Duty and Desire

"Who would not choose red and gold over  black and a silly old wig?" Trenholme offered. "Wickham knows, as does any man, that the ladies go faint with admiration over a uniform. Is that not true, Miss Avery?" he quizzed.

Miss Avery colored alarmingly as the attention of the table centered upon her. She looked helplessly at her brother, whose only encouragement was an irritated frown. "A u-uniform is n-nice," she stuttered miserably.

"Nice? Bella!" Manning's withering tone caused Darcy to wince while the others became fascinated with their silver service or wineglasses. "Good Lord, speak up and stop st---!"

"But she has spoken, my lord, and much to the point!" Lady Felicia smiled gently into the swimming eyes of the very young lady. "A uniform is nice." She faced the others, arching one brow. "It makes a plain man smart; a dull man intelligent; and a timid man brave with merely putting it on-- at least, in his own estimation!"A chorus of masculine denials mixed with chuckles raised the spirits of the hapless Miss Avery.

"And what will a uniform do for a more talented man, Lady Felicia?" asked Lady Sayre. "I vow, it is more than 'nice' work then."

"Oh, my dear Lady Sayre." Lady Felicia looked to her hostess. "It is well known that a uniform makes a smart man dashing; an intelligent man a genius; and a brave man a hero in no more time than it takes his batman to brush it and ease him into it." A new howl went up from the gentlemen, and the ladies were forced to resort to their fans. Darcy smiled approvingly. Her rescue of Miss Avery by the turning of Manning's embarrassing treatment of his sister into a clever conceit was well and compassionately done.

-- Pamela Aidan, Duty and Desire (the second book of her Darcy series), p. 122-123