Page 63 of A Virgin to Tempt the Duke

“Not black,” Anna murmured to herself, running her fingers over a length of pale rose. “Not gray. Not lavender, even, I think I have had quite enough of half-mourning to last several lifetimes.”

Madame Paquette’s shop smelled of fresh-pressed silk and the dust that seemed to live permanently in bolts of fabric. Anna had been standing before a wall of muslins for the better part of ten minutes, paralyzed by the sheer relief of being allowed to choose colors again.

“A sentiment I share entirely, though it has been rather longer since I was permitted to indulge it.”

Anna turned to find Lady Oldbarrow examining a bolt of deep blue silk with the critical eye of a woman who had buried two husbands and learned, through hard practice, exactly which colors flattered a complexion past its first bloom, and which did not. “Lady Oldbarrow!” Anna dropped into a curtsy, smiling despite herself; it was impossible not to smile at the dowager,who had a way of making the whole world feel like a joke shared privately between the two of you. “I didn’t know you frequented Madame Paquette’s.”

“I frequent wherever the good fabric is, my dear, and Madame Paquette has had the good fabric since before you were in long skirts. She is the best modiste in London, perhaps the continent if I am completely truthful.” She set down the blue silk and turned her full attention on Anna instead, which was somehow a more thorough examination than the fabric had endured. “And what is this? Our dear Anna, out of black at last. Color suits you. You ought never to have worn anything else.”

“I am attempting to remember how. It has been rather a long year of grays.”

“Mourning generally is, no matter the circumstances.” Lady Oldbarrow said it lightly, but there was something underneath it. “Come, sit with me. Madame Paquette can manage perfectly well without our hovering, and I find shop benches a great deal more comfortable for confidences than standing about pretending to care which shade of green is more becoming.”

They settled themselves on the narrow bench near the window, swatches forgotten in their laps, and for a moment simply watched the street outside.

Anna saw a young footman struggling with too many parcels, a pair of dogs investigating each other with great seriousness.

A mother chasing her daughter.

“You have come to London to find a husband, I hear,” Lady Oldbarrow said, without preamble, in the tone of a woman stating a fact rather than asking a question.

Anna laughed, startled. “Does the whole of London know my business already?”

“The whole of London does not. I am simply old enough to recognize the determination in a young woman’s eye when she has decided to stop drifting and start choosing. You are in an excellent position to do so, and have endured enough, my dear.” Lady Oldbarrow patted her hand. “It is not a criticism. In fact, I admire it considerably. Most women wait to be chosen and call it modesty. There is no shame in deciding for yourself.”

“I should like your advice, then. If you would be kind enough to give it.” Anna twisted her gloves in her lap. “You have been married twice, after all.”

“Twice, yes, and survived both, which is rather the more impressive feat.”

“Were you in love both times?”

Lady Oldbarrow considered the question with more gravity than Anna had expected, looking back out at the street as though the answer might be found among the parcels and the dogs.

“I was in love with my first husband. Wildly, foolishly, the sort of love that makes a girl do idiotic things and feel entirely justifieddoing them. Something out of those new novels.” A faint smile. “My second husband, I liked a great deal, and respected more, and we built something together that I would not trade. They were both good marriages, in their way.”

“Do you think one could be happy,” Anna asked slowly, “with someone they liked, but did not love? Not in that wild, foolish way?”

“I think happiness comes in more shapes than young women are generally led to believe. It comes from inside you, circumstances can always change. We are what endure.” Lady Oldbarrow turned to look at her properly now, and her eyes were sharp despite their kindness. “But I notice you did not ask me in the abstract, my dear.”

Anna felt heat climb her throat and busied herself with a swatch of pale green that did not require nearly so much attention as she gave it. She thought, unbidden, of amber eyes across a market square, of a bow given with more warmth than the words accompanying it. She thought ofI had business that kept me,and of a man who had told her plainly and more than once, in the unhurried way he said most things, that he had no intention of marrying at all.

Frederick had forgotten her, likely. A year was a long time. He had his business and his composure and his cat, and whatever vague disinclination toward matrimony he had always carried like a birthmark. There was no particular reason he should have spent the twelvemonth thinking of her at all.

She, on the other hand, had apparently spent rather more of it thinking of him than she cared to admit to herself, let alone to Lady Oldbarrow.

“No one particular,” Anna said quickly, which was not strictly a lie, only an incomplete truth, and judging by the look on Lady Oldbarrow’s face, not a convincing one either.

“Mm. I see.” Lady Oldbarrow did not press it, which was somehow worse than if she had. “Well, I shan’t tell you whether liking can be enough, dear girl, because I haven’t the faintest notion what your heart requires, and neither, I suspect, do you yet. That is rather the trouble with hearts. They keep their own counsel until it is far too inconvenient to ignore them any longer.” She rose, smoothing her skirts, and held out a hand to pull Anna up after her. “You will have to discover it for yourself. I can only tell you that whichever way you choose, you ought to choose it for your own reasons, and not because you have decided in advance what you are permitted to want.”

“That is dreadfully unhelpful advice.”

“It is the only honest kind I have.” Lady Oldbarrow smiled and turned back toward the silks. “Now. That rose you were holding. Take it. It will do exactly what you want it to do at whatever dinner you are no doubt fretting about attending this week. You may thank me for it later.”

Frederick had not particularly wanted to host a dinner party, but Rachel had wanted it badly enough for the both of them.

And so, the thing had been organized.

The guest list was approved, the menu argued over, his own role reduced to standing at the head of the table looking, he hoped, like a man who had chosen this evening rather than been conscripted into it. He abhorred not being in control, which was hard as his mind felt less of his own the more he thought of?—