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dismay. White was her least favorite color—or lack of color—especially when it was upon her person.
    Rosalie held up one hand.
    “All your other dresses and accessories may be as brightly colored as you wish,” she said. “You may dress in all the colors of the rainbow at once if you choose. I may advise against it, and I shall certainly express my opinion, but if you are a true Dudley, as I daresay you are, then you will pay no heed anyway.”
    “I always listen to advice,” Angeline said, brightening. She was going to like her cousin, she believed. She had not set eyes upon her since she attended Rosalie’s wedding at the age of eight or thereabouts.
    “This is going to be a great delight to me, Angeline,” Rosalie said. “I was ecstatic when I gave birth to Vincent. I was pleased when I had Emmett—it is always a relief to have a spare as well as an heir, and I knew Palmer had hoped for a second boy. I was somewhat disappointed when I had Colin and really rather depressed when I had Geoffrey. They are all perfect loves, of course, my boys, but I would have
so
liked to have a girl. But
now
I am to bring you out. I was really very gratified when Tresham asked me if I would.”
    “I hope,” Angeline said, “I will not be a disappointment to you, Cousin Rosalie.”
    “You will not,” her cousin said decisively. “And I am so
glad
you are not a small, soft, lisping, blond, blue-eyed creature like your m—”
    She was assailed by a sudden fit of coughing.
    Like your mother?
Was that what she had been about to say?Surely not. Mama had not lisped. And she had been beauty itself. Perfection itself. Everything that Angeline was
not
, in fact.
    “Oh, dear,” Rosalie said, patting her chest to stop the coughing. “It is time we had some rain. The air is dry. What was I saying? Ah, yes, that we will go out shopping tomorrow bright and early. And the day after. And the day after that. We are going to have a
wonderful
time, Angeline.”
    And surprisingly they did. Angeline had never been shopping. She soon discovered that it was the most blissful activity in the world. At least, it was for the time being until there were even more exciting things to occupy her time.
    The day for her presentation to the queen was set. And her come-out ball was to be the same evening at Dudley House. Tresham had made all the arrangements, and Ferdinand—who had been waiting at the house the day she arrived and had swept her off her feet and swung her about in two complete circles on the pavement outside the front door while she shrieked her protest and delight—had promised to see to it that she did not lack for partners all evening.
    “Not that you will even without my vigilance, Angie,” he had said. “In fact, I daresay prospective partners will be queued up beyond the ballroom doors and all the way down the stairs and out the door. Tresh will have to extend the duration of the ball for three whole days to accommodate them all and you will have blisters on all ten toes and on both heels and be unable to dance again all Season. Tell me about your journey. Tedious, was it?”
    The days rushed by, and Angeline acquired so many new clothes and shoes and slippers and fans and reticules and a hundred and one other items that she wondered where Betty found room to put them all.
    And finally, almost before Angeline was ready for it, the great day dawned. The day of The Curtsy—she thought of it in capital letters—and the come-out ball. Ferdinand might yet prove right, or wrong, about the number of prospective partners she would have, but she was to have at least one. The widowed Countess of Heywardhad spoken to Rosalie, and Rosalie had spoken to Tresham, and the Earl of Heyward, the countess’s brother-in-law, had spoken to Tresham, and it was all settled—the earl was to lead Angeline into the first set.
    The very first set of her very first
ton
ball.
    She
hoped
the earl was tall, dark, and handsome, or at least some acceptable