Eventually Yours

21 Pink Lemonade

"Delivery for the Lady Ella," the footman said as he paraded into the drawing room with a dress bag slung over one arm. I broke out into a grin as I leapt from where Madison and I had been playing a game of cards and ran to collect my delivery. One glance at the garment bag told me that this would be the hot pink and yellow gown which Madame Francis had dubbed 'Pink Lemonade' and that she'd written to me to tell me I would be wearing to the next ball.

"Not this again," I heard my mother mutter as she rose from her chair and approached warily. I unzipped the bag and the bouncy chiffon sprung free from its confines. I ran a hand over the delicate fabric. "Unbelievable. Ella, what are you about? First, silk as black as night and now the brightest combination of colors I've ever seen in my life. What are you trying to-"

"Madame Francis needed a muse," I told her, pulling the dress from the bag and holding it up for examination. It was even more beautiful than I remembered. "For her more unconventional designs. Since I am not debuted and have nothing to lose and no one to impress, I volunteered."

That wasn't precisely how the arrangement had come about but my mother did not need to know the details. Besides, she looked quite scandalized already, her hands on her hips, mouth working to form some argument though there was none to be had.

"And what of- what about- you can't just-" she stuttered momentarily before giving up, throwing her hands in the air and storming from the room.

"It's exquisite," someone said breathlessly and I tore my gaze from the corner of the room from whence my mother had disappeared. I turned to find Madison staring at the dress, running the fabric between her fingers, in awe of the work of art before us.

"Isn't it?" I asked with a smile, choosing to forget about my mother's sour mood for the time being.

"They've been asking me, you know," Madison told me, tearing her gaze away from the dress to cock an eyebrow in my direction. "The other women in town. They've been asking me what you planned to wear for the next ball. Seems you're the newest trendsetter around here."

A blush came unbidden to my cheeks as I turned away, stuffing the dress back into its garment bag.

"I'm no trendsetter," I told her.

"No?"

I paused, watching my oldest friend and that small, knowing smile on her lips. But before I could ask her what she meant by it, she grabbed my hand and led me out of the drawing room, informing me that we should begin getting ready if we were going to find the time to make sure off of my new dress' crazy layers fell just right.

As it turns out, she was right about the layers. It was a beautiful dress, one of the most brilliant I'd ever seen, but it lacked practicality. I was constantly having to rearrange one layer or another so as to appear equally pink and yellow and not too much of one or the other. Madison readied herself as well and, with a promise that she would inform me if I were in danger of becoming entirely monochrome, we exited her rooms and made our way, arm in arm, to the foyer.

Emily was waiting there, alongside my mother, in an elegant black silk dress that swirled around her and puddled at her feet. My lips popped open in surprise when I saw it but she only rolled her eyes, muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like "unbelievable", and turned for the carriages. I turned my wide eyes to Madison who only smiled and whispered, "Trendsetter."

Unfortunately, none of the men were present to escort us to the ball, all of them having gone into town previously in the day and not yet returned. So Madison and I found ourselves locked in a carriage, riding down a bumpy cobblestone street, with my fussy mother and sulking sister.