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Bridget. Poor Venetia has been asked to a number of parties, but as she has just come back from school in a great hurry she has absolutely nothing to wear. If she had known her father needed her, she could have visited Frederick Worth before she left Paris.”
    Mrs. Herbert smiled.
    â€œOf course she could, and I suppose you want me to provide her with some of Worth’s wonderful new gowns, which I only brought back to London yesterday.”
    â€œThat is why we have come before you have time to dispose of them, Bridget, and please, we want not only those you have with you but a great many more.”
    Mrs. Herbert held up her hands.
    â€œYou cannot have them all! My friends are waiting for my arrival. In fact they are all coming to see me at teatime and I am certain that everything I have brought from Paris will have disappeared before the evening is out!”
    â€œThey will have gone long before that, so please let us waste no more time, but fit my dearest Goddaughter out. You will have to provide her with a number of other gowns by the middle of next week.”
    â€œIt’s impossible,” Mrs. Herbert protested.
    â€œNothing is impossible where we are concerned. What I have already suggested to Venetia, and she knows
her father will agree, is that you send a courier over to Paris
to bring back at least six gowns and place a further order for
double that amount.”
    Mrs. Herbert drew in her breath.
    Venetia was to discover later that she made a small
commission on everything she sold in London for Worth.
    But such a large order was something she had never expected nor received before. Venetia was told that the Worth designs were, for the moment, rather too elaborate and eccentric for London Socialites who had been brought up to think it was vulgar to be too noticeable.
    Mrs. Herbert had brought back dresses that Venetia thought were absolutely lovely, as the materials Worth was now using were particularly unusual.
    Velvet, silks and satins vied in richness with one another, but Worth had thought that four or five trimmings were not enough for a single dress and so he added lace, garlands of flowers, ribbons and frills.
    Venetia was delighted with them all.
    Because Mrs. Herbert was anxious to please her as well as Lady Manvill, she produced three day dresses too.
    She had bought them for herself together with matching hats and they were far smarter, Lady Manvill remarked, than anything available in Bond Street.
    There was no doubt that Venetia looked lovely in them all and there were fortunately only minor alterations necessary that could easily be done by a lady’s maid.
    â€œNow the rest of the things you want, and which must arrive next week without fail,” Lady Manvill said to Venetia, “must be written down very clearly, so that dear Bridget can send a courier over tomorrow to collect them.”
    â€œIt will be incredibly expensive, I am afraid,” Mrs. Herbert murmured a little nervously.
    Lady Manvill spoke up at once.
    â€œThe Duke wants his daughter to look outstanding and what could better make her so than the lovely gowns we have already bought?
    â€œBesides, Bridget, you will need more gowns for those you will be obliged to disappoint when they arrive here this afternoon.”
    â€œI don’t know what I will say to them,” she replied.
    â€œJust tell them the dresses were not quite finished before you left, but they will be arriving in two or three day’s time. And please do not mention that I have been here or that I have brought Venetia along. It is essential they should not talk about her before she finally appears on the Social stage.”
    Mrs. Herbert laughed.
    â€œYou are quite right, Alice, and I will do as you say. I think that your Goddaughter is very lucky to have such lovely clothes for her first Season.”
    â€œI am so very grateful,” sighed Venetia, “and please bring me, as Aunt Alice has suggested, some more