Page 12 of A Duke for Diana (Designing Debutantes)

Chapter Two

Diana tried to be patient as she explained again why an intimate dinner entertainment at the duke’s town house should follow Lady Rosabel’s presentation to the queen. But the man made her wary, and for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why.

In the past four years, she had worked with the daughters and wives of earls and baronets, admirals and generals. She’d even dealt with the occasional captain of industry. Some of the men had lacked manners; others had looked down their noses at her because of the scandal. But she’d always been able to paste a smile on her face and continue on.

And the few who’d been so unwise as to make disgusting proposals to her or her sisters? Those had found themselves charged quite a large fee for the privilege of having Elegant Occasions deign to endure them. Yet not even they had maddened her the way the duke was doing at present. It made no sense.

Well, it made some sense. Apparently, the man couldn’t pay attention to anything but her pencil, because every time she licked the tip of it, he got a funny expression on his face and focused only on that. As he was doing now.

She put down her pencil. “Don’t you agree, Your Grace?”

He stared blankly at her. “To what?” Then his gaze narrowed on her. “Oh, right, the intimate dinner entertainment. I bow to your superior knowledge of the field.”

Amazing. She’d feared he might walk out because of her rather costly plans for Lady Rosabel. Before he’d even arrived, Eliza had made sure Diana and Verity understood the importance of taking on this particular client. Eliza had assumed a new duke would pay well to have his sister fully armed for the Season. From what Eliza had learned, his sister’s previous years had been spent in the industrial wasteland of the north, so her triumph in society would be their triumph, a genuine caterpillar-to-butterfly transformation.

Eliza had said it would be best to accept him, regardless of whether they took to him and his sister. They’d never had anyone as lofty as a duke come along who required their services. And they always needed money to get them through the roughly eight months of the year when there was no Season, if only to better help their charities through winter.

Just as Verity had predicted, Papa had married again, probably hoping the widowed mother of three little boys would give him an heir. When she and Verity had first moved to Eliza’s, they’d said they were doing so to keep their sister company, and he’d accepted it. But once he’d found out about the business they were building, he’d said they would only get their allowances if they lived under his roof. It was a typical attempt on his part to force them back home, where he could bully them to his heart’s content.

Little did he know his daughters. She and Verity dug in their heels and left home for good. Elegant Occasions had saved them, allowed them to venture out from under Papa’s thumb. After Eliza’s husband died, Elegant Occasions had also become Eliza’s sole support. Her husband had left her only a pittance in his will, falsely assuming he’d end up as a heroic soldier covered in glory instead of blood.

“You still haven’t addressed my biggest concern,” Grenwood said impatiently. “What good does all of this do if Rosy just sits in a corner to avoid people? That’s what she did at the musicale, and neither our mother nor I could coax her into the crowd. She’s just too shy.”

Diana stiffened. Yet another mention of his sister’s shyness. It was time to put an end to that perception. “She’s not shy—she’s self-conscious about her looks and, frankly, overwhelmed. As any young lady would be in her circumstances.”

He started to speak, and she held up her hand. To her surprise, he shut up, though a tad sullenly. Most men would have barreled on.

Be honest, Diana. Plenty of men wouldn’t go tothis much trouble for their sisters.

“Many, many women are self-conscious about their looks,” she went on. “The only way to change that is to find trappings—flattering clothing, better jewelry, more enticing coiffures—that present the ladies’ fine qualities so truthfully that they can’t help but see them for themselves. Your sister is quite pretty, you know, which will make it easy. By the time we finish redoing her wardrobe and training her maid to properly dress her hair, she’ll feel like a princess. And the fact that we are taking over such a task for her will go a long way toward solving her other problem—that she feels overwhelmed.”

“I’d say that the fact I’m paying for it should help her feel less overwhelmed.”

His vulgar remark about money made her stifle a sigh. The man knew nothing about how a duke should behave. “Does she have pin money of her own?”

He muttered an oath. “No. I should probably give her an allowance. It didn’t occur to me until now.”

Obviously. With great difficulty she bit back the word. “So, you know what pin money is, then?”

His gaze turned frosty. “I’m not such a barbarian as all that. I graduated from Newcastle-upon-Tyne Academy and am also a member of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.”

That shocked her. He didn’t seem the literary type. “You learned what pin money is from a literary society?”

He tightened his jaw. “I’ve heard it spoken of, yes, enough to know that women like my sister and mother should have some. But I hardly think there’s a need for new gowns and such. They have plenty of gowns already. Why can’t they just use those?”

How would she get it through his thick head that a successful début required new everything? “I know women whose families have gone into debt paying for their débuts.”

Looking alarmed, he started to speak.

She cut him off. “And not women who were our clients either. We try to save expenses where possible.”

“I daresay what I mean by ‘save expenses,’” he drawled, “differs markedly from what you and your sisters mean.”

“You’d be surprised,” she muttered. “In any case, the new gowns are essential to her début. Judging from today’s attire, Lady Rosabel seems to have outgrown her present ones. That explains why they appear ill-fitting and outdated, which means whenever she gazes at herself in the mirror, she sees a person who’s ill-fitting and outdated. If she can’t see past that, you can hardly expect other people to do so, neither lords nor civil engineers nor footmen. Not even the women she might want as friends, and every woman in society needs influential friends.”

That was how they’d succeeded in this business venture. Lady Sinclair had praised them to her husband’s sister, who’d told her best friend, and before long, they’d had plenty of work to keep them busy during the Season. “Have you never heard that clothes make the man?” she asked. “Well, they also make the woman.”

“If you say so,” he said, not for the first time in the past hour. She began to think it meant, You’re wrong.

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