Free Cynders & Ashe by Elizabeth Boyle Page A

continued.
    “Wings, My Lady,” Madame Delaflote told her. “You asked for a fairy costume, and those are her wings.”
    “They are a nuisance. However is she to dance? They’ll get crushed in the crowd before the first set – and then what? She’ll be in the retiring room for a good part of the night having them clipped off.” Lady Fitzsimon shook her head. “No, no, no, this will never do. And I blame you, Madame Delaflote. Everyone says your gowns are the finest, but I hardly see what you were thinking to dress my daughter like a Cyprian.” She turned to Roseanne. “Take it off at once, before someone sees you in it and thinks we actually ordered such a shameful piece.”
    Ella cringed. For the gown had been her idea, her creation. And if Lady Fitzsimon wouldn’t pay for it, refused it, well, she knew very well who would be paying for it – her.
    “She’s not taking it?” Hazel whispered, as Roseanne slipped into the changing room and Martha hurried after her to help her out of the gown.
    Meanwhile, Madame Delaflote and Lady Fitzsimon continued their heated exchange.
    “My Lady, that gown is exactly what you ordered.” If there was one thing that could be said about Madame Delaflote, she was a determined soul.
    “I ordered a gown that would set my daughter apart – not have her appear like some Covent Garden high-flyer.”
    Madame Delaflote sucked in a deep breath to be so insulted, for her gowns were sought after, fawned over, ordered months in advance (as this one had been) and no one called them tawdry.
    And certainly no one had ever refused one.
    Yet here was Lady Fitzsimon in high dudgeon, having gathered up her daughter, by now properly dressed in a blue sprig muslin day gown, and leaving.
    Ella closed her eyes and wished herself well away from this disaster. But a loud whoomph , and Hazel’s muffled giggle brought her back to the present.
    The other two had parted the curtain and there in the front of the shop lay Lady Fitzsimon on the floor.
    In her rush to depart the shop, she’d run right into a footman who was delivering a missive. His notes and messages had fluttered up in the air as he had tried to catch the lady from falling, but her girth had defied even his strength and the two of them had ended up in a tangle at the doorway.
    Madame rushed forwards to help the baroness, as did Roseanne, but the matron was too furious to have any assistance. She righted herself, caught her daughter by the arm and marched from the store, her nose tipped haughtily in the air.
    An embarrassed silence filled the shop, but only for a moment. Madame snapped her fingers, as if that was enough to dismiss the situation, then got back to business, calling for her assistants, and greeting the waiting clients with her usual French airs.
    The footman gathered up his notes, with Hazel’s help – for the girl had a romantic nature and flirted shamelessly with all the handsome footmen who came and went from the shop. They all knew Hazel and she knew them.
    The cheeky fellow handed over a pair of missives and winked at the girl before he turned to leave.
    Madame, however, was in no mood for such behaviour and snatched the mail from Hazel’s hands. She sent the girl a scathing glance that sent her scurrying to the back room.
    “Take these and see to them,” Madame told Ella. “We will discuss that gown later.”
    Ella bowed politely, took the notes and also fled to the back room.
    She didn’t know whether to continue her work on the gown for Lady Shore or begin the task of packing her bags. It had only been lucky happenstance that she’d gotten this job when she’d returned to London six months ago.
    Luck, and her skill with a needle. Another job might not be so easily gotten.
    For to be dismissed yet again and always without references – Ella shuddered at such a prospect.
    “She’ll not sack you,” Hazel said, as if reading her friend’s bleak expression. “She’s made too much money from your