Kendra came back leading Jane, a plain-faced young maid with a kind smile and an armful of dresses. Kendra grabbed a yellow one from the pile and held it up to Amy’s cheek. “No, too sallow,” she muttered, tossing it aside. The next was peach. “Too pale.” Jane handed her another, a burgundy satin. “Perfect,” Kendra declared.
Before Amy could protest, her gown was removed and Kendra’s dropped over her head. A rose scent wafted from the fabric. Wiggling into the dress, she inhaled the luxurious fragrance, thinking the Chases lived a different life indeed.
It wasn’t her life, though. Her life would never feel complete without her craft. Without the thrill of working raw stones and metal into lasting bits of beauty.
Jane laced up the bodice, attached the stomacher, and tucked up the skirt to reveal a shell-pink underskirt. She plucked Amy’s chemise through the slashed sleeves, which were caught together at intervals with pink ribbons. Then she seated Amy before the oval gilt-framed mirror and began fussing with her hair.
“I cannot figure out how to plait it properly.” Amy tugged up her lace-edged chemise to fill in the gown’s low neckline. “Our maid used to entwine ribbons somehow.”
“Oh, curls are the fashion now.” Kendra waved a hand. “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”
What was she going to do? Amy stared at her reflection. Without her father to force the issue, the one thing she wouldn’t do was marry Robert Stanley. She would have to write soon to tell him so.
“Not entirely.” She sat very still as Jane wielded a hot curling iron. “Go to Paris, to my aunt and uncle’s jewelry shop, is what I should do.” She toyed with a bottle on the marble-topped dressing table. “I promised my father I’d never give up my craft…and jewelry is my life. I know no other.”
“Well, you needn’t leave until you feel ready. I promised you that.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes met Kendra’s in the looking glass. “You’re a good friend.”
Jane tied a pink ribbon in Amy’s hair and stepped back to view her handiwork. “What do you think?” She reached out and tweaked a curl.
“Beautiful,” Kendra said.
Amy gazed at her reflection, touching a finger to her lips. The lips Colin had kissed. Maybe, just maybe, she would find a young man—another jeweler—in France. A jeweler who could make her feel like Colin did.
“No time for cosmetics,” Kendra said with a sigh. “We’re late already.”
EIGHTEEN
“WHERE ARE they all?” Ford lifted the decanter of wine. “Kendra and Amy I can credit—girls always take forever to ready themselves. But Colin—”
Jason wrested the wine from Ford and, with a meaningful look, refilled his youngest brother’s goblet only halfway. “Speaking of Colin, I think Kendra is scheming to match him with Amethyst Goldsmith.”
“Huh?” Ford shook his head. “Whyever would Kendra do that?”
“I’m sure I don’t know. Mrs. Goldsmith has no fortune to offer. It’s debatable whether a well-to-do merchant could meet Greystone’s financial needs, and now that her family’s shop has burned to the ground, the question is moot.”
Ford sipped. “She’s quite pretty, though.”
“What on earth has that got to do with it?” Jason lifted his goblet. “I know Priscilla doesn’t top Kendra’s list of favorite people, but for her to push this match—” He stopped and took a quick swallow of wine. “Colin, there you are.”
Colin narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What were you two speaking of?”
Ford jumped in. “We were just wondering if you’d managed to match up all the children with their families in London?”
“Yes—and no.” Colin took his seat. “It seems the littlest one, Mary, is an orphan. Her parents both died in the plague. Neighbors had taken her in, but now that they’re homeless…” He shrugged. “I brought her back with me.”
Jason nearly spilled his wine. “You cannot be planning to keep her?”
“Priscilla would never put up with it,” Ford put in.
Colin flashed him a scathing glance. “No, I’m not planning to keep her.” He turned to Jason. “I was hoping you could find her a home in the village.”
“I expect I can.” Jason’s hand came up and smoothed his mustache, his eyes thoughtful. “But couldn’t you have left her at a foundling home in London?”
“I could have, I suppose.” Colin reached for the decanter. “The authorities are handling such problems. But I hadn’t the heart to leave her in such chaos. Moorfields is a sad scene. The grass is littered with rescued belongings that people are wary of relinquishing, covered in ashes—”
When Kendra and Amy walked in, Colin paused midsentence and stared.
Jason cleared his throat and kicked his brother beneath the table. “Colin?”
“Um, yes.” Colin’s hand dropped, and the wine decanter thudded to the mahogany surface. He blinked and came back to life. “Good evening, Amy.”
“Good evening,” Amy murmured, not quite looking at him.
“Won’t you sit down?” Jason waved his hand, and a servant began ladling soup while two others pulled out ladder-backed chairs on either side of the rectangular table, at the end where the Chase brothers had seated themselves.
Kendra craftily slipped into the chair beside her twin, leaving Amy no choice but to sit next to Colin. As she seated herself, Colin smiled and offered her wine.
In the guise of reaching for a piece of cake, Kendra leaned close to Jason. “Look at the two of them together,” she whispered in his ear. “You’d have to be addlepated not to notice.”
“I heard that!” Colin’s face was aflame, his eyes trained down, avoiding Amy’s.
Amy just looked confused.
“Colin was just telling us about returning the children to their families,” Ford said a little too brightly. “It sounds a mess out there.”
“It’s getting organized somewhat,” Colin told his soup. “Charles has arranged for public buildings to store the goods of the
