“I’ve brought my own gowns, Your Grace,” Bridget said.
The duchess’s head snapped back to the young girl. “I’m sure you have.” She pivoted on her heel. “Come. We have no time to waste.”
“Maybe you’d like to check my teeth too,” Julianna grumbled.
“What was that?” The duchess didn’t even bother to turn her head.
“Nothing, Your Grace,” Elise offered and grabbed Julianna by the elbow.
“Good,” the duchess barked as she walked out the door. “Men don’t like women who talk back.”
If they were in a cartoon, steam would have been coming out of Julianna’s ears, but Elise yanked her elbow in the form of a warning.
“Do not be fooled by the duchess’s demeanor,” Rossi said in a reassuring tone. “I’ve spent some time in her company in the last week. I know she means well.”
“I think she was rather disappointed I never got my own launch,” Eleanor said with a laugh. “And she didn’t have any daughters. She wants you all to make good matches.”
Julianna grumbled again but said nothing.
“All right then.” Eleanor clasped her hands together. “As Grandmama said, we don’t have much time, and there’s so much you have to learn. Let’s get started, shall we?"
“Kill me now,” Julianna stage-whispered. “Please. Or I’ll do it myself.”
“It’s not that bad,” Bridget giggled as she whirled past them in the arms of the dance instructor that the dowager duchess had employed. He had also brought along his own pianist, a Monsieur Delacroix, to accompany them.
“Surely you’ve gone through worse than this?” Elise asked.
“I’ve had to learn how to resist torture,” Julianna said. “And believe me, this is worse.”
The whole afternoon flew by in a whirl of activity as the duchess and Eleanor threw them into a gauntlet of preparations for their coming out. First was Madame Marie, an apparently well-known seamstress who did the gowns for only the most fashionable ladies of the ton. She spent most of their time complimenting each girl, but also bemoaning the lack of time and hands she had to prepare all their outfits—which was of course, soothed by promises of additional funds by Eleanor and Cross. When Madame was dismissed, they sat down to learn table manners which wasn’t too bad as Elise and Julianna knew which fork to use with what, though the duchess scolded Bridget a few times for picking up the wrong spoon.
Finally, after tea, they were now moving on to dancing lessons. Elise wasn’t terrible at it—she did learn to waltz, and she was thankful her mother had been insistent she and all her siblings take lessons when they were teens. But Julianna had been terrible, and the instructor, Monsieur Fermin, nearly walked out twice before Elise suggested Bridget ought to have a turn.
“A natural dancer,” Monsieur Fermin said to the young Scot as he gave Julianna the side-eye. “Unlike others.”
Julianna stuck her tongue out at Fermin; a bold move, but she must have dared it because the duchess and Eleanor were deep in conversation in the other corner of the dancing room.
“That’s not the way a lady behaves,” the duchess said without looking up at them.
“Jeez, she must have eyes on the back of her head,” Julianna groaned.
Elise suppressed the giggle in her throat. She caught Cross’s eye from across the room and wondered what he was thinking. Since he hadn’t been dismissed by the duchess and he didn’t have a reason to take his leave, he had no choice but to join the ladies in their “lessons.” The duchess barely paid any attention to him though, except for asking him a question about Elise or Julianna or their fathers’ supposed wealth. Cross had answered with half-truths here and there.
“I had heard that the Alpha of New York owns many properties in the colonies,” the duchess stated. “How about Miss Henney’s father?”
“He is in the … food and medicinal business, Your Grace,” Cross said.
“A merchant?” The duchess gave a delicate wrinkle of her nose.
“A wealthy one, Your Grace.”
Elise supposed that was technically true. Her father had one of the most successful biotech companies in Silicon Valley, while her grandparents had started a grocery chain and restaurant supply company.
“Well,” the duchess harrumphed, “as long as he can pay for her gowns and upkeep, I’m sure her background won’t be a deterrent.”
“I’m seriously going to deck her, I don’t care if she’s old,” Julianna growled under her breath. “I really will.”
“It’s not worth it,” Elise chided. “Besides, maybe we’ll find the dagger and we’ll be out of here soon. Just play along, okay?”
The dowager duchess turned to Monsieur Fermin. “How are your lessons going?”
Fermin stopped the dance and nodded to the pianist. “Splendid, Your Grace,” he assured her. “I won’t stop until these ladies are the belles of the ball. They will be the most graceful—” His eyes nearly bulged out of his sockets. “Your Grace!” He took a deep bow.
All eyes went to the entrance of the dance room. Elise felt that white-hot sensation in her belly as she saw Reed standing there, looking devilishly handsome in his dark traveling clothes. Everyone immediate got to their feet save for the dowager duchess.
“Reed,” the dowager duchess’s face turned surprisingly tender as she accepted a kiss on the cheek from her grandson. “I was told you weren’t going to be here.”
“I’m allowed to change my mind, aren’t I?” he said. “It is my house.” He turned to the other occupants of the room and nodded at them so they could take their seats. “Cousin Bridget, you’re all grown up now.”
Bridget curtseyed. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
“And, Monsieur Fermin, is that you?”
The dance instructor’s face brightened. “I’m glad you recognized me, Your Grace.”
“How could I not?” Reed’s mouth quirked into a smile, making him look less severe. “I spent hours under your torture—er, tutelage.”
Instead of being offended, the dance instructor merely laughed. “And you turned out so splendidly, did you not? His Grace has been the best student I’ve ever had.”
“Maybe he can give us
