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Chapter One

Caland, January 1867

Most of the numbers that Miss Jane Victoria Fairfield had encountered in her life had proven harown had poked her seven tiht pins—but the pain had vanished quickly enough The twelve holes in Jane’s corset were an evil, true, but a necessary one; without them, she would never have reduced her waist from its unfashionable thirty-seven inch span down to the still unfashionable girth of thirty-one inches

Tas not a terrible numeral, even when it described the nu the seaainst her less-than-fashionable form

Not even when said sisters had tittered no fewer than six times in the past half hour These numbers were annoyances—ilt-covered fan

No, all Jane’s problems could be blamed on two numbers One hundred thousand was the first one, and it was absolute poison

Jane took as deep a breath as she could e in her corset and inclined her head to Miss Geraldine and Miss Genevieve Johnson The two young ladies could do no wrong in the eyes of society They wore alowns—one of pale blue reen They wielded identical fans, both covered with painted scenes of bucolic idleness They were both beautiful in the wood-blue eyes and pale blond hair that curled in fat, shining ringlets Their waists cauish between the sisters was that Geraldine Johnson had a perfectly placed, perfectly natural beauty ht cheek, while Genevieve had an equally perfect mark on her left

They had been kind to Jane the first feeeks they’d known her

She suspected they were actually pleasant when they were not pushed to their extre even very nice girls into unkindness

The seamstress placed one last pin “There,” the woman said “Now take a look in theout—move some of the lace, mayhap, or use less of it”

Poor Mrs Sandeston She said those words the way a ht talk about the weather on the ht of less lace were a luxury, so that would be experienced only by an extraordinary and unlikely act of executive clemency

Jane sashayed forward and took in the effect of her nen She didn’t even have to pretend to smile—the expression spread across her face like oas hideous So utterly hideous Never before had so much money been put in the service of so little taste She batted her eyes at the lee; her reflection flirted back with her: dark-haired, dark-eyed, coquettish and mysterious

“What do you ladies think?” she asked, turning about “Ought I have more lace?”

At her feet, the beleaguered Mrs Sandeston let out a whimper

As well she should The gown already overfloith three different kinds of lace Thick waves of blue point de gaze had been wrapped, yard after obnoxiously expensive yard, around the skirt A file, and a black Chantilly in a clashing flowered pattern own The fabric was a lovely patterned silk Not that anyone would be able to see it under its burden of lace frosting

This goas an abomination of lace, and Jane loved it

A real friend, Jane supposed, would have told her to get rid of the lace, all of it

Genevieve nodded “More lace I definitely think it needs more lace A fourth kind, perhaps?”

Good God Where she was to put more lace, she didn’t know