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your clothes—and all the world knows too much about them. In my day, young ladies did not make public spectacles of themselves, advertising every stitch they wore. To have your chemisette described—in detail!—in a public journal, as though you were a courtesan or a banker’s wife! You ought to be sick with shame. But nothing shames you. Small wonder you behaved last night like a common trollop. I blame those French milliners. If you set foot in their shop again, I’ll disown you!”
    “Gad, what difference does it make?” Harry said. “Unless Adderley meets with a fatal accident, she’ll have to marry him, like it or not. She might as well have some frocks she likes now, since she’s not likely to have many after the wedding.”
    “Adderley may take her in her shift,” Mother said. “He’s no better than a fortune hunter, and a vile seducer in the bargain. Oh, that ever I should see this day! A fresh-minted baron —swimming in debt, thanks to the gaming tables—and his mother an Irish innkeeper’s daughter! When I think that she might have had the Duke of Clevedon!”
    “I strongly advise you not to think about it,” Harry said. “They’d have made each other wretched.”
    “And Adderley will make her happy?” Mama sank back on the pillows and closed her eyes.
    “Clara will break him to bridle,” Longmore said. “And if she can’t cure his wild ways, who knows? Maybe he’ll ride into a ditch or get run over by a post chaise, and she’ll be a young widow. Do try to look on the bright side.”
    He ought to know this wasn’t the best tack to take with Mama. She wouldn’t know whether he was joking or not, and that would only add irritation to the emotional stew.
    Clara took a more effective route. “I wonder what Lady Bartham will say when she hears I’m to be sent away without a trousseau, without so much as a wedding dress,” she said.
    Lady Bartham and Mama were ferocious social rivals. They pretended to be the dearest of friends.
    A short, sharp silence followed.
    After a moment, Mama sat up again. She wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and said, “My own wishes cannot signify. We must consider your father’s position. I shall persuade him to let you have bride clothes.” She waved the handkerchief. “But not from those French strumpets! You’ll go to Mrs. Downes.”
    “Downes’s!” Clara cried. “Are you delirious, Mama? She’s closed her shop.”
    She caught her breath. She was supposed to be the calm one. She had to be, with a hothead brother and a hysterical mother. Luckily, her mother was too taken up with her own emotions to notice anybody else’s.
    “That was only temporary,” Mama said. “She sent me a note yesterday, telling me she’s reopened, thank heaven. You’ll go to her. Your morals may be all to pieces, but you shall be clothed respectably.”
    “Very well, Mama,” Clara said meekly.
    Harry gave her a sharp look.
    She gave him a warning one back.
    M eanwhile, at No. 56 St. James’s Street, the sisters Noirot were staring in disbelief at a tiny advertisement.
    Today’s Spectacle hadn’t arrived until some time after the shop opened. The morning being unusually busy, they hadn’t had time to do more than skim the papers.
    At present, though, their more-than-competent forewoman, Selina Jeffreys, was on duty in Maison Noirot’s showroom.
    Having adjourned upstairs to Marcelline’s studio, the three dressmakers huddled over her drawing table, gazes fixed on twelve lines of print in one of the Spectacle ’s advertising pages.
    Therein Mrs. Downes proclaimed herself delighted to announce that, having completed a short period of “refurbishment,” she had reopened her dressmaking establishment.
    Sophy had got wind of it last night at the party. She’d mentioned it to her sisters. They’d all hoped it was merely the usual idle rumor.
    They had quite enough trouble as it was.
    “Curse her,” Marcelline said. “We should have been finished with her.