She and Richard, they were exactly alike. Ice over fire, a cool exterior hiding uncontrollable passion and emotion beneath. If Charlotte shut Sophie out now, she would be inflicting another wound. The very fury that fueled the child’s transformation might tear her apart.
Charlotte sighed. “How proficient are you in etiquette?”
Sophie stood up. “I took lessons.”
“Same instructor as Rose?”
“How did you know?”
Charlotte reached over and brushed a twig off Sophie’s tunic. “The gown you wore when I saw you the first time. It’s a decade too old for you. We have a lot of work to do, my dear. If you really want to come with me, you must be flawless.”
* * *
SOPHIE drank from a tiny cup, holding it with effortless grace. Charlotte sat across from her. In the three days she had spent with her, Sophie had soaked up information like a sponge. She was a natural mimic in the best possible sense of the word—she imitated not only the action but the air, the atmosphere Charlotte projected, and the change in her demeanor was immediate.
The door swung open, and Jack strode into the cabin. Moving in complete silence, he approached the table and dropped a crystal in the middle of it.
“This is everything.”
“Thank you,” Charlotte told him.
He surveyed Sophie sitting in a simple pale peach gown and crouched by her, his eyes big in his handsome face. George had the elegance, there was no question. But Jack was wildfire. There was something about the child, about the way he held himself, the raw potential for unpredictability, perhaps, or the air of danger he emitted, that would give Jack an allure all of his own in a few years.
“I have an idea,” he said.
Sophie tilted her head, looking at him with her dark velvet eyes.
“Ditch the dress and come hunting with me.”
“You’re such a child,” she told him.
“You’re turning into an old lady.”
Sophie smiled and stabbed a dagger into the table. She moved so fast, she was a blur, but somehow Jack had moved his hand, and the dagger pierced wood instead of flesh.
Charlotte sipped from her cup. “One more, and both of you will be down with dysentery for a week.”
Jack moved backward and sprawled in a chair, exasperated.
Charlotte slid the crystal into the thin metal claw of an imager. A light filtered through the crystal, forming the image of a young girl in a vivid blue gown.
“Next.”
Another young blueblood flower, another blue satin.
“Next.”
More young girls. Cornflower blue. Royal blue. Sky-blue.
“Boring people doing boring things wearing boring clothes,” Jack said.
“Blue is in season.” Charlotte surveyed Sophie. “What shade of bright blue looks good on you?”
“I don’t know, my lady,” Sophie answered.
“None,” Jack said.
Sophie arched her eyebrows at him. “When I want your opinion, I will cut it out of you.”
“In this case, he’s right. You would be surprised, but men do usually have an excellent eye when it comes to female clothes. Look at your wrist. You too, Jack.”
Both of them turned their right arms, displaying their wrist. She did the same. “See how the veins in my wrist and Jack’s look really blue? We have a cool undertone to our skin. Veins in your wrist have a slight green tint because of the warm undertones of your beautiful golden bronze skin. Cool colors such as blue, purple, or turquoise won’t look good on you.”
“I could wear white,” Sophie offered. “Lady Renda says white is always in season.”
“White is for cowards,” Charlotte said. “And Lady Renda is a dinosaur.”
Sophie choked on her tea. Jack chortled.
“When people say white, they often mean a really icy white, which has cool undertones. Pure black isn’t a good idea either. Jack, because of his cooler skin tone, would look very well in black; you wouldn’t. Richard’s skin tone is similar to yours. He wears black, and although he’s a very handsome man, it doesn’t resonate with his skin; it just makes him look menacing. True white is a neutral color—everyone looks well in it, but there is no daring in it, no sense of style. Wear it, and you might just as well announce that you’re playing it safe. We don’t play it safe. We make a statement.” Charlotte passed her hand over the crystal to reactivate it. “Color wheel, stage twelve.”
A complex color wheel ignited in the air above the reader. In the center, twelve bright colors formed the inner core: first, the primary shades of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. Between them were six transitional shades. Past the center, the color wheel split, with each of the twelve inner colors fracturing into four shades. Just outside the center, the color shades turned dark, nearly black. Hair-thin lines sectioned off the wheel into individual colors, each new tone a shade lighter than the previous one, until at the outer rim of the wheel, the colors became nearly white.
“This is your secret weapon. Remember that first blue gown?” Charlotte nodded at the wheel. “Find the color segment.”
Sophie stared at it for a second. “Number twenty-six.”
“Very good. It’s a saturated derivate of cobalt blue.” Charlotte touched the gears. The color wheel slid higher, and the row of pictures she had viewed ignited below it.
“They are all within the same segment,” Sophie said. “The color varies slightly, but they are playing it safe.”
“Exactly. These are the unmarried young women who are supposed to be on the cusp of fashion, which is why they are all wearing what they consider to be the cutting-edge trend. The older the woman, the more vivid the color, but none of them are deviating from the blues—they’re like goats in a herd all following the leading goat. Women who are either attached or are not looking to impress their awareness of fashion onto others will wear whatever color they please. This is the daughter of Duchess Ramone.” Charlotte pointed at the next-to-last picture of a tall, slender young girl. “I’ve met her before. See, she’s wearing green.”
“Shocking!” Jack called out from his chair.
“She is young and ‘in the market,’ so to speak, but she has enough status and daring to do whatever she wants. She also knows that vivid blue isn’t her color either. Still, if you look at the dress closely, there are notes of blue in it. The idea is not to spit in the eye of the current trend but subtly twist it to make it your own.”