Foremost of ladies always will take time to make purchase (8)
I believe the answer is:
leverage
'purchase' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'foremost of ladies always will take time' is the wordplay.
'foremost of' suggests taking the first letters.
'always' becomes 'ever' ('ever' can be a synonym of 'always').
'will take' says to put letters next to each other.
'time' becomes 'age' (age is a kind of time).
The first letter of 'ladies' is 'l'.
'l'+'ever'+'age'='LEVERAGE'
'to make' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for leverage that I've seen before include "Strategic advantage; large Eve (anag.)" , "Power of achievement; (US) gearing" , "Purchase" , "Power to influence" , "What crowbar provides" .)