One

In the back room of the smart Bond Street boutique, Mrs. Ramsey's Haute Couture Dress Shoppe, Lady Phoebe Fairchild stood among dozens of gowns made of China silk, velvet, satin, and muslin, gaping in disbelief as Mrs. Ramsey calmly explained that her reputation, the future of her dress shop, and indeed her livelihood depended on Phoebe's ability to deliver gowns.

When the tall and cadaverously thin woman had finished, Phoebe was dumbstruck. No words would come, no coherent thought, no stinging retort.

"If you are unable to do as I ask, Lady Phoebe," Mrs. Ramsey said, "I shall have no choice but to expose you to the entire ton."

Phoebe gasped. "Madam, what you are suggesting is blackmail!"

Mrs. Ramsey smiled, her lips all but disappearing behind tiny teeth. "Blackmail is a harsh word. Charlatan, imposter… now there are two words that are not harsh enough… Madame Dupree." She cocked one brow high above the other, letting the words fill the air around them.

Phoebe could not think. She felt entirely incapable of it. The business of making gowns—the very thing Mrs. Ramsey had threatened to expose—was a plan Phoebe had hatched with her sister Ava and her cousin Greer two years ago. It was a plan that had been born out of desperation after the untimely death of Phoebe and Ava's mother, Lady Downey. Their stepfather, Lord Downey, had commandeered their inheritance and had made it plain he would marry them to the first men to offer. The three of them had quickly determined they needed money to put in motion their plan for avoiding such a fate. Ava had determined to marry well, Greer had gone in search of an inheritance, and Phoebe… well, Phoebe had talent with a needle. It was the only thing she had to offer.

She'd always been talented with a needle, and made a hobby of making gowns for the three of them, or enhancing the ones they bought in exclusive Bond Street shops such as this one. The spring her mother had died, Phoebe had latched onto an idea. What if she took the gowns from her late mother's closet and refashioned them into lovely ball gowns to be sold? Ava and Greer had agreed—it would bring in some sorely needed money.

There was only one small problem: to enter the business of making gowns would give the appearance to the rest of the ton that they were desperate—which, obviously, they were. But the ton would flee from desperate debutantes and their prospects would be reduced to nothing.

So they had invented a reclusive modiste—Madame Dupree—and had introduced Madame Dupree's work to Mrs. Ramsey. They claimed the French modiste was in much demand in Paris, but, tragically, had been made lame and disfigured in a carriage accident, and therefore could not and would not go out in society. Phoebe had very graciously offered to act as the liaison between Mrs. Ramsey and Madame Dupree. If Mrs. Ramsey would provide her customers' precise measurements, Madame Dupree would make gowns that would delight them and be highly praised by the ladies of the ton.

It seemed the perfect ruse, and, indeed, to Phoebe's way of thinking, it had worked very well for two years.

Until today.

Until today, Phoebe had no inkling that Mrs. Ramsey suspected she was Madame Dupree. Apparently, the shopkeeper had suspected it for some time, for when Phoebe delivered two gowns that afternoon, Mrs. Ramsey had locked the door of her shop and then asked Phoebe if she could arrange a meeting with Madame Dupree.

That was the moment Phoebe had felt the first curl of doom in her belly. "Oh, I'm very sorry, Mrs. Ramsey. I'm afraid that's not possible," she'd said as congenially as she could.

"After all this time?" Mrs. Ramsey asked haughtily. "Surely she trusts me by now, Lady Phoebe. I have a very lucrative proposition for her—and she certainly seems to accept you readily enough. Why do you suppose that is?"

Phoebe had been so flustered she did not respond. She could not recall a time Mrs. Ramsey had been anything but courteous—but now the woman folded her bone-thin arms over her woefully flat chest, narrowed her eyes beneath a row of tiny pin curls, and said, "I know perfectly well what you are about and I am fully prepared to tell the world of your scandal."

"What I am about?" Phoebe echoed with a desperate laugh as the sense of doom coiled tighter. "I assure you, I am about nothing other than delivering the two gowns you commissioned from Madame Dupree."

"And where, precisely, does Madame Dupree buy the fabric needed for the gowns she makes? Or do you do that for this poor disfigured woman as well?"

It had gone from bad to worse. Phoebe was woefully bad at lying and stumbled through her every response until Mrs. Ramsey had cut her off with an ultimatum: either Phoebe take on the account she had just established with a Lord Summerfield of Bedfordshire for an unheard-of number of gowns and other articles of clothing or Mrs. Ramsey would expose Phoebe's deceit to the world.

It seemed this Lord Summerfield—a name that Phoebe had never heard before—was the son of the ailing Earl of Bedford. He'd recently returned from abroad and discovered his sisters had not been properly presented to society. Toward that end, he'd ordered new wardrobes for them both. He was prepared to pay a premium to have them done by late autumn: two thousand pounds.

Copyright © 2007 by Dinah Dinwiddie.