had color in her cheeks. Her collarbones were no longer sharp enough to cut. Her hair was clean and brushed and falling in waves past her shoulders. And the dress, the blue dress with its gold thread and its fitted bodice and its off-the-shoulder sleeves, made her look like a woman who had earned the right to be seen.
“Well?” Caroline prompted.
Valeria looked at herself. She thought about the drawing room, the carpet, the pigment still under her nails. The way Edward looked at her when she was laughing. The way his face changed when she told him the truth. The feel of his mouth on hers and on her throat and on places she could not think about without heat climbing her neck.
She thought about the way he addressed her. NotDuchess. NotYour Grace. ButValeria. Low and rough and careful, as though the word itself were precious.
“Valeria?” Caroline’s voice cut through her thoughts. “You have been staring at yourself for two minutes without blinking. Are you all right?”
“I am fine.”
“You are not fine. You are blushing.”
“I am not blushing.”
“Your neck is red. It is the same color it was when you came in from the storm. I am beginning to recognize the pattern.”
