The Dressmakers: Silk Is For Seduction Part 19

"Oh, yes!" She started toward him, then hesitated and looked at Marcelline. "May I, Mama?" she asked in her best Dutiful Child voice.

"Yes," Marceline said, because there was nothing else she could say. She was hardheaded and practical, and any mother would know this was setting a terrible precedent as well as compromising her reputation.

But to deny her child-any child-such a treat, after the child had seen it and had done nothing wrong to be punished for, was wanton cruelty. She was a strict mother. She had to be. But too many cruelties, large and small, had marked her own childhood. That was one legacy she wouldn't pa.s.s on.

Folding his large frame, he crouched down to Lucie's level. Solemnly he held out the doll. Equally solemnly, she took it, holding her breath until it was safely in her arms. Then she held it so carefully, as though she believed the thing was magical, and might disappear in a minute. "What is her name?" she asked.

"I have no idea," he said. "I thought you would know."

Oh, the wretched, manipulative man!

Lucie considered. "If she were my doll, I should call her Susannah."

"I think she would like to be your doll," Clevedon said. He slanted a glance upward, at Marcelline. "If she may."

Though she was captivated by the doll, Lucie didn't fail to see whose permission he sought. "Oh, if Mama says she may? Mama, may she? May she be my doll?"

"Yes," Marcelline said. What other answer could she make, curse him!

"Oh, thank you, Mama!" Lucie turned back to Clevedon, and the look she sent him from those great blue eyes was calculated to break his heart, which Marcelline sincerely hoped it did. "Thank you, your grace. I shall take very good care of her."

"I know you will," he said.

"Her limbs move, you see," Lucie said, demonstrating. "She needn't wear only one dress. This one is very beautiful, but she's like a princess, and a princess must have a vast wardrobe. Mama and my aunts will help me cut out and sew dresses for her. I'll make her morning dresses and walking dresses and the most beautiful carriage dress, a blue redingote to match her eyes. The next time you come, you'll see."

The next time you come.

"Why don't you take Susannah upstairs to meet your aunts?" Marcelline said. "I have something to discuss with his grace."

Lucie went out, cradling the doll as though it were a living infant. Clevedon rose and watched her go out, through the door to the back of the shop. He was smiling, and it was a smile Marcelline had never seen before. It was not his charming smile or his seductive one or his winning one.

It was fond and wistful, and she could not withstand it. It won her and weakened her will more effectively than any of his other smiles could have done.

Which only made her angrier.

"Clevedon," she began.

He turned back to her, the smile fading. "You may not rake me over the coals," he said. "She set out to captivate me, much as her mother did-"

"She's six years old!"

"You both succeeded," he said. "What was I to do? She's a little girl. Why should she not have a doll?"

"She has dolls! Does she seem neglected to you? Deprived in any way? She's my daughter, and I take care of her. She has nothing to do with you. You've no business buying her dolls. What will Lady Clara think? What do you think your fine friends in the ton will say when they hear you've given my daughter gifts? You know they'll hear of it." Lucie would show the doll to the seamstresses, naturally, and they'd tell everybody they knew, and word would spread through the ton in no time at all. "And do you think their speculations will do my business any good?"

"That's all you think about. Your business."

"It's my life, you great thickhead! This"-she swept her hand to indicate the shop-"This is how I earn my living. Can you not grasp this simple concept? Earning a living?"

"I'm not-"

"This is how I feed and clothe and house and educate my daughter," she raged on. "This is how I provide for my sisters. What must I do to make you understand? How can you be so blind, so willfully obtuse, so-"

"You'll make me run mad," he said. "Everywhere I turn, there you are."

"That's monstrous unfair! Everywhere I go, there is your great carca.s.s!"

"You upset everything," he said. "I've been trying for a fortnight to propose to Clara, and every time I steel myself to it-"

"Steel yourself?"

"Every time," he went on, unheeding, "you"-he waved his hand-"There you are. I went to Warford House today to come up to scratch, as you so poetically put it, but you had her worked up into such a state, we couldn't have a proper conversation, and all my speech-and I spent half an hour composing it-went out of my head."

The door to the back of the shop opened again and Leonie came in.

"Oh, your grace," she said, feigning surprise, though she'd probably heard the row from the stairs. Marcelline hoped the seamstresses had followed orders and left early, else they'd have had an earful.

"He was about to leave," Marcelline said.

"No, I wasn't," he said.

"It's closing time," Marcelline said, "and we know you aren't buying anything."

"Perhaps I shall," he said.

"Leonie, please lock up for me," she said. To him she said, "I'm not keeping my shop open all night to pander to your whims."

"Do you plan to throw me out bodily?" he said.

She could knock him unconscious. Then she and her sisters could drag him out into the alley behind the shop. It wouldn't be the first time they'd had to dispose of a troublesome male.

"You're too big, curse you," she said. "But we're going to settle something, once and for all."

Chapter Ten.

Approaching Marriages in High Life.-A marriage is on the tapis between Mr Vaughan and Lady Mary Anne Gage, sister of Lord Kenmare. Viscount Palmerston, it is said, will shortly be united to the rich Mrs Thwaites.

The Court Journal, Sat.u.r.day 25 April 1835 Marcelline stormed through the pa.s.sage, past the stairs toward the back of the building, and through the open door into the workroom.

She met chaos.

Worktable covered with sc.r.a.ps of fabric, thimbles, thread, pincushions. Floor littered with debris. Chairs left where they'd been pushed out. It looked as though seamstresses had fled or been chased out.

She didn't have time or mind to wonder at it. She didn't have time or mind to put two and two together. The state of the room was one more trial in a long, wearying day of biting her tongue and maintaining an even temper in the face of stupidity, rudeness, and ill-usage. A long day of crushing her own wants and giving all her energy to winning and pleasing.

She'd deal with this latest aggravation later.

Clevedon first.

She turned to face him, bracing her hands against the edge of the disgracefully cluttered worktable.

She took pride in the neatness and order of her shop, a stunning contrast to life in her parents' household, or what had pa.s.sed for a household. But it didn't matter what he thought of the disarray, she told herself. How would he know the difference between how a workroom ought and ought not to be maintained? And what did he care?

"You're not to come here again," she said. "Ever."

"That suits me," he said. "This is the last place on earth I'd wish to be."

"You're not to buy my daughter any more gifts," she said.

"Why did you think I would?"

"Because she's a conniving little minx who knows how to wrap men about her finger," she said.

"So like her mother," he said.

"Yes, I connived, and I wrapped you about my finger. But now I'm done with that. What did I ever want of you but your betrothed?"

Liar, liar.

"We're not betrothed," he said, "thanks to you."

"Thanks to me?" she said with a mocking laugh. Mocking him. Mocking herself. "You're not betrothed because of you. Why didn't you make your so-carefully-rehea.r.s.ed speech to that beautiful girl? The speech to which you devoted a mere half hour for the most important question of your life-"

"Clara doesn't need-"

"But why should you take any trouble, when you take for granted everything you have? You're used to getting whatever you want and losing interest as soon as you get it."

"I love her," he said. "I've loved her since we were children. But you-"

"It's my fault, is it?" she said. "I'm the demon destroying your happiness? Only look at yourself and listen to yourself. Like every other man, you want what you can't have. Like every other man, you'll stay interested-even obsessed-until you get it. You came here this evening because you can't think straight-because it drives you mad not to have something you want."

His color darkened, and she saw his hands clench. "If you think that something is you, think again," he said. "I don't want you. But you want me, and I feel so sorry for you."

Inwardly, it was as though she'd walked into a wall. Her head pounded and pain shot deep, deep inside.

She wanted him. She wanted to be the heartbreakingly beautiful girl he loved. She wanted to be someone else: a woman who mattered to him and to all those who mattered, instead of a n.o.body to be used and discarded. She wanted everything her family had taken away: every opportunity they'd squandered and all the damage done to her future long, long ago, generations before she was born.

Outwardly, she didn't blink. "Then send me more customers," she said. "I find money a great comfort in any calamity."

She heard his sharp inhale. "By gad," he said. "By gad, you're a devil."

"And you're an angel?" She laughed.

He crossed the room, and in that instant she knew what would happen. But she was a devil and so was he, and she only stood there, gripping the table, daring him, daring her own destruction.

He stood over her, looking down into her dark, brilliant eyes. They mocked and taunted, as her voice had mocked and taunted him with the ways he lied to himself and everyone else.

The truth was, he was no angel. Three years ago, he'd abandoned his responsibilities, gone abroad, and found himself. He'd settled in Paris because he could be free there as he could never be in England. In Paris, his hunger for excitement and pleasure could do no damage to those he loved.

She promised nothing but damage, everywhere.

She was wrong for him in every possible way, and especially wrong at this time. Why couldn't he have met her a year ago, three years ago?

But when he looked down into her eyes, right and wrong meant nothing. He and she were two of a kind, and like called to like, and he wanted her. And she, who read him so easily and so well, had spoken one needle-sharp truth after another.

Yes, he'd go on wanting her until he had her.

Then it would be done, and he could be free of her.

He cupped her face and tilted it upward and brought his mouth to hers and kissed her. She turned her head away, breaking the kiss. He trailed his mouth along her cheek, to her ear and down. Her scent rose from her neck, and all the air he breathed then was her and all he knew then was her.

"Fool," she said. "Fool."

"Yes," he said. He wrapped his arms about her and pulled her away from the table and dragged her up against him.

That was right, no matter how desperately wrong it was. It was right, the warmth of her back against his forearm, and the way her supple body fit to his, as though it had been tailored special in some infernal shop where Beelzebub presided.

He was done for, caught. Heat pumped through him, fever-fierce, and scorched his reason.

This was all he'd ever wanted: possession. Images burned in his mind-the cool way she'd taken her leave of him in the opera house... men colliding with one another or stumbling over their own feet when she pa.s.sed... the way she had of turning her head... the graceful arc of her fan, sweeping over her dress... the light movement of her hand touching her shoulder in the place where he'd touched her. All this and more-every moment in her company-all of it was swirling in his mind and racing through his veins when he took her into his arms.

This was what he'd wanted. To hold her. To keep her.

Mine.

Unthinking, like a brute.

With one arm he swept the table clear. Pieces of cloth, bits of lace and ribbons wafted down, while spools of thread, thimbles, and other bric-a-brac clattered to the floor.

He lifted her onto the table.

She set her hand against his chest, to push him away. He laid his hand over hers, and held hers there, over his pounding heart. He lifted her chin and dared her, his gaze locking with hers. Her eyes were wide and so dark, as dark as night. That was where he wanted to be: lost in the darkness, the unknowable place that was Noirot.

Noirot. That was all he knew. He didn't know if that was truly her name. He didn't know her Christian name. He didn't know whether she'd ever had a husband. It didn't matter.

She brought her hands up and grasped his head and pulled him to her. She wrapped her legs about his hips and kissed him in that wild way of hers, holding nothing back, and demanding the same everything from him.

He gave it, too, in a mad, hungry kiss, while his hands moved greedily over her, wanting and wanting, endlessly wanting. He'd stored it up for so long. Mere weeks had pa.s.sed since he met her, yet it seemed forever that he'd wanted her. It seemed an eternity he'd lived in dreams and fantasies and the memories that came unbidden, haunting his days and nights. Now he wasn't dreaming. Now he was alive, finally, after sleepwalking for a lifetime.

Under his hands, silk and muslin and lace rustled, the sound so intimate, inviting possession. But everywhere he found obstacles, layer upon layer of her curst fashion between his hands and her skin. He slid his hand over her bodice, seeking skin, remembering the velvety miracle of hers, and its warmth. The memory was maddening, because he couldn't touch her in the way he wanted, lingeringly. For all his demented heat, he knew they had little time, no time, only a moment. They'd met at the wrong time and they were not meant for each other and this was all he'd have.

No time.