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corset – they were far too bulky for the exquisite gown. I felt her eyes skimming my figure, and her fingers with their scarlet-painted nails were suddenly resting lightly on my arm.
    ‘Take those ugly undergarments off,’ she said. ‘You’re about my size, thinner if anything.’ She was already searching in a drawer. ‘Wear these instead.’
    She handed me an unboned, feather-light brassiere with matching lace-edged knickers in cream silk. Oh, how often I’d gazed at pictures of similar exquisite, delicate garments in the magazines that sometimes found their way to the servants’ hall! I put them on, my heart fluttering with excitement, and she helped me. Thebrassiere and knickers were gossamer-soft against my skin, and I thought – or did I imagine it? – that I felt her fingers caressing my ribcage. I was about to carefully pick up the Jeanne Paquin gown when she stopped me.
    ‘
No.
Put these on, Sophie!’ She was thrusting a pair of cream kid gloves at me, and I blushed as I eased them over my rough, chapped hands, but she patted my shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault that they give you such demeaning work. Now. Let me see.’ She was looking around again. ‘Here, you’ll need these too.’
    She handed me a pair of beautiful silk stockings, quite new, and some lacy garters; then it was time for the gown. I felt transformed. She lit herself another cigarette then stepped back and surveyed me thoughtfully. ‘Turn round,’ she commanded. ‘Yes. You need your hair to be shorter, and you need some make-up too. Then you’ll be quite lovely. Some day you must come to London with me…’
    London?
London?
    ‘But for now,’ she went on, ‘I’m staying here. You see, I want to find out what plans are being concocted for Lord Ashley.’
    Some warning kicked inside me. ‘Who is Lord Ashley?’ I asked.
    ‘He’s the heir, Sophie.’ She drew closer. ‘The new heir to the title and all the Belfield estates, now that the sickly little nephew is dead. And they hate him. The Duke and Duchess simply hate him.’
    The son of the English lord and the Frenchwoman.
I nodded. ‘I’ve heard, but I didn’t know his name.’
    ‘And I know what you’ll have heard – that he’s notworthy of the title.’ She smiled almost dreamily. ‘He sets them a problem and I’ve come here, Sophie, to find out just what they intend to do about it. About –
him.
’
    She drew on her cigarette in its long ivory holder. She put on a record, and started slowly to dance by herself. The song was called ‘Jazz Baby, Be Mine’
–
I remembered it from the night they danced on the lawn. She was moving in time to it with her eyes shut, and was singing under her breath – she was more than a little drunk, I realised.
    And so was I. I was sitting on the settee, watching her; I was wearing the beautiful French gown she’d helped me into, and the silk undergarments and stockings, and my insides shivered with forbidden excitement.
    She’s got everything I want for myself
, I realised. She had knowledge and sophistication; she had money and independence – everything I could have desired in my wildest dreams. And she was talking about this Lord Ashley, the hated heir, as if he were part of her plans.
    ‘Lord Ashley,’ I repeated. ‘Why should Lord Ashley matter to you, my lady?’ As far as I could gather, her own income was secure; she came from an immensely wealthy family, which was why Lord Charlwood had married her. We all knew that was the way of things.
    She sat beside me, and I remember her perfume was heavy and alluring. ‘Sweet little Sophie. Why should Lord Ashley matter to me, you ask? Because, quite simply, I’m going to marry him.’
    Shock jolted through me. ‘But surely. Don’t you—’
    She interrupted. ‘I know what you’re thinking.Shouldn’t I still be grieving for my decent, ever-so-British husband? Really, he wasn’t over-bright, you know. And, to be honest, he wasn’t awfully good in the bedroom