Between themselves, Olivia and Georgiana generally referred to Rupert Forrest G. Blakemore—Marquess of Montsurrey, future Duke of Canterwick—as “the FF,” which stood for foolish fiancé. On occasion he was also “the HH” (half-wit husband), “the BB” (brainless betrothed) and—because the girls were fluent in both Italian and French—“the MM” (mindless marito or mindless mari, depending on the language of the moment).

“The only thing lacking to make this evening absolutely and irredeemably hellish,” Olivia continued, “was a wardrobe malfunction. If someone had stepped on my hem and ripped it, baring my arse to the world, I might have been more humiliated. I certainly would have been less bored.”

Georgiana didn’t reply; she just tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. She looked miserable. “We should look on the bright side,” Olivia said, striving for a rousing tone. “The FF danced with both of us. Thank goodness he’s finally old enough to attend a ball.”

“He counted the steps aloud,” Georgiana stated. “And he said my dress made me look like a puffy cloud.”

“Surely it could not have surprised you to discover that Rupert lacks a gift for elegant conversation. If anyone looked like a puffy cloud, it was I; you looked like a vestal virgin. Far more dignified than a cloud.”

“Dignity is not desirable,” her sister said, turning her head. Her eyes were full of tears.

“Oh, Georgie!” Olivia gathered her into another hug. “Please don’t cry. I’ll be a duchess in no time, and then I’ll dower you and order such beautiful clothing that you’ll be the wonder of London.”

“This is my fifth season, Olivia. You can’t possibly understand how dreadful it feels, given that you’ve never really been on the market. No gentleman paid me any attention tonight, any more than they have in the last five years.”

“It was the dress and the dowry. We all looked like ghosts, but not transparent. You, of course, were a willowy ghost, and I was a particularly solid one.”

Olivia and Georgiana had worn matching gowns of frail white silk, caught up under their bosoms with long ribbons trimmed with seed pearls and tasseled at the ends. The same streamers appeared on the sides and the backs of the gowns, rippling in the faintest breeze. On the page, in Madame Wellbrook’s pattern book, the design had looked exquisite.

There was a lesson there . . . a dismal one.

Just because fluttering ribbons look good on a stick-thin lady portrayed in a pattern book does not mean that they will be, when festooned around one’s hips.

“I caught sight of you dancing,” Olivia continued. “You looked like a bouncy maypole with all those ribbons trembling around you. Your ringlets were bouncing as well.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Georgiana said flatly. She brushed away a tear. “It’s the duchification, Olivia. No man wants to marry a prude who acts as if she’s a ninety-five-year-old dowager. And”—she gave a little sob—“I simply can’t seem to behave any differently. I don’t believe that anyone titters behind your back, unless from jealousy. But I’m like nursery gruel. I—I can see their eyes glaze over when they have to dance with me.”

Privately, Olivia agreed that the duchification program had much to answer for. But she wrapped her arm tighter around her sister and said, “Georgiana, you have a wonderful figure, you’re sweet as honey, and the fact that you know how to set a table for one hundred has nothing to do with it. Marriage is a contract, and contracts are about money. A woman has to have a dowry, or no man will even consider marrying her.”

Georgiana sniffed, which served to demonstrate how upset she was, as she normally would never countenance such an unrefined gesture.

“Your waist makes me positively sick with envy,” Olivia added. “I look like a butter churn, whereas you’re so slim that I could balance you on the head of a pin, like an angel.”

Most young ladies on the marriage market—Georgiana included—were indeed ethereally slim. They floated from room to room, diaphanous silk sweeping around their slender bodies.

Olivia was not one of them. It was the sad truth, the canker at the heart of the ducal flower, another source of stress for Mrs. Lytton. As she saw it, Olivia’s overindulgence in vulgar wit and buttered toast stemmed from the same character defects. Olivia did not disagree.

“You do not resemble a butter churn,” her sister stated, and wiped away a few more tears.

“I heard something interesting tonight,” Olivia cried. “Apparently the Duke of Sconce is going to take a wife. I suppose he needs an heir. Just imagine, Georgie. You could be daughter-in-law to the most stiff-rumped starch-bucket of them all. Do you suppose the duchess reads her Maggoty Mirror aloud at the dining table? She would adore you. In fact, you’re probably the only woman in the kingdom whom she would love.”

“Dowagers always love me,” Georgiana said with another sniff. “That doesn’t mean the duke will give me a second glance. Besides, I thought that Sconce was married.”

“If the duchess approved of bigamy, she would have put it in the Mirror; therefore, its absence suggests that he is need of a second wife. My only other, rather less exciting, news is that Mother was told of a lettuce diet tonight and has decided that I must try it immediately.”

“Lettuce?”

“One eats only lettuce between the hours of eight and eight.”

“That’s absurd. If you want to reduce, you should stop buying meat pies when Mama thinks you’re buying ribbons. Though, to be honest, Olivia, I think you should eat whatever you want. I want quite desperately to marry, and even so, the idea of marrying Rupert makes me want to eat a meat pie.”

“Four pies,” Olivia corrected. “At least.”

“What’s more, it wouldn’t matter how slim you became by eating lettuce,” Georgiana continued. “The FF has no choice but to marry you. If you grew rabbit ears, he would still have to marry you. Whereas no one can countenance the idea of marrying me, no matter what my waist looks like. I need money to—to bribe them.” Her voice wavered again.

“They’re all port-brained buffoons,” Olivia said, with another squeeze. “They haven’t noticed you, but they will, once Rupert dowers you.”

“I’ll likely be forty-eight by the time the two of you walk the aisle.”

“On that front, Rupert is coming over with his father to sign betrothal papers tomorrow evening. And apparently he is leaving directly thereafter for the wars in France.”

“For goodness’ sake,” Georgiana said, her eyes widening. “You really are going to become a duchess. The FF is about to become the BB!”

“Foolish fiancés are often killed on the battlefield,” Olivia pointed out. “I think the term is ‘cannon fodder.’ ”

Her sister gave a sudden laugh. “You could at least try to sound sad at the prospect.”

“I would be sad,” Olivia protested. “I think.”

“You’d have reason. Not only would you lose the prospect of being ‘Your Grace’d’ for the rest of your life, but our parents would hold hands as they jumped off Battersea Bridge to their watery deaths.”