Shades of Earl Grey

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Scurrying across the Italian marble floor of the Lady Goodwood Inn, Theodosia Browning glanced up at the gleaming painting of the inn’s venerable founder and matriarch. Harriet Beecher Goodwood gazed down at her guests from her lofty perch. With her glowing porcelain skin, heavy necklace of blue topaz, and pale peach organza gown cinched tightly about her waist, she was the very picture of Southern femininity. A woman with a properly demure manner who also conveyed a fine aristocratic bearing. Yet her watchful eyes seemed to betray a certain wistfulness, as though Lady Goodwood would prefer to step out of her formal portrait and mingle with the carefree throng that milled about below.

In her black satin slacks and figure-skimming smoking jacket, Theodosia breathed a silent prayer of relief that modern-day Charleston women were no longer bound by strict social constraints or uncomfortable, tightly corseted gowns. How on earth would she ever be able to fly about the Indigo Tea Shop, greeting guests and brewing tea, if she were costumed in ankle-length skirts, pantalets, high button boots, and a whale bone corset? Better yet, how would she even draw breath in an outfit like that? Especially when summer’s heat and humidity crept in from the low-country and turned the city into a real cooker!

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