Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise Allen

I want him.

      ‘Why, to let me stay here a little longer and to study this wonderful old building, of course. I do believe that I could bring the Baronial style back into fashion in London if I put my mind to it.’

      ‘What? Crumbling, gloomy and atmospheric?’

      ‘No, romantic, solid—and brightly coloured. I like bright colours.’

      ‘I had noticed that—but there are none here.’ She had his interest, Lily realised. He was no longer playing games.

      ‘But there were. Look at this tapestry.’ She moved to one side and indicated a hanging. It was muted, mostly greens and browns, dull yellows and deep reds. ‘See—have you never looked at the back?’ She flipped up the corner, revealing the almost unfaded original colours, glowing like jewels. ‘Imagine the walls, hung with these when they were new. The armour gleaming silver, the torches in their sconces, the firelight, the banners fluttering.’

      ‘Lily, you are a romantic—I had not realised it.’

      ‘Yes,’ she conceded, knowing he was teasing, but choosing to take it seriously. ‘I am. But I am also a realist. Sometimes those two things clash and when they do, chasing the romantic dream is usually a foolish thing to do. Sometimes it takes me a little while to realise what is possible and what is not, but I get there in the end.’ She made herself hold his gaze steadily, praying that the message she was trying to send showed, and not the love and the yearning under it.

      ‘Touché, Lily,’ Jack murmured as Lady Allerton came up to them.

      ‘We were just talking about romance,’ Lily explained brightly. ‘Knights, and battlements and banner waving.’

      ‘That, or we were duelling,’ Jack added, earning him a puzzled look from his mother and a sharp glance from Lily. It would never do to underestimate Jack Lovell. ‘What have you all been doing this afternoon?’ he asked as his sisters joined them.

      ‘Gloating over the lovely dress lengths you brought us, and turning out all the pieces and trimmings we have squirrelled away. Lily looked at the latest fashion plates with us—she had some more in her own luggage as well—and has been making suggestions.’ Susan was still overflowing with excitement about the experience.

      Lily met Jack’s eye and said earnestly, ‘I have recommended purchasing considerably more trimmings, a number of sprays of artificial flowers and practising appliqué work, ruching and French pleating for hems. I think padded and quilted hems might be a little difficult to attempt at home, but might be tried.’ This provocation appeared to be working, so she added, ‘I think the muslins you brought are a little plain, if you do not mind me saying so, all those creams and pastels—I recommend having them dyed. Strong yellows, hotter pinks and bright blues would all be excellent. And, of course, the use of gold and silver lamé.’

      ‘Over my dead body are you parading yourselves—’

      Penelope burst into giggles, and the other two girls laughed. ‘Jack, Lily is teasing you! She has been making the most lovely sketches for us, showing what the gowns in the fashion plates look like with most of the ornamentation removed,’ Caroline explained. ‘Lily says that no lady would appear hung around and bedizened in that way, they just show them like that for impact.’

      Lily, conscious that her evening dress had been pared down to elegant simplicity by Janet’s skilful hands, met Jack’s eyes with an expression of limpid innocence.

      She should have known better. ‘I really cannot pretend to understand the rules of female fashion,’ Jack confessed, taking his mother’s arm as Grimwade announced dinner. He waited until the ladies had settled around the table before taking his place at the head and shaking out his napkin. ‘Does this rule about simplicity not apply to riding habits? Because I am sure I recall a most striking garment of yours, Miss France.’

      ‘Indeed.’ Lily could feel herself colouring up. ‘That was an extreme of fashion, I will admit, and probably an error of judgement in retrospect.’

      ‘I thought it most attractive,’ Jack observed blandly, gesturing for Grimwade to start serving. ‘But then, what do I know?’

      ‘Do describe it, my dear Miss France,’ Lady Allerton interjected.

      ‘It is a deep sea-green superfine, with a very long skirt,’ Lily said, not meeting Jack’s eyes.

      ‘Go on,’ urged Susan.

      ‘Completely plain in the skirt. The bodice fastens with several rows of frogging after the military fashion and there is a little bolero jacket. And the sleeves have epaulettes and more frogging.’

      ‘Do not, whatever you do, omit the hat,’ Jack urged.

      ‘It is modelled on a shako,’ Lily said repressively. ‘With ostrich plumes and a cockade of French lace.’

      ‘It sounds very dramatic,’ Caroline observed. ‘And I imagine the colour would look wonderful on you. I think I would find all that frogging and the jacket a little heavy in appearance, but perhaps I am not envisioning it correctly. And how do you manage your hair under a shako? I have admired them before, but I cannot see what one can do unless one has a crop.’

      ‘I just bundled it up inside,’ Lily admitted, whisked back to the woman-only gossip of the afternoon and forgetting that Jack and the servants were in the room. ‘And the bodice is very form-fitting.’

      ‘Ooh!’ Penelope sighed. ‘How dashing.’

      ‘It was. Very.’ On the surface Jack’s voice held nothing but simple agreement, but Lily’s gaze flew to his face and saw the heat in his eyes and the suggestion in his slightly parted lips. He had never commented on that habit—had he? She racked her brains as she accepted the dish of peas from Susan beside her. There had been some recognition in his expression that she was riding out to make a splash that day, but when she had come back to his room and pulled off her hat …

      She could almost feel the weight of her hair tumbling free, very improperly. And she could recall that Jack had seemed rather strange, distant perhaps, that afternoon. Oh, goodness, he thought that outfit provocative and now it is making him think about … about the sort ofthing we were doing this afternoon.

      ‘But not, I think, the sort of habit that would be suitable away from London.’ Lady Allerton’s pronouncement flattened Penny, who was quite obviously calculating how she would look in it herself. ‘But we will need a trip into Newcastle to take the dress lengths and the sketches to the modiste. Presumably we will be able to have the use of the carriage horses tomorrow, Lovell?’

      ‘Certainly you may, Mama.’

      ‘Thank you, dear. I was surprised you wanted them for ploughing, but then, I have never understood agriculture. What exactly are you ploughing?’

      Caroline broke into a fit of coughing, the footman hastened to fill her water glass and Jack made a considerable business of ensuring his sister was quite all right. It occurred to Lily that he had not answered his mother’s question, but if she did not pursue it, a guest hardly could.

      ‘I hope I will have news tomorrow about my own carriage. I really should call on my agent and there is also a warehouse I want to look at.’

      ‘I am sure we can fit all that in,’ Lady Allerton said, nodding to the footman to clear the first remove.

      ‘But we wanted Lily to help us choose things,’ Penny protested.

      ‘Miss France has more important things to do,’ her mother reproved her.

      ‘My business should not take too much time.’ Lily smiled reassurance at the flushed girl. ‘I will simply call upon Mr Lovington’s office and collect some paperwork and have him arrange a visit to the warehouse later in the week when I return.’

      ‘Do you mean to pore over dusty old ledgers?’ Penny asked. ‘Jack is bad enough—I did not think ladies had to do such things.’

      ‘I