Courting Scandal by Jaima Fixsen

Author:Jaima Fixsen [Fixsen, Jaima]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-9918310-5-0
Publisher: Jaima Fixsen

* * *

Anna, it seemed, wasn’t entirely unconventional. She might spend her time dreaming up articulating hinges and fall in willingly with shocking deceptions, but when she gave it her attention she had a passionate interest in clothes. For an hour Anna worked, discarding fabrics, reserving patterns, quarreling with Laura over why she needed three day dresses instead of two.

“Fine. Does everyone know?” Laura asked, giving up on the dress and turning to the other thing bothering her. “About Jasper and me?”

Anna’s hand stopped in midair, hovering over a well-thumbed copy of the Lady’s Magazine. “Alistair and I do, of course. And my parents. We didn’t mention the plot to Henry. It won’t go any farther.”

It was shaming and ridiculous to stand like a doll with a virtual stranger reassuring her. “It’s good of you,” Laura said stiffly, “to keep my secrets.”

Anna looked up. “Yours? I’m afraid I was thinking of Jasper.” She smiled. “When he told us my husband couldn’t stop howling with laughter. He said it was past time Jasper got himself into a fix and—” Anna broke off, perhaps wondering if she’d said too much. “It was rather precious to see Jasper of all people going red about the ears. At any rate your uncle sounds a perfect horror. I understand, you know, how it feels to hate someone so much you can barely breathe.”

“Oh?” Laura smoothed her palms over her skirts, not sure she believed her.

Anna put down one pattern card and examined another, her face falling into a frown. “My first husband. He was…” She looked up and something in her eyes made Laura shy away.

Anna shrugged. “I understand. I’m in no position to give advice and certainly unqualified to judge, but…we’ll be friends, I think. At least I hope so. You’ve got Jasper tangled so beautifully and you think for yourself and speak your own mind. Just do be careful. In my experience it’s hard to know in the heat of anger if you’re making your worst decisions or your best ones.” She huffed a scarcely audible laugh. “And who can say? Life changes so fast, a single choice can even be both.”

Laura didn’t know how to respond. Anna rescued her. “You’d look well in this.” She held out a card. “But I think scarlet braid and not the bugle trim?”

“Perfection,” sighed the modiste.

“Parfait,” Laura corrected. There was only so much artifice one could stand.

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