The Duchess: A Novel by Danielle Steel

Author:Danielle Steel [Steel, Danielle]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9780345531087
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2017-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Angélique began laying the groundwork for her plan that day. She took out her dresses to examine them. She wanted to look like a respectable widow when she went to search for a house to rent, and Fabienne could pose as her lady’s maid. She wasn’t going to buy a house, but rent in a good neighborhood, and not one where they would be too closely observed.

She took out a dark navy silk dress with a slim waist, wide skirt, and lace collar, with a matching coat over it, which she had worn to dinner at Belgrave with her father, a deep red gown with a matching shawl and a high neck, and two simple black dresses that she had worn when she was in mourning, both of which would be serviceable in her role as genteel young widow, and her very bearing showed that she was an aristocrat, as well as the way she spoke. She had brought gloves with her, and a fan of her mother’s, and a small purse from Paris. She had what she needed to be convincing as a woman who wanted to rent a house in a proper neighborhood in Paris. And she had a very simple black wool gown she’d worn at the Fergusons’. She could add a bit of lace at the neck for Fabienne for her outfits as lady’s maid in the coming days while they set things up. All of the clothes that Angélique had were obviously of quality. But when she pulled her hats out, they looked sadly squashed after two years packed away. She held each gown up and studied it carefully. The fashions for respectable young women hadn’t changed much in two years, and she had always worn sober gowns, and not flashy ones like Eugenia Ferguson, in her case, more suited to her age and station as a duke’s daughter.

“Where did you get those clothes?” Fabienne asked as she watched her. They were the prettiest gowns she’d ever seen, in velvets and silks, with exquisite lace collars.

“I had them from before I was a nanny,” she said quietly.

“What were you? A queen?” she asked, only partly joking, and her new friend didn’t answer—she obviously had secrets of her own.

“Of course not.” She wished she had the rest of her clothes from Belgrave, but she had no way to get them. She wouldn’t dare ask Mrs. White, who would want to know what she was up to. She hadn’t written to her yet to tell her she had left the Fergusons, and wanted to find a new situation first, so she didn’t worry. And Tristan would never want to release her clothes or send her other trunks. He had probably thrown them all away by now, hoping never to lay eyes on her again.

“Can you stand up?” she asked Fabienne, whose ribs were still painful, but she did as she was told. She was a few inches taller than Angélique, but other than that their figures were similar, although Fabienne’s bust was slightly larger.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.