Chapter Six
Clarissa awaited her at the foot of the great staircase. She had changed out of her gentleman’s attire, and now wore an unexceptionable gown of figured muslin, trimmed with lace, and with a shawl similar to Gussie’s own cast about her arms. She beamed up at Gussie as she descended the stairs, and said: ‘Well, and while the rose is a shade more becoming with that hair, the blue really looks very well indeed.’
‘How kind,’ Gussie said tartly. ‘I should be ashamed to look anything but my best, indeed, when on the point of being introduced to my chief abductor.’
Clarissa tutted, and presumed so far as to tuck her arm through Gussie’s, in the friendliest — and most familiar — manner. ‘I wish you would not fix so upon this notion of abduction!’ she said. ‘While I own that we did no
