“
We need more baskets,” Pandora said triumphantly, entering the hall.
The twins, who were clearly having a splendid time, had adorned themselves outlandishly. Cassandra was dressed in a green opera cloak with a jeweled feather ornament affixed to her hair. Pandora had tucked a light blue lace parasol beneath one arm, and a pair of lawn tennis rackets beneath the other, and was wearing a flowery diadem headdress that had slipped partially over one eye.
“From the looks of it,” Kathleen said, “you’ve done enough shopping already.”
Cassandra looked concerned. “Oh, no, we still have at least eighty departments to visit.”
Kathleen couldn’t help glancing at Devon, who was trying, without success, to stifle a grin. It was the first time she had seen him truly smile in days.
Enthusiastically the girls lugged the baskets to her and began to set objects on the counter in an unwieldy pile…perfumed soaps, powders, pomades, stockings, books, new corset laces and racks of hairpins, artificial flowers, tins of biscuits, licorice pastilles and barley sweets, a metal mesh tea infuser, hosiery tucked in little netted bags, a set of drawing pencils, and a tiny glass bottle filled with bright red liquid.
“What is this?” Kathleen asked, picking up the bottle and viewing it suspiciously.
“It’s a beautifier,” Pandora said.
“Bloom of Rose,” Cassandra chimed in.
Kathleen gasped as she realized what it was. “It’s rouge.” She had never even held a container of rouge before. Setting it on the counter, she said firmly, “No.”
“But Kathleen--”
“No to rouge,” she said, “now and for all time.”
“We need to enhance our complexions,” Pandora protested.
“It won’t do any harm,” Cassandra chimed in. “The bottle says that Bloom of Rose is ‘delicate and inoffensive’…It’s written right there, you see?”
“The comments you would receive if you wore rouge in public would assuredly not be delicate or inoffensive. People would assume you were a fallen woman. Or worse, an actress.”
Pandora turned to Devon. “Lord Trenear, what do you think?”
“This is one of those times when it’s best for a man to avoid thinking altogether,” he said hastily.
”
”