In Praise of Younger Men by Jaclyn Reding Read Free Book Online Page A

posthaste to Madame Angelique’s shop on Rose Street. She is without a doubt the finest modiste in town. Comes from France, of course. All the good ones do. Her girls can measure you up and deliver something splendid in time for Friday evening. Just tell Madame I sent you. Oh, and don’t forget to ask her to include your red petticoat, dear, just in case. You never know if you might need it.”
    Harriet stopped at the door, her hand yet clutching the handle. “Did you say ‘red petticoat’?”
    Auntie Gill’s dream . . . hadn’t she said she’d seen Harriet wearing a red petticoat under her mother’s wedding dress?
    Lady Harrington laughed. “Why, yes, dear, I did. It is a necessity for every young Edinburgh lady this year. Do you not know about the tradition?”
    Harriet shook her head.
    “Oh, sweet child, this is a leap year, you know, the best of all times for making marriages. If you should have any difficulty in winkling a proposal out of our young men, on Leap Year Day—February the twenty-ninth—all you need do is don your red petticoat and you can ask the man yourself!”
    “A lady . . . can propose to a man?”
    The viscountess bubbled. “Oh, yes, and it’s perfectly legal, but only on Leap Year Day, mind you. It is an ancient custom, written into law some five hundred years ago, and thankfully never written out. And if the man in question should dare to refuse, besides being possessed of a complete lack of decency and common sense, he is liable to pay a fine or make some sort of offering to you, a new silk dress, a pair of gloves, something in return. I’ve only seen that happen once though, dear, and she wasn’t nearly as lovely as you are. Just something to bear in mind, when you visit Madame Angelique for your gown. Farewell to you for now! Ta ta!”
    Harriet stood at the door and watched the colorful matron make her way along the paved walkway toward the corner of the square. She hadn’t made it twenty yards before she spotted someone else of her acquaintanceship and was flagging them down with her lace-edged handkerchief.
    “My lady . . . !”
    Harriet shut the door and leaned her back against it, reflecting a moment or two on all she had just learned. Leap Year Day—February the twenty-ninth. Auntie Gill had seen a red petticoat in her dream. She had thought the dream had signified Harriet’s approaching birthday. But what if instead the dream was a sign of a day— a day when a lady could legally propose marriage to a man?

Chapter Five

    To be so bent on marriage
—
    to pursue a man merely for the sake of a situation
—
    is the sort of thing that shocks me.
    —Lady Susan,
Jane Austen

    The doorway of Firkin and Sons Bookshop was tucked away on a quiet corner lane off Thistle Street, flanked on one side by a clockmaker, a tearoom on the other, just west of St. Andrew Square. Devorgilla and Harriet had spent more than an hour at Madame Angelique’s choosing fabrics and getting measured for their gowns, which would, as Lady Harrington had promised, be ready in time for the assembly.
    Afterward, the two ladies walked the few blocks from the modiste to the bookshop, Robbie pulling eagerly on his leash in front of them as fashionable coaches and decorated sedan chairs passed by on the busy street. While Devorgilla ducked into the confectioners’ shop for a batch of her favorite candied almonds, Harriet tied Robbie to the small iron boot scrape outside the door before heading inside to Firkin’s.
    The bell above her head tinked softly as she entered the tidy shop that was surrounded floor-to-ceiling with shelves filled with neat rows of books of various size and color. Atlases littered the top of a broad table in one corner and newspapers were set out near plumply stuffed armchairs for those wishing to catch up on the day’s events.
    Harriet stood for a moment just inside the door, trying to imagine how her mother must have felt when she had stood at that same place, for that same