Chapter 6

Phoebe gritted her teeth as a groom helped her onto the pillion pad behind Portia. It was all in a good cause, she told herself. And kept telling herself throughout the ride into Witney, some five miles’ distance. Portia made no concessions to her passenger’s fears and gave the mare her head across the flat fields.

They rode into the small market town just after noon and left the horses and their Decatur escort in the stable yard of the Hand and Shears. Portia for once was wearing a riding skirt over her britches, but it did nothing to constrain her long, rangy stride as they set off in search of the golden balls that would denote a pawnbroker.

Phoebe was astonished to find herself behaving as if she did this kind of thing all the time. She seemed to be driven by a compulsion that had come from nowhere and was as exciting as it was irresistible. She marched into the gloom of the pawnbroker’s, unwrapped the silk scarf that contained the rings, and laid the small hoard on the cracked pine counter. “I want twenty guineas for them,” she heard herself say, bold as brass.

“Oh, do you now?” The pawnbroker peered at her through a monocle. He was wondering what straits could have brought three such young women of obvious breeding to his door. Most unlike his usual customers. They seemed very self-possessed, and not in the least supplicant. The dark girl was strolling around his shop examining his wares with an air of purposeful curiosity. The tall redhead merely stood against the door, arms folded, as coolly as if she owned the place.

He turned his attention to the rings. The settings were old-fashioned, but the rings were worth a deal more than twenty guineas. He wondered why the young woman hadn’t asked for more. She was tapping her fingers on the counter in obvious impatience as he made his examination, and he came to the odd conclusion that she’d fixed on the sum she wanted and wasn’t in the least interested in anything more. She couldn’t be in some kind of trouble, he thought. People in trouble behaved very differently. It was most intriguing.

However, after his inspection he merely nodded and unlocked a silver-bound chest. He extracted twenty guineas and gave them to her without a further word.

“My thanks.” Phoebe scooped the coins into her pocket. She turned to the door. “Come on, Olivia. We don’t have much time.”

“I was looking for a pair of c-compasses,” Olivia said. But she abandoned her search and followed Phoebe and Portia out of the shop.

They found a dressmaker’s shop halfway down the High Street. Phoebe peered in the window. “I’ve never bought a gown ready-made before,” she said, assailed by her first moment of doubt since the expedition had started, but Portia was already striding into the shop.

The dressmaker looked as if she’d found a treasure trove as she hurried out of a back room at the tinkle of the bell. “What can I do for you, my ladies?” It was very clear from dress and posture that they were ladies. Although it was strange that they should be unaccompanied.

“Lady Granville wishes to buy a gown,” Portia announced, indicating Phoebe with a wave of her hand. “She wishes to be able to take it home this afternoon, so perhaps you could show us what you have.”

The dressmaker looked closely at Phoebe. She saw a voluptuous young woman in a shabby, ill-fitting gown and unhappily revised her expectations. Expensive high fashion didn’t seem to be in order here. She disappeared into the sewing room, reappearing in a very few minutes with several pallid gowns, all with delicate lacy shawl collars that covered the bosom almost to the throat. She laid them on a chair.

Phoebe felt a surge of disappointment. Portia said, “No, they won’t do at all. We want a gown that will make the most of her advantages.”

Phoebe was so unaccustomed to thinking of herself as having advantages that she felt embarrassed, imagining that the woman would be wondering what on earth Portia was talking about. Once again this didn’t seem like such a good idea.

But the woman, looking immediately more cheerful, was now nodding as she walked all around Phoebe. “Yes, a lovely little figure, if I may say so, my lady. A touch of Rubens about you. It will be a pleasure to dress you.”

“Oh, I like this one.” Olivia had wandered off with her usual blithe curiosity into the back room and now came out with a gown of orange silk edged in black. “Isn’t this lovely?” She held it up.

“The color would suit you, m’lady, with your black hair,” the dressmaker said, “but it’s too harsh for Lady Granville.”

“Is it?” Phoebe asked with disappointment. “It’s very… very bold. I wish the gown to be bold,” she asserted as her ideas crystallized.

“Bravo.” Portia applauded softly.

The dressmaker stroked her chin where a little cluster of whiskers sprouted, much to Olivia’s fascination. “Blue,” she pronounced. “Dark blue for the eyes. I have just the gown. It was made for a customer’s trousseau, but alas, poor lady, her betrothed was killed at Naseby and she hadn’t the heart to take any of the trousseau.” She turned and dived into the back regions again.

“I wish I c-could buy this.” Olivia held the orange gown against her and examined her reflection in the mirror.

“It certainly suits you, but I don’t think we want to give Cato too many surprises all at once,” Portia said.

“Is that what you’re doing? Trying to surprise my father?” Olivia turned slowly from the mirror. “Is that why Phoebe won’t have a g-gown made up at home?”

“Exactly,” Portia said. “Men need to be surprised now and again. It’s good for ‘em.”

Olivia couldn’t imagine her father surprised. He was always so much in control of things. If any surprises were to be dished out, he’d be doing the dishing. Or so she had always thought.

“Now, try this, Lady Granville.” The dressmaker bustled back. She held a gown of midnight blue velvet. The color was so dark, the material so rich, it shimmered in the light of the oil lamp hanging from the low ceiling.

“Oh!” Phoebe said with a tiny gasp. She touched the gown, brushing the velvet with her fingers. “It’s like a river.”

Portia was already unhooking Phoebe’s dimity print. It fell to her feet and she stepped out of it, kicking it away impatiently.

The dressmaker dropped the velvet over her head and expertly hooked it at the back. She adjusted the skirts that looped over an underdress of figured blue silk.

“Now, that,” Portia declared, “is what I call dramatic.”

“I knew I was right,” said Olivia with satisfaction.

Phoebe stepped to the mirror and gasped. Her bosom rose creamy white from a decolletage so low her nipples were almost visible. A stiff embroidered collar rose at the back of the gown, framing her head and somehow accentuating the plunging decolletage. The gown was bound beneath the bosom with a girdle of braided silk and fell in luxuriant folds to caress the swell of her hips.

“I don’t look like me,” she said. “But it’s shocking. My breasts are going to tumble out.”

“No, they won’t, m’lady,” the dressmaker assured her. “But it does need a few minor adjustments. The sleeves are a little long, and the skirts. If you’ll leave it with me for an hour, I’ll have it ready for you.” She had a pincushion fastened to her wrist and was pinning and tucking as she spoke.

“How much is it?” Phoebe asked. Uncertainty mingled with exhilaration. She looked like a wanton. Cato would be horrified. And yet she was fascinated by this new image of herself. Wanton perhaps, but also undeniably fashionable. And she’d never noticed how white her bosom was, or how truly deep the cleft between her breasts. Her waist was not defined by the gown, and somehow that made it seem smaller than she knew it was. But that was the contrast surely between the swell of her breasts and the curve of her hips.