The Secret Life of Lady Julia by Lecia Cornwall Page B

available in England. Not that English ladies of fashion didn’t manage to smuggle in Belgian lace and French pattern books, along with the French brandy their lords illicitly imported. It was quite illegal, and unpatriotic, but no lady of fashion would allow that to deter her.
    Stephen’s eyes widened in vague horror. “Isn’t it customary to say good morning first?”
    Dorothea sent him a quelling look. “Not when there is important information to impart, brother dear. Did you say good morning before a battle?”
    “No, but war is not nearly as serious as fashion,” he replied.
    Dorothea rolled her eyes. “You’re stalling. Don’t tell me you didn’t notice what people were wearing!”
    Stephen waited as a footman set a plate of food in front of him. “Er, well, everyone was wearing clothes, if that’s what you mean.”
    Dorothea gasped. “You’ll shock Julia with that kind of innuendo! Of course they were wearing clothes!”
    Julia felt her skin heat as Stephen’s mouth tightened for a moment. Was he thinking that she could not possibly be shocked by such a mild comment, or perhaps that for her clothes at a ball were optional? She concentrated on buttering a triangle of toast.
    Would James have noticed what the ladies at a ball were wearing? Not likely. He would have danced with the prettiest girls, and spent the rest of the evening making morning appointments for male pursuits like hunting, or riding, or boxing.
    Yet there were men who noticed a lady’s appearance. She recalled Thomas Merritt’s appreciative appraisal of her gown, her hair, her jewels. David had barely glanced at the dress it had taken weeks to select and have made, but Thomas said she was beautiful, made her feel it from her coiffed hair to her embroidered dancing slippers. She pushed the image of his smile away, the admiration that had been clear in his eyes, and took a forkful of ham. No one would look at her again that way—not without thinking of the scandal, and how easy it might be to seduce her in a dark corner.
    “Come now, surely you remember something !” Dorothea insisted.
    “Well, most ladies seemed to be wearing gowns with, um . . . kind of—” Stephen set his fork down and described a narrow, form fitting gown by waving his hands in the air.
    “A high waist, fitted to the body?” Julia guessed. She had seen ladies on the streets in similar day dresses.
    “Yes,” Stephen said gratefully. “But with more . . . um . . . frills, or furbelows, perhaps? I have no idea what the correct term is—than one might see in London.”
    “I suppose he means more ruffles at the hem,” Dorothea said to Julia. “Oh Julia, if you’d been there, you could describe every detail to me properly! I cannot picture how anyone looked from Stephen’s description.”
    “Some dresses had more than just ruffles at the hem,” Stephen forged on bravely, doing battle with the problem very diplomatically indeed, and Julia hid a smile at his kind attempts to please his sister. “There were some gowns with sparkling trims too. Glass beads, perhaps?” He put his hands on the shoulders of his military tunic. “Here,” he said, “and here.” Then he drew two fingers swiftly across his chest. The gesture looked more like a sword slash than the path an elegant fringe might take along the edge of a lady’s bosom. “And at the floor as well. It clattered dreadfully when they walked or danced, making it sound like a herd of sheep was trotting across the marble floors on pointed hooves.”
    Julia hid her laughter behind her napkin. Dorothea nudged her knee under the table, and Julia knew she was enjoying her brother’s torment.
    “Sheep?” Dorothea said. “You are comparing the most elegant ladies in Europe to sheep? Oh, Stephen, how unchivalrous, and most undiplomatic!”
    He blushed, his freshly shaven cheeks as scarlet as his jacket. “I did not say it to their faces! I am simply no expert on fashion.” He ran a hand through his