"Delivery for the Lady Ella," the footman said as he paraded into the drawing room with a dress bag slung over one arm. I broke out into a grin as I leapt from where Madison and I had been playing a game of cards and ran to collect my delivery. One glance at the garment bag told me that this would be the hot pink and yellow gown which Madame Francis had dubbed 'Pink Lemonade' and that she'd written to me to tell me I would be wearing to the next ball.

"Not this again," I heard my mother mutter as she rose from her chair and approached warily. I unzipped the bag and the bouncy chiffon sprung free from its confines. I ran a hand over the delicate fabric. "Unbelievable. Ella, what are you about? First, silk as black as night and now the brightest combination of colors I've ever seen in my life. What are you trying to-"

"Madame Francis needed a muse," I told her, pulling the dress from the bag and holding it up for examination. It was even more beautiful than I remembered. "For her more unconventional designs. Since I am not debuted and have nothing to lose and no one to impress, I volunteered."

That wasn't precisely how the arrangement had come about but my mother did not need to know the details. Besides, she looked quite scandalized already, her hands on her hips, mouth working to form some argument though there was none to be had.

"And what of- what about- you can't just-" she stuttered momentarily before giving up, throwing her hands in the air and storming from the room.

"It's exquisite," someone said breathlessly and I tore my gaze from the corner of the room from whence my mother had disappeared. I turned to find Madison staring at the dress, running the fabric between her fingers, in awe of the work of art before us.

"Isn't it?" I asked with a smile, choosing to forget about my mother's sour mood for the time being.

"They've been asking me, you know," Madison told me, tearing her gaze away from the dress to cock an eyebrow in my direction. "The other women in town. They've been asking me what you planned to wear for the next ball. Seems you're the newest trendsetter around here."

A blush came unbidden to my cheeks as I turned away, stuffing the dress back into its garment bag.

"I'm no trendsetter," I told her.

"No?"

I paused, watching my oldest friend and that small, knowing smile on her lips. But before I could ask her what she meant by it, she grabbed my hand and led me out of the drawing room, informing me that we should begin getting ready if we were going to find the time to make sure off of my new dress' crazy layers fell just right.

As it turns out, she was right about the layers. It was a beautiful dress, one of the most brilliant I'd ever seen, but it lacked practicality. I was constantly having to rearrange one layer or another so as to appear equally pink and yellow and not too much of one or the other. Madison readied herself as well and, with a promise that she would inform me if I were in danger of becoming entirely monochrome, we exited her rooms and made our way, arm in arm, to the foyer.

Emily was waiting there, alongside my mother, in an elegant black silk dress that swirled around her and puddled at her feet. My lips popped open in surprise when I saw it but she only rolled her eyes, muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like "unbelievable", and turned for the carriages. I turned my wide eyes to Madison who only smiled and whispered, "Trendsetter."

Unfortunately, none of the men were present to escort us to the ball, all of them having gone into town previously in the day and not yet returned. So Madison and I found ourselves locked in a carriage, riding down a bumpy cobblestone street, with my fussy mother and sulking sister.

We emerged none too soon in front of the Norman's estate where men and women were milling about waiting for the festivities to begin. The moment I emerged I paused to take stock of my surroundings and wondered briefly if I had missed some sort of announcement. Nearly every woman in attendance, from my sister behind me to those both right and left to my vision, was dressed head to toe in black silk. Was this a ball or a funeral?

I turned to Madison who snickered under her breath at my wide eyes and dropped jaw. She merely looped her arm through mine and led me on, me in my bright pink and yellow dress, through the sea of darkness. I could hear their whispers before we even made it a few steps past the carriage, feel their glares all the way to the door. If it was me they were trying to emulate, they were a week behind and did not care for my massive switch in direction.

I wasn't trying to stand out. Not anymore. And I hadn't expected every lady in town to copy my appearance. Madame Francis could have warned me about the black dresses as she did the white but perhaps she was worried I wouldn't wear the bright pink and yellow if I'd known. Was she right?

"All eyes on you again," someone spoke as Madison and I made it inside the ballroom. I whirled to find the Duke standing behind me, ever present smirk on his lips and glass of brandy in his hand. His eyes roved over me in a way that made my flesh burn and I took a step back as he continued. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Your Grace," I answered demurely with a low bow in which I kept my eyes on the floor rather than that immaculately tailored suit he was wearing which clung to his form in all the right ways.

His eyebrows furrowed the way they always did lately when I spoke to him in such a way but I was already turning to go. I marched a few paces away before I felt his presence again, his body pressed against mine, his lips inches from my ear.

"Yell at me," he growled. I whirled around to face him again.

"What?" I spat, forgetting in the haze of his nearness, the promise I'd made to myself to behave as the perfect, aloof and indifferent lady around him.

"Shout at me. Make a scene. Anything. Just stop this accursed silence."

I raised my chin and crossed my arms.

"I don't know what you mean," I told him coolly. His jaw tensed.

"Your treatment of me," he answered slowly.

"I've treated you with all the grace with which I would address a house guest of your stature."

"It isn't how you were treating me before-"

"Before you were courting my sister?"

He stopped then, blinking back at me, utterly astonished. There was a pause long enough, as he stared at me in stunned silence, to break through the cracks in my armor. I dropped my hands to my sides, suddenly feeling as if I'd missed a very large part of the puzzle.

"Is that what you think I'm doing?" He asked, a tone of surprise in his voice.

"You came to collect her from the drawing room like every other one of her suitors. You always dance with her at these events. You-"

I stopped. He had moved forward suddenly and was crowding my space again. His face was inches from mine, his dark eyes boring into my own, as he ground out his next statement.

"You, of all people, should know that I'm not interested in Emily."

I blinked back at him, lips parting in surprise.

"Or any of these swooning peacocks!" He added for emphasis, waving his arms about in the air as if to indicate every woman in the room.

"Why?" I asked, trying to put all of my strength into my voice but it still came out sounding desperate. "Why me? Why should I know that?"

He opened his mouth as if to say it, as if to admit that one singular feeling which bound us together and simultaneously ripped us apart. But he couldn't do it. He could never do it.

"Precisely," I murmured sadly and then turned in a swirl of hot pink and lemon, making my way through the ballroom as I was intended to.

He didn't follow me. He didn't even call after me. He just stood there, mouth opening and closing in the center of the room as if he were still trying to form the words I'd asked him to say. But they were closing in around him now, the other women from the town, and he wouldn't have another moment's peace for the evening. And I didn't want to see him again. So I followed the expert and chose the corner no one ever ventured to, Emily's corner.

Unfortunately, Emily was there. And she rolled her eyes at my approach.

"You don't have to speak to me," I told her. "I know that's your preference. But you have to abide by my company. At least for a little while. I don't wish to be out there at present."

Emily scoffed.

"You, dressed like that, are trying to convince me that you don't want to be the center of attention?" My sister asked in disbelief. "Please."

Perhaps it was the stress of the past few days or the rift that had been forming between us for years now, but I was at my wit's end with her.

"Do you think I knew everyone was going to show up dressed as if the King had just died?" I snapped, whirling on her. "Perhaps if everyone in town would stop trying to be someone they weren't and stop trying to get in on the next big thing, it wouldn't matter what I wore or how I behaved or where I chose to spend my time. Do you think I like this? Coming to these balls week after week watching you sulk my future away?"

Emily stared up at me in surprise. I'd never spoken to her this way before, never fought her abuse. I'd just taken it on the nose, silently, and told myself she'd had it hard. But no amount of difficulties were any excuse to behave like such a sullen wench, especially to her own sister.

"I cannot help who I am, Emily," I spat, voice raising enough to draw the attentions of a few of those around us. Emily noticed, glancing their way uneasily. But I didn't care. This had been a long time coming and if I needed to say it all in front of the whole town to get her to see it, I would. "No more than you or anyone else in this room. So I suggest you stop hating me for it. I've only ever wanted to see you shine but I will not hide my light so yours seems brighter."

"Ella-"

"Emily," I spoke her name, calming slightly, "you are brilliant. You are strong and formidable and you've read every book in father's library. You have knowledge others can only dream of. I wish I knew half as much of the world and its history as you. You're rich and titled and passionate and- do you know Colin Ashworth has been staring at you since last season? He's too shy to approach you, too timid to call on you, but you haven't even noticed the way he looks at you. Have you?"

To my surprise, Emily's gaze flicked to Colin and back to me. Then she lowered her head and I saw the faint blossoming of a blush on her cheeks. I stared at it, open mouthed. I'd never seen my sister blush before.

"I've noticed," she answered, her voice almost a whisper. "He stares at me. I stare at him. But neither of us say anything."

"Well," I stuttered, still caught off guard by the admission as well as the blush. "Go and rectify that."

Then I pulled her from her corner and shoved her toward where Colin stood in the opposite one.

"Why are you so interested in my courtship all of a sudden?" Emily asked, raising a brow in suspicion, all the while asking the question that Ella had avoided answering herself all this time.

"I'm just tired of feeling like we're enemies," I told her with an exhausted sigh. "I'd much rather be sisters."

Emily whirled around suddenly and threw her arms around me in an embrace that stunned me so much I couldn't move. I just stood, rigid and rooted to the spot as my mind raced to process what was happening.

"Thank you," she whispered once and then she was gone, marching up to Colin Ashworth all by herself, with the brightest smile on her face I'd ever seen.