Chapter One

      December 1842

      Forty-five minutes!

      Millie Fairclough stared at the enamelled bronze carriage clock above the fireplace in astonishment.She would never have imagined such a feat of verbosity were possible, but apparently it was. Lady Fentree and her five middle-aged companions really had been talking about bonnets for forty-five minutes. Not to mention fifteen before that on hemlines and almost a full hour on sleeves!

      ‘Personally…’ Lady Fentree intoned with the air of a woman about to make some momentous pronouncement ‘…I favour a wide peak. Poke bonnets are far too restrictive. I tried on one of Vanessa’s the other day and I could barely turn my head!’

      ‘Oh, I agree completely.’ The woman on Millie’s left nodded her head so vigorously that her lace cap flopped forward over one eye. ‘But you know young girls like to follow the latest fashions and your Vanessa would look charming in anything.’

      ‘True…’ Lady Fentree smiled complacently ‘…and I suppose we were the same once. Only one learns to appreciate practicality over appearance at our age.’

      Millie looked down at her hands as half-a-dozen ladies laughed, somewhat surprised and faintly chagrined to be included in the latter category. She could only presume that their hostess had forgotten she was there, given that she hadn’t uttered more than a few murmurs of agreement for the past hour and a half.

      It wasn’t that she didn’t like bonnets, or hemlines or sleeves for that matter. On the contrary, she had a keen and, she was afraid, somewhat sinful interest in fashion. It was her guilty pleasure. She couldn’t afford to buy new clothes very often, no more than a pair of new gloves or a few ribbons anyway, but she could still look at and appreciate the sartorial choices of others.

      Truth be told, she knew a quite shameful amount about bonnets. Straw bonnets, cottage bonnets, spoon bonnets, drawn bonnets… She had an opinion on each and every one of them—maybe not forty-five minutes’ worth—but still, more than she cared to admit. There were certainly things she might have contributed to the conversation, but the whole subject seemed far too shallow compared to her everyday life at the Fairclough Foundation, the institute for down-on-their-luck women her parents had founded more than twenty years before. Now, no matter how hard she tried to relax and enjoy the evening party, she found herself unable to indulge in a little light-hearted discussion. She was a serious person with a serious reputation to uphold and serious matters to consider. Whatever would people say if they discovered that the dutiful, virtuous and, above all, self-sacrificing Miss Amelia Fairclough had opinions on bonnets?

      Not that there was anything inherently sinful about the subject, she reminded herself. After all, people needed clothes even if they didn’t necessarily need fashion. That was the reason she gave sewing lessons at the Foundation, as well as weekly tutorials in embroidery and crochet. It was thanks to those very skills that she’d managed to transform her best dress, now in its seventh year of service, into something vaguely fashionable for this evening’s outing. It had taken all of her ingenuity, but she’d finally succeeded in reducing the gigot sleeves into short puffed ones, even fringing the cuffs with a layer of white lace and adding a matching trim to the hem. It wasn’t perfect. The bodice was too high and the overall shape nowhere near full enough, but she’d thought it had looked reasonably presentable.

      Less than a minute inside Lady Fentree’s imposing Georgian mansion had been sufficient to destroy that illusion. All of the other young ladies were dressed in the very height of fashion, in off-the-shoulder silk gowns with bell-shaped skirts and low, pointed waists, as if they’d come to the party straight from their modistes. As a casual observer Millie thought she might have enjoyed the spectacle, but to be seated amid so much splendour made her feel like a gaudy weed in a flowerbed full of lilies. It was hard not to feel a little bit jealous, especially when the new vogue for pastel shades was far better suited to her pale skin and auburn hair than the recent craze for bright colours. Even harder not to feel self-conscious when everything about her, from the sensible, unadorned bun at the nape of her neck to the practical ankle boots poking out from beneath her skirts made her feel hopelessly dowdy.

      ‘What do you think of Pamela hats, Miss Fairclough?’ Lady Fentree’s voice penetrated her thoughts suddenly.

      ‘Me?’ Millie flushed, embarrassed