Adelaide shook her head. “Not precisely. I’d say several years younger, though not a young girl. He says she is about my height and rather thin, has dark hair like his, which is truly a rich color, and her eyes are a palest blue. A little tanned, and a few freckles.” She smiled now at the description. “I confess, I have imagined a very sweet thing of perhaps eighteen, undoubtedly shy because of her overbearing brother, and yet… when he asked it of me, he seemed so sincere, when before he had been so cool. I think it must pain him that she is not in London. Which is, perhaps, the only redeeming quality I have found in him besides excellent teeth.”

“One must never overlook a fine set of teeth,” Madame agreed with a nod. “And a man who procures fine things for a sister is no villain to me.” She paused, glancing at Adelaide a little. “However unwelcome the marriage might be.”

There was nothing to do but scowl at that. “Steady on, Madame,” she grumbled sourly. “I do not mean to paint him so gloriously. All I ask is that we put as much care into Miss Basset’s gown as we do into mine. Not quite so elaborate, naturally, but the same detail. I thought, perhaps, a pale blue with white sprigs. Something to enhance her already-beautiful eyes. Her tastes are simple, but I see no reason why simple cannot be exquisite.”

Madame’s smile was filled with a pride and delight that Adelaide had never seen on the face of any shopkeeper or craftsman before. “Miss Dyer has beauty, wisdom, and vision, I see.” She stepped back, looking over Adelaide as though she were Miss Basset, and the partially-pinned beginnings of her gown something else entirely. “Yes… blue would be lovely. Perhaps with lace… a few rosettes or ribbons just for emphasis…” Her eyes cleared and she focused on Adelaide once more, smiling fondly. “Yes, Miss Dyer, it shall be a lovely gift from his lordship to his sister. I trust he will give you the credit you will rightfully deserve for the thing.”

“I have no notion that he will do any such thing, Madame.” Adelaide did her best to shrug without lifting her shoulders, as the pinning there had not been completed. “What I know of his lordship is enough to make me spiteful and irritated, but I believe he is reputed to be a gentleman.”

There was no telling how many people Basset had needed to pay in order to pass as such a thing, but there was no sense in spreading more gossip about the man when she was about to marry him. She would be spending her entire life trying to improve on the name he was giving her, and she ought not to make the task more difficult for herself. And everyone knew that a modiste could gossip better than the elderly ladies who continue to attend balls.