“Respect you! You certainly don’t try to achieve that goal in a very intelligent fashion,” her mother said, with a sharp twist of her lips. “I’ll warrant there’s no gentleman in London who doesn’t think of you as an approachable minx, if not worse. When I debuted, poetry was written in praise of my modesty, but I venture to say those verses would not apply to you. In fact,” Eloise concluded bitterly, “sometimes I think that you are entirely your father’s child—both of you destined to make me the laughingstock of London.”

Sophie took another deep breath, and this time tears began to prick the back of her eyelids.

Eloise’s expression softened. “I do not wish to be snappish, but I worry for you, Sophie. You will have an excellent husband in the Earl of Slaslow. Please do not place your engagement at risk.”

Sophie’s anger drained away, followed by a wash of guilty sympathy. Her mother endured a great deal of mortification due to her father’s flagrantly public love of Frenchwomen, and now Sophie had thoughtlessly added to the gossip. “I never meant to cause you embarrassment, Maman” she said quietly. “I was caught by surprise when Lady Prestlefield found me with Patrick Foakes.”

“Had you not been alone with a man, no one could have surprised you,” her mother pointed out, with irrefutable logic. “A reputation is not a trifling thing. I never thought to hear my daughter called a light-skirt—but that, Sophie, is what is being said about you.”

With that, Eloise turned and walked from the room, closing the door behind her.

Tears welled in Sophie’s eyes. It was not unusual for her mother to descend on a member of the household like an avenging fury out of a Greek play, although generally Sophie was able to ignore her embittered comments.

But tonight Eloise had struck a nerve. Sophie knew that she skirted the edge of propriety. Her gowns were the most daring in London and her manner was seductive.

Sophie had heard those dreary odes composed for her mother many times: “Thus from a thousand virgins, heav’nly fair,/One sees the Diana of the sex, whose hair—” Eloise’s hair was the same golden color as hers, but Eloise’s lay sleekly along her head, the line of her chignon never disturbed by a curl or a streamer. Sophie’s hair curled, and it rebelliously escaped from ribbons and pins. What’s more, Sophie had cut off all her hair before any other woman in London had thought of imitating the French fashion, and now that every young miss cropped her curls, she had chosen to grow hers again.