“Need I remind you that I am not at all as accustomed to fitted corsets as you are,” she pointed out.
“Oh very well.” She let up a bit on the laces. “Better?”
“Yes. Thank you.” She inhaled and exhaled with much more ease.
“There.” Olympia helped slip the gown over her head. “You are magnificent.”
Primrose turned to stand before the cheval mirror, aghast at the reflection of herself. She was a stranger to her own eyes. Her hand floated to her neckline and exposed décolletage.
Up until this moment she had not even realized she was in possession of quite so impressive a bosom. Or a bosom at all. Her fingers thrummed over all her bared skin. There was so very much of it.
She bit her lip for a long moment before releasing it to say, “I don’t think I can wear this. It’s . . . It’s . . .” Indecent.
“Mind your tongue,” Olympia admonished. “This is one of Mam’s gowns you are wearing. I took it from her wardrobe.”
“And I am certain she’s perfectly lovely in it. It’s acceptable for your mother to wear it. She’s a woman full-grown. An entertainer, a performer. She is expected to dress in a manner more . . . adventurous.”
Olympia made a sound that was part laugh and part snort. “Indeed. Mam is a most accomplished adventuress. This is true.”
“Perhaps a fichu?” she suggested, moving to Olympia’s dressing table and plucking up one of the frothy squares of fabric.
If a bodice even teased at a glimpse of cleavage, Mama insisted on tucking a fichu into the dress. Considering most of Prim’s dresses were hand-me-downs from her older sisters and were not tailored specifically to fit, she always wore a fichu tucked down the front of her gown.
Primrose stroked a hand across the displayed flesh of her bosom again. In this daring neckline and wearing a corset the likes of which she had never worn before, she looked every inch a woman. Even older than her ten and six years. Mama would require her smelling salts were she to see Primrose now.
A smile played about her lips at the notion.
“Stop your fidgeting.” Olympia gestured to herself. “Your gown is no more scandalous than mine and I promise we will be unexceptionally attired for Vauxhall. If we were to dress as we typically do?” She shook her head with a cluck of her tongue. “No, no, no. That, my dear, would create a spectacle. We would be much gawked upon in that event, and we want to fit in. Not stand out.”
She had a valid point. Vauxhall was not for milksop misses or schoolgirls. It was for those of bold disposition and with a taste for adventure.
Vauxhall was for her tonight—or she vowed it would be.
“You are correct, of course.” Prim smoothed a hand down her skirts, marveling at the quality of her gown, at the soft texture beneath her palm. The outer layer was an opaque India muslin. The apricot-colored underskirt beneath was silk sarsnet, imported from China. Neither was a fabric one would commonly find in the Ainsworth household. They were much too expensive. Papa would say such gowns were for those without an army of women beneath one roof.
Whenever Mama spied out the front parlor window at the Zahers arriving home with packages and parcels from all the best shops in Town, she would squawk loudly and turn on Papa.
“Mr. Ainsworth!” she would begin. “How is it that woman and her daughter can have such fine and beautiful things whilst we must economize?” She always spat out the word economize as though it were the foulest of epithets. Truly, it was foreign to her vocabulary. Papa had introduced her to it years ago.
Then Papa would look up from whatever he was doing and dryly reply, “Simple, dear. Mrs. Zaher has more money than we do.”
Mama would puff up, her face reddening in outrage. “Well! If you’re going to be so vulgar as to discuss money, I will leave you to your leisure.”
“Prim.” Olympia said her name with such seriousness that Prim snapped out of her reverie and looked up from the scandal of her borrowed gown.
“Are you certain you are up for this? You don’t have to do this. No one is forcing you. We could stay in and eat sweets and play whist—”
“No. I want to do this. I am ready.” She squared her shoulders, ignoring the flow of cool air over her exposed chest, reaching for her earlier excitement. She ran a hand over her silky skirts. “This will be the only birthday celebration I have. Let us make it count. It will be a most memorable night. As long as you are willing, of course. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”
“The evening is not about comfort. It’s about adventure, and I am more than willing.” Smiling again, Olympia reached for their gloves on the nearby dressing table, handing Primrose hers. “It shall be brilliant.”
Prim nodded, eager butterflies eddying through her. They each slid on their gloves and gathered up their reticules.
“Oh! And we mustn’t forget these.” Olympia brandished a pair of elegant masks. The goal was for no one to recognize them tonight. Not many people would be able to identify Primrose, as she lived a hermit’s life, mostly confined to her home, but Olympia ventured out into Society a great deal. Unlike most debutantes, Olympia navigated Society for the sheer pleasure of it, without an agenda. Mrs. Zaher never pressured her daughter to acquire a husband, and Prim never heard Olympia mention that any gentlemen caught her eye. It must be nice to live without that manner of pressure.
In any event, Olympia would be easy to identify. The mask was important for her. Not so very important for Primrose, but she went along with it anyway. It added a dash of glamour and mysteriousness to the night ahead. Masquerades always seemed so romantic. Prim could be anyone she wanted.
“Very well.” Prim took her domino from Olympia and slid it inside her reticule alongside her pin money. Once they were on their way, she would don the mask. She patted her reticule. “Let our adventure begin.”
Mrs. Zaher was out for the evening, giving Olympia more freedom to come and go. The Zaher staff were accustomed to Olympia hopping back and forth across the street—and Prim dashing in and out. They didn’t blink at their comings and goings. It was simple enough to slip away.
The housekeeper easily accepted the story that they were going to a dinner party with Prim’s family, even going so far as to wave them farewell before closing the front door after them.
They strolled outside, at first walking in the direction of the Ainsworth house on the unlikelihood that anyone was watching them from the Zaher household. Hopefully no one in the Ainsworth household was peering out the window. Then they took a sudden turn and rounded the corner away from both their houses.
Prim looked around nervously.
“Look straight ahead. It’s all about behaving as though you know where you are going and you have every right to go there,” Olympia said beside her with an air of expertise.
“How are we getting there?” She had not even thought to inquire how they would arrive at the docks before taking a boat to Vauxhall. Only now did Primrose wonder at that first step of the night’s escapade.
“As soon as we turn this next corner, we shall hail a hackney.”
“A hackney?”
“What did you expect? Our coachman would not dare take us to Vauxhall, at least not without alerting Mam.”
Prim simply had not thought much beyond sneaking out of her house and the fact that they needed to be back well before the first servants roused the following morning. She could not forget that. They would have to keep track of the time.