An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands #4)(63)

Megan turned from the women back to the bed, where a wealth of jewel-toned satins, velvets and laces were draped across the spread. There were also gowns lying across chairs and every other available surface.

“This is too much,” Megan protested feebly.

“Nonsense,” Kyria said. “Now stand there and let me look at you. Joan…”

Kyria’s maidservant obligingly held up one gown after another in front of Megan as she chatted with Kyria and Anna about the possibilities. Golds and greens and blues followed deep red and chocolate brown and pale yellow.

“Olivia’s colors suit you best,” Kyria said thoughtfully. “If only she didn’t insist on such plain things.”

“Not plain,” Olivia protested. “I just don’t like a lot of fussy decorations.”

“Elegantly simple,” Anna said, compromising. “I agree. The shades that look good on me aren’t as good on Megan, though I think I am a little more the same size.”

“I like the rust-colored satin,” Anna went on, picking up one of the gowns and holding it up to Megan.

Anna might be suspicious, but she seemed willing enough to help her, Megan thought. Perhaps she was simply more reserved than Kyria. Or perhaps she was simply waiting for her to take a misstep.

“It’s a beautiful color on her,” Kyria agreed. “Why don’t you try it on, Megan, and Joan can see where she needs to alter it?”

It didn’t take much urging for Megan to try on the dress. It was a beautiful rich satin in a dark russet that picked up the red of her hair and warmed her pale skin. She had had her eye on it the whole time. The low neckline curved slightly up to the short, puffed sleeves, and a darker lace trimmed the edge, making the neckline more modest.

Olivia was a trifle more slender than Megan, she found, and she had to suck in her breath sharply to let Joan fasten the hooks up the back.

“Oh, yes!” Kyria exclaimed. “That looks lovely.”

“I can scarcely breathe,” Megan commented, but Kyria waved away that protest.

“We’ll lace up your corset more tightly,” she told her. “I think this is definitely the one.”

Joan tucked the lace down inside the dress, startling Megan with the familiarity that the aristocratic ladies seemed to not even notice.

“Much better,” Kyria almost purred. “We’ll take off the lace at the neckline. You can add a bit of copper lace as decoration at the hem. I have some earrings I made last year that would be absolutely perfect. Copper-and-turquoise dangles.” She paused, thinking, her head tilted to one side. “Or perhaps just plain ear bobs and a cameo choker with a copper-colored ribbon.”

“The choker, I think,” Anna said, hopping up and going to her jewelry box and returning with a cameo on a ribbon. “We can exchange these ribbons.” She wrapped it around Megan’s throat and held it, looking toward Kyria for confirmation.

“Simple and elegant,” Kyria said with a nod.

Megan, looking at her reflection in the mirror, could not help but agree. Even with her hair twisted into its usual plain knot, she looked more attractive than she could ever remember looking. The rich material and the warmth of the color made her skin glow, and her eyes were lit with pleasure. Her waist was infinitesimal in this tight dress, well worth, she thought, a little discomfort. Her bosom, larger than Olivia’s, swelled above the lowered neckline, full and soft, beckoning the eye.

“Um…don’t you think it’s, well, a little low cut?” she asked doubtfully. “I mean, I am only a tutor. It seems, well…” She shrugged.

“Nonsense,” Kyria said firmly. “There is no need to look like a governess at a ball, is there? It isn’t as if you’re going to be teaching anyone.”

“Besides, it’s simple,” Olivia put in. She cast a look at Kyria. “Plain, in fact. No one could say it was inappropriate.”

Megan suspected that her father and the nuns would probably argue about that, but she wasn’t about to let that stop her from wearing this dress. It was sheer vanity, she knew, but she could not wait to see Theo’s face when he saw her in this dress.

Joan fussed about the skirt of the gown, pulling it up here and there, and telling Kyria that she could drape the hem over the copper lace, as well as add a little more padding to the modest bustle. Kyria was quick to agree.

Puzzled, Megan looked at Kyria. “I have to wonder—why are you doing this?”

Kyria raised an elegant brow in a gesture that was designed to quell impertinent questions. “I’m sorry. Do you not wish to attend the museum benefit?”

Megan was too accustomed to asking unwelcome reporters’ questions to be turned aside by the other woman’s manner. She merely smiled and said, “It’s not that I am not grateful for your kindness and generosity, Mrs. McIntyre. Or that I’m not looking forward to being Cinderella at the ball. It is just, well, I cannot help but wonder why you are going to so much trouble to take me to this party.”

Kyria’s snobbish expression dissolved into a grin. “All right. I do have an ulterior motive. Surely you know what that is—I would like to put Lady Scarle’s nose out of joint.”

“She has had her tentacles out for Theo for months now,” Olivia put in, surprising Megan a little. She would have thought Lady St. Leger was as unobservant as her father of all things social.