An Early Engagement by Bárbara Metzger

certainly did. The way heads were swiveling, I thought the regent himself was out for an airing.”
    “Oh, but he was. Prinny complimented me on my driving. I must remember to tell Smoky that, for he taught me, you know. Of course I had time to practice on the country roads, and Jake to give me tips, but—whatever is the matter now?”
    Nadine was dissolved in tears again. “I can never go back to the park. Ever. They all laughed at me, Emmy!”
    Emilyann bit her lip to keep herself from giggling. Nadine was the worst shopper in London, wanting every tasteless frippery she saw in the store windows. She just had to have the parasol with gold tassels, the red slippers with turned-up toes, that outrageous headdress with five ostrich feathers in a rainbow of colors ... and she still needed a new shawl. All the ladies were wearing those brightly woven Kashmir wraps which were, unfortunately, much too dear for Nadine’s allowance. Emilyann told her, Nanny told her, even Smoky wrote and told her, Buy quality. But Nadine saw a way for her allowance to go further, and bought a shawl of the cheaper dyed India muslin.
    So there she was in the park with Aunt Adelaide, in the family chaise, at the appropriate hour of five o’clock, when the ton came out to see and be seen. Soon she was surrounded by a flock of young Tulips, with a scattering of military types. She decided to get down and walk, so her beaux might admire her glorious new ensemble better, the colorful scarf, a lemon-yellow jaconet dress with mulberry ribbons, the ostrich plumes floating above.
    “I’m afraid it might shower, dear,” Aunt Adelaide fretted. “Perhaps you shouldn’t ...”
    “Don’t be such a worrier, Auntie,” Nadine told her, gaily twirling her parasol.
    It wasn’t a very hard rain, and did not last long. Just long enough for the parasol to collapse, the ostrich plumes to sag onto Nadine’s forehead, the red tips of her slippers to droop into the mud with a squelch, and those bright colors of the shawl to run down her dress, leaving rivulets of dye streaming down her arms.
    “I can never show my face in public again! I’m ruined, Emmy, ruined. I want to go home! Aunt Adelaide says she wants to go, too, and Bobo offered to accompany us.”
    “Bobo? Whyever would that overfed fop leave town at the height of the season?”
    “His jackets don’t fit so nicely with his arm in the sling, so he thought he may as well rusticate. I tried to tell him he looked heroic— Are you all right? Shall I fetch some water?”
    Emilyann held up her hand. “No, no, just fine. What, er, happened to Bobo’s arm?”
    “Oh, such a silly thing. He tripped on some loose carpet threads outside his mother’s door. It’s a miracle he didn’t fall right down the stairs. Just his shoulder was bruised though, poor thing.”
    Poor thing, Bobo? No, Nadine could certainly not go home with that oaf. In fact, the best thing all around would be to get her fired off and married soon, before she landed in the basket altogether. That would take a little luck and a lot more management than Nadine was used to, or Emilyann wished to impose. The solution? Blame it on Smoky.
    “Your brother insists you stay and have a proper presentation. He writes right here,” she said, waving the shopping list, “that I have to make sure you have an acceptable wardrobe and more seemly conduct. If I don’t he’ll ... he’ll sell the phaeton and the racing stock and make me live with Aunt Ingrid.”
    Nadine looked wide-eyed. “Can he do that?”
    Of course he couldn’t, and assuredly wouldn’t. Didn’t the rattlepate know her brother at all? Emilyann was not about to disabuse her of the notion of Smoky as ogre, though, if it kept the minx out of dark corners and got her into white gowns.
    “But white is so boring. I suppose next you’ll order me to fold my hands in my lap and sit mumchance through endless piano recitals.”
    “It would be more suitable, indeed, than going to a