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“Great,” he grumbled, “now you’re both conspiring to tell my secrets.”

“What secrets?” Jimmy asked through a mouth full of lamb.

With a roll of his eyes, Noel glanced at Jimmy, and added, “The first lesson we’ll have to give you, lad, is table manners.”

All the women laughed. Jimmy merely shrugged and continued to eat.

The lamb course was even more heavenly than the soup. Eve had just finished a delightful mouthful of the fried potatoes when Noel’s mother asked, “Do you have any more questions about the competition, Eve?”

Dabbing at her lips with her napkin, Eve said, “Actually, I do. What are the sorts of items I can submit? What about a dress or a wall hanging, for example? I do have a mostly finished embroidered gown I could offer.”

“You are thinking to submit Mrs. Beckford’s gown?” Maman paused in her eating to ask. “Oh, I don’t know, ma chérie. What if she attends this affair and takes offense?”

“You mustn’t worry, Lady Archer,” the viscountess said. “Eve cannot submit a gown or anything that large, anyway. Otherwise, one lady could submit a gown and another lady could submit a reticule, and the reticule would suffer by comparison because, well, a gown takes longer to embroider, depending on the design.”

“You could submit the dancing slippers that go with the gown,” Noel proposed as the footman whisked away his empty plate.

“Dancing slippers would be fine.” His mother picked at her food. “The rules allow for any accessory—gloves, reticules, turbans, stockings, even capelets, and the like.”

“But the dancing slippers might take me more than a week,” Eve said woefully. “The design is so intricate and small. Besides, if Maman does not wish me to use something meant to go to her client—”

“I do not think she will care as much about slippers,” Maman said. “Those are not so noticeable as a gown would be.”

“Are there other pieces at your home, Eve?” the viscountess asked. “Perhaps you have something else you have already done. We should pick the best. Why don’t you bring everything tomorrow, including your latest design for the slippers, and we can look through it all?”

“Eve prefers to design things in charcoal on the wall of a dyeworks, Mother,” Noel said in a faintly amused tone. “Something to do with wanting it ‘writ large.’ So, unless you wish to travel to her home or have me do a life-size rendering somehow—”

Maman snorted. “What nonsense. She doesn’t want it ‘writ large.’ It is merely cheaper to draw on a wall than on paper, my lord.”

Noel looked completely taken aback. Apparently, he had taken Eve’s explanation at face value.

That both gratified and embarrassed her. “Please, Maman,” Eve said in an undertone, feeling her cheeks heat.

“No, ma chérie,” her stepmother said, “we must be honest if you are to do this. The viscountess and her son must be made to understand that we cannot afford the sorts of things they take for granted. Otherwise, it will all be for naught.”

“Lady Archer,” the viscountess said warmly, “I would never ask your stepdaughter to do anything beyond your means. There have been times in our lives, too, when money wasn’t readily available, so I do understand.”

When she exchanged a glance with her son, Eve wondered what she was talking about. Would he tell her if she asked?

Lady Cokesbury went on. “But this opportunity could open doors for all of you. I merely want to support the talent of a young lady who deserves every chance to make use of it.” She patted Eve’s hand. “If you feel I’m overstepping my bounds, please tell me. It’s just that Eve reminds me so much of my late daughter, and I greatly miss Natalie. In helping Eve succeed, I feel as if I am keeping my daughter’s memory alive. That is worth more than gold to me.”

Maman took that in but didn’t say a word. Then the next course was brought in, and she was obviously torn between devouring the suet dumplings or fighting with the viscountess over Eve’s soul. Or Eve’s something, anyway.

“Besides, Lady Archer,” Noel put in, “we have all the paper Eve could need—big or small. I daresay some is in that giant box of items Mother bought for Natalie. Someone might as well make good use of those, don’t you think? Otherwise, they go to waste.”

Eve started to retort, but Maman laid a hand on her arm to stop her. “I have to ask, sir, what is your particular interest in this? You are not a needleworker, I would assume. So why would you help my stepdaughter meet the queen?”

His gaze locked with Eve’s. “Because I couldn’t help Natalie reach her dreams. Because I spent so many years consumed by my own affairs that I failed to notice how she needed me until it was too late.” He turned his gaze to Eve’s stepmother. “Helping Natalie’s closest friend is something I can do—something Mother and I both can do. So, why not let us?”

Maman stared at him, then at Lady Cokesbury, and finally at Eve. “What do you think, my dear? Do you still wish to do this?”

“I don’t think we have a choice, Maman. The longer we go without Jimmy’s right to the inheritance being resolved, the worse things will get. Any introduction to the queen is bound to help. And I can do the work. I shall just have to labor for long hours.”

Her stepmother cast Noel a veiled glance. “But you will come home every night, Eve, will you not?”

“Certainly. And Jimmy, too, of course.”

“Very well. In that case, I will allow it.”