“This is Almack’s?” Lizzie said to her mother.“What makes it so exclusive, Elizabeth, is not what is outside, but who is inside,” Aunt Barbara replied. One of Aunt Barbara’s footmen jumped down from the driver’s seat and opened the carriage door for us. Aunt Barbara went first, then Lizzie, then me. Evan came last. He had been sitting next to me in the carriage because, as my aunt said, he was the biggest and I was the smallest.I had been conscious of him every second of the drive. How big he was. How my shoulder would bump against his arm when the carriage made a turn. Even without looking at him, I could tell when he smiled. I heard it in his voice.I had a dreadful suspicion I wasn’t feeling this way because he reminded me of the first earl. “Well, we certainly look elegant even if our destination does not,” Lizzie said, smoothing down her skirt.This was true. I had been surprised at how different I looked when Lizzie’s maid finished with me. My new gown fell gracefully to the top of my soft leather shoes. The scooped neck was a little disconcerting – I had never shown so much flesh in my life - but I thought the long line of the skirt made me look taller. The dress itself had a thin white layer of some gauzy material draped over a pale green underskirt. There was a pale green ribbon tied under my breasts, which were already more noticeable because of the scoop neck. I wore long gloves and a pearl necklace Evan had surprised me with before we left the house.
