Ignoring Charlotte’s open mouth, she rushed on: “I certainly don’t mean to pry into the circumstances of your parents’ marriage. My point was only that the circumstances of my parents’ marriage are known far and wide. It’s a rare month when my father doesn’t surface in The Morning Post under some pseudonym or other. My mother won’t hire a Frenchwoman under the age of seventy; it means we’ve likely pensioned off more servants than your mother has hired in her entire married life!”

Charlotte sighed. Sophie’s logic was impeccable. It was just that she was talking nonsense.

“I don’t see what your parents have to do with whether you marry Braddon or Patrick.”

“I like Braddon,” Sophie insisted. “I will never fall passionately in love with him, and therefore I won’t become bitter, as my mother has, if Braddon takes more notice of his mistresses than of me. With Patrick … it’s different.”

“You know that Patrick is coming tonight?”

Sophie’s head swung up. She had been restlessly watching her pale gold slipper swing back and forth, hitting the tasseled edge of Charlotte’s counterpane.

“Yes.”

In the secret depths of Sophie’s eyes Charlotte saw an aching confusion, a languorous question that made an answering smile curl the corners of her mouth. Perhaps all Sophie’s rhetoric wouldn’t matter—much. Perhaps, if she found some way to throw Sophie and Patrick together tonight …

There was a brisk knock at the door and a maid half ran into the room, carrying Sophie’s gold dress draped across her outstretched arms as if it were an altar cloth being offered to a pagan deity.

“My lady,” she stammered, curtsying while holding her arms stiffly outstretched.

“My goodness, Bess,” Marie said, scolding her with the freedom of a valued member of the household—more than a valued member, one who ranked only just below the earl’s own manservant, and he only just below the butler. “You will have to learn to be more graceful if you ever want to become a lady’s maid. Go along downstairs, do.”

Bess tripped on the way out but managed to close the door.

“Now, Lady Sophie.”

As Marie approached, Sophie stood up. First Marie briskly dampened Sophie’s all-but-invisible chemise, making the fine lawn cling to her legs. Then she threw the gown up over Sophie’s head, carefully protecting her hair.

The dress rustled sweetly over Sophie’s shoulders, smelling of orange blossoms and, faintly, a hot iron. As it fell down to her feet the silk twisted in the breeze of its own fall, barely glazing her limbs.

“There,” Marie said with satisfaction, after hooking up the back of Sophie’s gown. “If you would give me a minute while I pin up the last of my lady’s braids, I will refurbish your curls.”

“That is a lovely gown,” Charlotte said to Sophie, as Marie nimbly pinned up a few stray curls.

“Thank you,” Sophie replied. “I had it sent from Madame Carême.”

Marie ruthlessly stuck a few extra pins in the coils of Charlotte’s hair, and Charlotte rose, feeling awkwardly top-heavy. She crossed the room to stand before Marie, who had clambered onto a stool and was waiting to slip a crimson evening gown over her head. One of the disadvantages of being so tall was that her lady’s maid had to stand on a stool to put on a dress, or to undo buttons for that matter.