“Of that, I have no doubt,” Diana drawled. Then she gestured at Amber’s hair. “Did you make the lion you wore last night? It was exquisite.”
Amber smiled and nodded. “I did. And Lord Byrn has asked me to make a specific piece based on—”
“That blighter, Larry John, sold Lady Morthan’s brooch, and now if I am to get my resolution passed, I need the damned thing remade. It’s been melted down, and Miss Gohar here is the only one I trust to remake it.”
Diana frowned. “That ugly ruby thing? The one on the portrait they’re so proud of?”
“Yes,” Amber said. “Only it wasn’t detailed enough.”
Diana lifted her teacup to her lips. “Then have a look at the companion pieces. There’s earbobs and a ring. Matches a neck pin her father used to wear.”
Elliott nodded. “That was my thought exactly.” He glanced at Amber. “You can deduce the design from those, can’t you?”
She nodded. It should be enough. She hoped.
“Good. But the other pieces are at their country estate in a safe in his library. Deuced inconvenient, but I thought we would leave tomorrow morning early. We can be out there and back by nightfall.”
So quickly. Her fun was ending so fast. “Yes, my lord—”
“You certainly cannot! Elliott, I told you. She has a voucher to Almack’s!”
The man huffed out a breath but didn’t argue. It was left to Amber to point out the obvious. “I’m a merchant, my lady. I cannot go—”
“You have a voucher, do you not?” She tapped her finger on the invitation.
“Yes, but—”
“And a sponsor, yes? I am here, am I not?”
For such a small woman, she could be decidedly imperious. “Yes, but—”
“Then you may go, and I will hear no more about it.”
There was a long silence as both Amber and Elliott stared at her. It wasn’t Amber’s place to argue or even question, but she did. It wasn’t in her nature to let something so bizarre go unchallenged. “Why, my lady?”
Diana set down her teacup with a hard click. “Do you know that it was Lady Castlereagh herself who convinced Mother to marry me to Lord Dunnamore?”
Elliott jolted. “What?”
“She and all the other ladies of Almack’s came to see Mama. It was a tragedy, they all said. Papa dying so young and Mother so confused, but they had the solution.”
“The devil you say,” Elliott muttered.
“All of them came, but Lady Castlereagh was the one who spoke the most. She said that Mama wouldn’t be able to handle things by herself. That she needed a man to help her.”
Elliott pursed his lips. “She probably did. You know how…” He fluttered his hands about his head. “Distracted she can be.”
“So, she agreed. Though she was still grieving Papa, she agreed to marry Lord Dunnamore.”
“What?” Elliott asked, and no wonder. Because his mother had not been the one sacrificed to the altar.
“Lord Dunnamore didn’t want her,” said Diana. “Lady Castlereagh was most clear about that. He wanted someone young and tiny.” She lifted her chin. “He wanted me, a girl not even out yet. And they were so firm that Mama agreed.” She looked at her brother. “I stood at the top of the stairs and listened to it all. And then I stood there like an idiot, silent and miserable while they saw to my dress and the breakfast buffet. They managed the agreement between Mama and Lord Dunnamore. And they touted it as a great match, a great solution. Me, wed to a man three times my age. They did that to me.”
Bitterness rang through her tone, and Amber bit her lip to keep from saying anything. What the ladies had done to the young Diana had been cruel.
“I failed you then, Diana—”
“No. You were much too young to know anything.”
“But you cannot use Amber as they used you. She is not a weapon to wield against the Patronesses of Almack’s in some twisted form of revenge.”
Diana’s brows rose as she looked at Amber. “You are a dignified, well-mannered woman,” she said.
And how was Amber supposed to respond? “Thank—”
“You danced beautifully last night, and I heard not one word said against you. No one has heard of Miss Gohar, and no one questioned your story.”
“That is my real name, my lady. We changed it when we came to England to fit in better.”
Diana waved that comment away. “You are a jewelry maker, yes? So, your family has some money, I should think. Enough to dower you a little, at least.”
She’d never asked her father that, but she assumed so. He had often talked of the diamond necklace her mother wore when they were wed.
“That puts you above more than half the maidens at Almack’s. And if you, as a well-spoken and dowered young lady, were to meet a younger son or an heir in need of a dowered girl, then why shouldn’t you dance together at Almack’s? And why shouldn’t you consider becoming the wife of such a man? Because you fashion jewelry? My father whittled little animals out of sticks. I embroider flowers upon chair cushions. Even Mama makes displays out of flowers.”
“Those are not trades, my lady,” Amber said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I am a tradeswoman.”
“Why? Because you say so? I am fairly certain your father does not bandy it about that you fashion jewelry. I’d wager he claims it is done by his own hand.”
Or her grandfather’s trembling hand.
“So why then,” continued Diana, “should it be wrong for a woman with a hobby to enter into the sacred Almack’s halls? And if I, as a proper wife to my elderly husband, took pleasure in opening those narrow doors to deserving young ladies without a pedigree, then who is to say I am wrong?” She flashed her brother a truly devious smile. “That is not revenge, brother, that is social change.”
Elliott stared at her, his jaw slack. And when it was clear that Diana would say no more, he leaned back in his chair. “My sister is a republican,” he said, his voice hushed with shock.
“Oh, I shouldn’t go as far as that,” Diana said with a smile. “But I see no reason why a level-headed young woman should not be brought to Almack’s to meet a husband to marry. And I shall be quite pleased to be the one to do it.” Then she looked to Amber. “What say you? Shall you join me in a gilded cage? We can have tea and talk fashion to our heart’s content. And then scheme to bring more deserving ladies into those very same halls as you will attend tomorrow night.”
More deserving ladies? Like the upstairs girls? Like Lina, the mysterious Abacas Woman? The very idea was…interesting. And was exactly the kind of social change that Mrs. Dove-Lyon was trying to create. She daily tried to educate her girls into more refined manners and ways to be self-reliant. And the women who came to her asking for help in finding a husband were all of them blocked out of the proper course of things by the same kind of ladies as the Patronesses of Almack’s. The women who sought Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s help weren’t of the right pedigree or fortune. They had been harmed by the men in their lives or cast aside by society in one way or another.
“I believe you and Mrs. Dove-Lyon would get along famously,” Amber said softly.