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Lavinia could tell she’d best hurry to the point.

“It’s the perfect color for your complexion, and it would fit you perfectly, I know it would.” She had an eye for such things. The gown was unforgiving, cut in the slender style, the tight bodice extending all the way down to the hem, but Emmeline was slim and small breasted, within an inch of her height.

She took a deep breath. “I want to give it to you.”

Emmeline dropped the half-peeled egg onto a plate. Shocked. But not pleased. She crossed her arms. “I should wear your hand-me-down clothes, is that it?”

Lavinia sighed. After last night’s long, genial dinner, at which the near tragedy had been recounted for Kelyn—with lavish attention paid to each person’s role in averting it—she’d hoped that she and Emmeline might put their spat behind them. Hadn’t they united, albeit briefly, at the harbor?

Clearly, the girl still prickled at her slight.

“It was a beastly thing to say, and I’m sorry.” Well, that wasn’t so hard. But neither was it effective. Emmeline slid the remaining shell from the egg and began to savage the white blob with the back of a fork. Lavinia watched her for a moment.

Without looking up, Emmeline spoke in a voice as dry as sand.

“A gown from Paris. I could wear it to the Kyncastle opera.”

Lavinia flushed. Hadn’t she herself put on her most supercilious air and pointed out that Kyncastle offered nothing in the way of entertainments? On what occasion was Emmeline to put on Parisian finery?

“Well, you could wear it to a musical evening, a dance . . .” She trailed off. Neal had mentioned a midsummer festival in Penzance, but from Tomas and Kelyn’s response she’d gleaned it involved bonfires, which didn’t seem quite the thing.

Did all Cornish dancing occur at barbarous ceremonies for the blessing of hayricks or barrels of fish? There had to be gouty noblemen who hosted country balls somewhere on the northern coast. Why wasn’t Tomas leveraging his liniments, collecting invitations for his sisters?

Oh, bother. Emmeline really would look wonderful in that pink silk.

“You could wear it tonight,” she said, slowly, as the notion took shape. “If we arranged a little party.”

The fork stopped moving. Emmeline was staring at her. Here it was, the chink in her armor.

“Not a dinner party, of course.” She pressed a finger to her lips, making rapid calculations. “It would be after dinner, an evening entertainment.”

As she spoke, she felt her own eagerness mounting. Finally, she could draw on her own expertise. Why, she knew everything about parties. One didn’t plan them the day of, obviously, and certainly they were never attempted without a generous budget, and servants, and a grand house for hosting, but hadn’t she learned to adapt to unfavorable conditions?

First things first: scale down.

She began to pace. “We’d only need light refreshments.”

Cakes, biscuits, ices, bonbons, little sandwiches of cold tongue or watercress, tea, coffee, lemonade, wine, champagne. How she missed champagne!

She looked around the kitchen and bit her lip.

Scale down. And then: scale down further.

“Beer and biscuits,” she declared. “That will do nicely. Wine if it’s available.”

There must be a few bottles in the cellar. Doctors were almost gentlemen.

“And we don’t need four musicians. Two are adequate. There’s not time to print programs, but I can write cards by hand with the order of the dances so ladies can keep track of their engagements. Perhaps it should be on the shorter side, as everyone keeps such early hours. Eighteen dances. Better fourteen.”

She and Neal had to catch a morning train in Bodmin.

“The parlor is far too small. We could move the dining room table against the wall and roll up the carpet.” She felt her brow pucker. How many guests could the dining room hold? And what would the master and mistress of the house have to say about it?

“I don’t suppose Tomas or Kelyn would mind,” she murmured doubtfully.

“The guildhall,” breathed Emmeline, eyes shining. “There’s a piano.”

Lavinia’s heart lifted. She’d seen the guildhall. It was on Fore Street around the corner from the pub and letter office, a grim, medieval structure, all gray stone and slate. Probably the main room had low ceilings and smelled like a cave.