Lace for Milady Read Free

overbearing, short-tempered and clever. Slack is twice my own age. She has black hair and one black eyebrow that runs across her forehead like a narrow velvet ribbon. Her eyes are grey and as sharp as a lynx’s, her nose is sharp, as is her tongue.
    There—she has been back and read it, and is more miffed than ever. She suggests I draw a pen sketch of myself, and points out that what I said of her goes well beyond a character study. I thought I had explained my appearance, but she says not, I only stated I was not a pretty child. I am also not a pretty woman. I am five feet, six inches tall, have an athletic build, brown hair and brown eyes. My teeth are in good repair. I am fastidious about my teeth, not primarily for purposes of vanity, but because I had an abscessed tooth drawn when I was eight, and it is not a procedure I wish to have repeated on my adult teeth.
    We went on together with our little domestic ups and downs at the Dower House, Slack and I. I began fixing the place up, beginning with the main saloon, where I installed rose velvet draperies. While in the drapery shop in Pevensey, I also purchased material for two new gowns, to suit my new status as a home-owner and occasional hostess. Having been in mourning and half-mourning for over five years all told, with the deaths of Papa, Mama, and Mr. Higgins, I was naturally eager to get out of it. It was six months since the demise of Mr. Higgins. I bore him considerable gratitude for leaving me his fortune but had small traces of love or even respect for a man foolish enough to drink himself into his grave over the death of a wife of only two years’ duration. At six months I was in half-mourning, with the intention lurking at the back of my mind to put off all remnants of crape entirely.
    “Rag-mannered,” Slack told me bluntly when I got home with my gold-striped lutestring and my green Italian silk.
    “You might have mentioned it in the shop,” I replied in the same tone.
    “And announced to the town your step-father is still warm in his grave? I wished to save at least a semblance of decency, since it seems we are to live here.” Slack was not yet completely resigned to our permanent remove to Sussex.
    “Very clever. I doubt anyone here knows a thing about me but that I am an heiress. Lady Inglewood would not have told anyone I am in mourning for it was, and is, her intention to see me a bride within a month. I am mighty tired of decking myself out like a carrion crow, Slack, and mean to get into some colours before I am too old.”
    Any reference to age is greeted with a sniff by Slack. She had passed the half century on her last birthday. Streaks of grey begin to lighten her black hair, but I hold the unspoken suspicion that as with many spinsters, a ray of hope shines yet that she will meet and marry some dashing Prince Charming. It is foolish in the extreme, of course. At twenty-two I put aside all such thoughts and would have set on my caps except that they are a nuisance. Women are already so encumbered with camisoles and petticoats that any additional item of clothing is to be eschewed.
    I paid no heed to Slack’s repeated remonstrances regarding the yellow lutestring and green silk but purchased the latest copy of La Belle Assemblée in town and selected two suitable patterns. Suitable to me, that is; Slack did not approve. She suggested that as it was obviously my intention to set up as the village flirt, I ought to hire a fashionable modiste to cut my gowns for me, and added sundry ill-natured hints regarding decolletage and making sure the skirt hugged the hips tightly, and suggested vulgar coquelicot ribbons for the green silk. So suitable for Christmas, she said.
    “I hope you pass swiftly through the delicate age you are at, Slack,” I told her, “for I find your conversation recently disagreeable in the extreme.”
    The yellow lutestring was cut high at the neck, as became one of my years, with a long sleeve and a full skirt that