“Sort of. I’m truly terrified at the prospect of being presented to the queen and possibly making a mistake that haunts me forever. But after meeting you and the other ladies . . .” She gifted Diana with a shy smile. “I know I have friends to help me get through it. And honestly, before I met Lord Winston, I would have said marriage didn’t suit me at all, but now I realize marriage can be quite nice with the right man.”
Good heavens, the young woman was already envisioning herself married to Winston. That was troubling, to say the least.
Rosy sighed. “Besides, I don’t want Geoffrey and Mama worrying about me. It’s just . . . he makes me so self-conscious sometimes. I mean, he’s very talented at what he does, and the things he’s in charge of engineering are so . . . big and important that I feel insignificant next to him. In case you hadn’t noticed, Geoffrey can be very intimidating.”
“Oh, I noticed, believe me,” Diana said.
Rosy walked down the hall. “Did you know he designed a stretch of the canal between Leeds and Liverpool? Because of him, people in Leeds can get their coal to market in the west of England, and even to places beyond if they use the Liverpool port. It saves them countless thousands of pounds and lowers the cost of coal for all of us.”
That was more words than Diana had seen her speak all at once since they’d met. And about engineering, no less. Some part of Rosy was clearly an ironmaster’s granddaughter.
The young woman stopped outside a door. “So I can see why Geoffrey finds this whole début business wearing, with all its rules that make no sense to him. They make no sense to me either, but I don’t have his prospects. Either I marry or I become a spinster. And to be honest, I don’t care which it is. I promised him I’d do things his way until the end of the Season, but after that I will do as I please. I mean, I would like to marry, but not without love. If I can’t marry for love, I’d just as soon keep house for Geoffrey the rest of my life.”
Finding herself sympathetic to Rosy’s situation, Diana offered the young lady some advice. “Love is highly overpraised, my dear. As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, my mother ran away—left my father—to marry the man she’d fallen in love with, only to discover that none of her friends would talk to her anymore. She thought she’d be the next Lady Holland, thumbing her nose at London society while being celebrated for her salons.”
She shook her head. “Unfortunately, Mama doesn’t have Lady Holland’s circle of friends and doesn’t understand how to cultivate artists and writers and other interesting sorts. Instead, cut off from the society she used to dominate, she’s lonely and miserable. And my father has—”
Diana halted before she revealed too much about her and her sisters’ situation. “In any case, don’t marry for love. That makes you dependent on someone else for happiness. Marry for the pleasure of running your own household or for riches, or even for companionship and the joys of having children. But not love. Love is fickle and sometimes even unkind.” She thought of Verity’s suitor and shook her head. “There are far better reasons to marry.”
“I shall keep that in mind,” Rosy said but didn’t sound convinced. And when Rosy opened the door to her room, Diana knew her advice had fallen on deaf ears.
Very well. Diana had done her best. Now she would do what Almighty Grenwood was paying her to do—turn his sister into a swan.
As soon as they entered, Diana knew she’d have her work cut out for her. Rosy’s bedchamber was frilly and fussy, more like the sort of room a girl would have, not a woman. Then again, Rosy hadn’t been here long enough to have chosen the trappings, so perhaps the young lady didn’t even like it. Diana would at least give her the benefit of the doubt.
Then Diana threw the closet doors wide open. She wasn’t terribly surprised to find a sea of white gowns in muslin, velvet, and sarsenet. After all, white was the color of choice for gowns these days. Here and there were flashes of showy colors like Mazarine blue and bottle green, mostly in spencers or pelisses, but white predominated.
It wasn’t just that, however. The overly frilly designs weren’t in fashion, and the gowns proved to be too small when Diana insisted that Rosy try them on. Diana started a discard pile at once, then began working her way through the dresses.
“First of all,” Diana said as she tossed a gown into the discard pile, “clothes that are too small for you only make you look larger.”
“I am larger,” Rosy said glumly. “I’m stout.”
Diana stiffened, remembering the many times Mama had made her slouch to hide her height and Papa had said she should stop eating butter on her toast and rolls because “no gentleman likes a plump wife.”
“Did your mother or brother tell you that?” Diana asked, annoyed on Rosy’s behalf.
“Certainly not. They say I’m beautiful. But I have a mirror, you know. I can see what I look like.”
“Nonsense. Looking in the mirror when you’re alone is quite different from how others see you in public. For one thing, you’re the only one to see yourself bare, and you’re also seeing yourself from only one perspective. But everyone else, save your husband one day and your lady’s maid, sees you clothed and in the round. So you can shape how you are viewed just by how you dress and wear your hair. Besides, you are not stout. I daresay you and I are of the same size around.”
“Perhaps, but you’re tall, and that helps.”
Diana had to concede the truth of that, although she’d also long ago decided that if she had to give up butter for her toast, she would simply have to be “plump.” Rosy, however, was not plump by any stretch of the imagination—she just wore unflattering fashions.
Fortunately, Eliza had arrived a few moments after Diana and Rosy and was consulting with Rosy’s maid, Mrs. Joyce, on coiffures. “Eliza!” Diana called out to her sister. “Would you mind coming here for a moment, please? And you, too, Mrs. Joyce.”
The two women joined Diana and Rosy. Diana hunted through the discarded clothes until she found one of similar cut to Eliza’s. Then she told her sister, “If you would try this on for me and Rosy, I should like to demonstrate something to her. There’s a screen over there you can use while changing. Oh, and don’t forget the sash. Mrs. Joyce may help you.”
“The gown won’t fit me,” Eliza warned.
Rosy grimaced. “Of course it won’t. You don’t have my figure, so it will probably be far too big for you.”
Eliza laughed at that.
Diana turned to her young charge. “Now, Rosy, before Eliza changes, observe what she’s wearing at present. What do you see?”
“She looks very elegant. The pink is pretty. She could use more ornamentation over her bodice or perhaps a lace fichu?”