The Dressmakers: Silk Is For Seduction Part 28

The rank which English Ladies hold, requires they should neglect no honourable means of distinction, no becoming Ornament in the Costume.

La Belle a.s.semblee, or Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine, Advertis.e.m.e.nts for June 1807 Sunday 3 May Clevedon House seemed oppressively quiet, even for a Sunday. The corridors were silent, the servants having reverted to their usual invisibility, blending in with the furnishings or disappearing through a backstairs door. No one hurried from one room to the next. No Noirot women appeared abruptly in the doorway of the library.

Clevedon stood at the library table, which was heaped with ladies' magazines and the latest scandal sheets. Of the latter, Foxe's Morning Spectacle was the most prominent, its front page bearing a large advertis.e.m.e.nt for "Madame Noirot's newly-invented VENETIAN CORSETS."

He felt a spasm of sorrow and another of anger, and wondered when it would stop.

He told himself he ought to throw the magazines in the fire, and Foxe's rag along with them. Instead, he went on studying them, making notes, forming ideas.

It staved off boredom, he supposed.

It was more entertaining than attending to the stacks of invitations.

It was a waste of time.

He rang for a footman and told him to send Halliday in.

Three minutes later, Halliday entered the library.

Clevedon pushed to one side the provoking Spectacle. "Ah, there you are. I want you to send the dollhouse to Miss Noirot."

There was an infinitesimal pause before Halliday said, "Yes, your grace."

Clevedon looked up. "Is there a problem? The thing can sustain a twenty-minute journey to St. James's Street, can it not? It's old, certainly, but I thought it was in good repair."

"I do beg your pardon, your grace," Halliday said. "Naturally there is no problem whatsoever. I shall see to it immediately."

"But?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"I hear a but," Clevedon said. "I distinctly hear an unsaid but."

"Not precisely a but, your grace," Halliday said. "It is more of an impertinence, for which I do beg your pardon."

When Clevedon only looked at him expectantly, Halliday said, "We had been under the impression that Miss Erroll-that is, Miss Noirot-would be visiting us again."

Clevedon straightened away from the table. "What the devil gave you that impression?"

"Perhaps it was not so much an impression as a hope, sir," Halliday said. "We find her charming."

We meant the staff. Clevedon was surprised. "I should like to know what it is about them. They seem to charm everybody." The housemaid Sarah had gone happily enough to live above a shop and act as interim nursemaid until the Noirots had time to hire a suitable person. Miss Sophia had even disarmed Longmore.

"Indeed, they possess considerable charm," Halliday said. "But Mrs. Michaels and I both remarked their manner. We agreed that it was nothing like what one expected of milliners. Mrs. Michaels believes the women are ladies."

"Ladies!"

"She is persuaded that they are gentlewomen in reduced circ.u.mstances."

Clevedon remembered his first impression of Marcelline-his confusion. She'd sounded and behaved like the ladies of his acquaintance. But she wasn't a lady. She'd told him so.

Hadn't she?

"That's romantic," Clevedon said. "Mrs. Michaels is fond of novels, I know."

"I daresay that is the case," Halliday said. "In any event, they were not what one would be led to expect. Mrs. Michaels was greatly shocked when I informed her we had milliners to wait upon. But she told me that she was entirely taken aback when she met them. They did not strike her as milliners at all."

Servants were more sensitive to rank than their employers. They could smell trade at fifty paces. They could detect an imposter a minute after he opened his mouth.

Yet his servants, keenly aware of their position in the employment of a duke, had believed the Noirots were gentlewomen.

Well, it only showed how clever those women were. Charming. Enticing. Three versions of Eve, luring men to...

Gad, what the devil was wrong with him? It was reading all the d.a.m.ned magazines, with their serialized sentimental tales.

"You saw them at work," Clevedon said. "They know their trade."

"That is undoubtedly why Mrs. Michaels imagined they were women of rank who'd fallen on hard times," Halliday said. "I must confess that at first I thought it was one of your jokes. I beg you will forgive me, sir, but it did cross my mind that these were some cousins from abroad, and you were testing us. Only for an instant, sir. Naturally, it was obvious there had been a fire, and it was no joke."

The footman Thomas appeared in the doorway. "I beg your pardon, your grace, but Lord Longmore is here to see you, and-"

Longmore pushed past Thomas, strode past Halliday, and marched up to Clevedon.

"You cur!" Longmore said. He drew back his arm, and his fist shot straight at Clevedon's jaw.

Meanwhile, at Maison Noirot Lucie sat in the window, gazing down into St. James's Street.

She'd been sitting there for hours.

Marcelline knew what she was watching for, and she was dreading what was to come. "It's time for your tea," she said. "Sarah has laid out the tea things on your handsome tea table, and your dolls are in their places, waiting."

Lucie didn't answer.

"Afterward, Sarah will take you to the Green Park. You can see the fine ladies and gentlemen."

"I can't go out," Lucie said. "What if he comes, and I'm not here? He'll be very disappointed."

Marcelline's heart sank.

She moved to sit next to Lucie on the window seat. "My love, his grace is not coming here. He looked after us for a time, but he's very busy-"

"He's not too busy for me."

"We're not his family, sweet."

Lucie's eyes narrowed and her mouth set.

"He made a beautiful home for us," Marcelline said, keeping her voice steady with an effort. "Only look at all the fine things he bought for you. Your own tea set and tea table. Your own little chair and the prettiest bed in the world. But there are others in his life-"

"No!" Lucie jumped down from the window seat. "No!" she screamed. "No! No! No!"

"Lucie Cordelia."

"I'm not Lucie. I'm Erroll. I'll never be Lucie again. He's coming back! He loves me! He loves Erroll!"

She threw herself on the rug. She shrieked and sobbed and kicked her feet.

Sophy and Leonie ran into the nursery. Sarah raced in, and stopped short, her expression horrified. This was her first experience of Lucie in a tantrum.

She started toward the raging child.

Marcelline put up a hand, and the maid backed away. "Lucie Cordelia, that is quite enough," she said, keeping her voice calm and firm. "You know ladies do not throw themselves on the floor and scream."

"I'm not a lady! I hate you!"

Sarah gasped.

"Come, Erroll," Sophy said. "You'll only make yourself sick."

"He's coming back!" Lucie shrieked. "He loves me!"

Marcelline squared her shoulders. She moved to Lucie and scooped the child into her arms, in spite of flailing arms and feet and deafening shrieks. She held Lucie tight against her and rocked her, as though she were still the tiny infant she'd been once.

"Stop it," Marcelline said. "Stop it, love. You need to be a big girl."

The kicking and punching stopped, and the screaming softened into weeping. "Why c-can't we st-stay th-there? Why d-doesn't he k-keep me?"

Marcelline carried her to the window seat and held her, rocking her and stroking her back. "If everyone who loved you kept you, where would you live?" she said. "Then where should Mama be? Don't you want to live with Mama and Aunt Sophy and Aunt Leonie? Have you grown too fine for us? Do you want to go away and live in a castle? Is that it? What do you think, Aunt Sophy? Shall we dress Erroll in a princess gown and send her away to live in a castle?"

It was nonsense, most of it, but it quieted Lucie. She tightened her hold of her mother's neck. "I can live here," she said. "Why can't he come?"

"He's a great man, sweetheart," Marcelline said. "He has his own family. Very soon he'll be married and have his own children. You can't have every handsome gentleman who takes your fancy, you know."

Erroll quieted. The motion of her eyes told Marcelline the child was thinking. She was only six, and children had difficulties with logic, but the prospect of being a princess might suffice to distract her.

The tempest over, Sarah said, "I'll tell you what, Miss Erroll. Let's have our tea with the dolls, then we'll take a walk in the Green Park. Perhaps we'll see the Princess Victoria. Do you know who she is, miss? She's the king's niece, and one day she'll be the Queen of England."

"If you do see her," Marceline said, "you must take special note of what she's wearing, and tell us all about it."

While a little girl threw a tantrum on St. James's Street, the Earl of Longmore was throwing his own in the library of Clevedon House.

Clevedon caught hold of his friend's arm. There was some pushing, and a brief scuffle. Then the shouting started.

Halliday had tactfully taken himself out of the room and closed the door. Having failed to break Clevedon's jaw or provoke him into a duel, Longmore was drinking the duke's brandy to sustain him while he paced the room and raged in his usual hotheaded fashion.

Clevedon knew he deserved a dressing down. All the same, it was very hard to bear. It was not as though he was enjoying himself. His life, at the moment, seemed to be utter excrement.

"You don't deserve my sister," Longmore said. "I should never have come to Paris. She raked me over the coals for doing it. She was right. I should have left you there to rot. I should have encouraged her to look elsewhere. I should have told her the leopard doesn't change his spots. But no, I was completely taken in. I wondered why you came back so soon-but I told myself it was because you'd realized how much you missed Clara. Gad, I was a naive as she is!"

"I don't recall appointing a particular time to return," Clevedon said.

"I told you the end of the month was soon enough," Longmore said. "I knew you weren't done. I only wanted to be able to tell my mother you were coming back. I wish now I'd told her to mark you down in the column under dead losses. I've half a mind to tell her so now."

"If this is about the dressmakers-"

"Who else would it be about?" Longmore snapped. "Who else has been so thoroughly lost to propriety-"

" 'Lost to propriety,' " Clevedon echoed. "I can't believe those words are issuing from your mouth. When did you ever care for propriety? As I recall, your father was happy enough to pack you off to the Continent."

"I've never pretended to be a saint-"

"Good thing, too. No one would believe you."

"But I don't invite milliners to sleep in the ancestral home!"

"They were burnt out of their lodgings," Clevedon said. "It was in all the papers. Do you think that was a fabrication? But why the devil do I ask? If you were rational, you wouldn't be here, guzzling my brandy as though it was Almack's lemonade-"

"I never drink the filthy stuff."

"You're not rational. I don't know what's got into you, and I'm not sure I care. But the women are gone. I took them in for only a few days-"

"You couldn't put them up at a hotel?"

"You don't understand a d.a.m.ned thing," Clevedon said. "They have a business to run. They can't afford to lose time. They needed a place to work. They needed help. Bringing them here was the simplest plan. They drove themselves to distraction to finish a dress for Clara-"

"Don't speak of her and them in the same breath, you philandering swine."

"They're gone, you idiot! I had them packed up and out of here in seventy-two hours. They were gone on Sat.u.r.day morning."

"And you were in bed with the brunette on Friday night," Longmore said.

It was completely unexpected. It was like one of Longmore's lightning blows, coming from the one angle one wasn't prepared for.

For a moment Clevedon saw red, literally: flames danced before his eyes. He clenched his fists, and when he spoke, his voice was deadly calm. "The temptation to knock you down is nearly overwhelming," he said.

"Don't act all n.o.bly outraged with me, as though I've compromised her virtue."

"Only a blackguard would speak of any woman in that way."

"You were with her," Longmore said. "You weren't even discreet. I was at White's when one of the fellows told me he'd seen your carriage in Bennet Street. They started speculating about what you were doing there. I slapped my head and pretended suddenly to remember that you and I had appointed to meet there, and you were waiting for me. I went out of the club and down to Bennet Street. I stood in a doorway and waited for you to come out. And waited. And waited."

"How bored you must have been," Clevedon said, his heart pounding. Not with guilt, the more shame to him. It beat against the turmoil within. It beat with remembering those few miraculous hours.

Longmore tossed back the last of his brandy, stalked to the tray and refilled his gla.s.s from the decanter there. He took a long swallow. "You're making yourself a laughingstock," he said. "I've never seen you behave in this way over any woman. The creature has her hooks in you, that's plain enough. If this were the usual thing, I'd merely warn you in no uncertain terms to show a little d.a.m.ned discretion. Plague take it, Clevedon, you might have had the sense to tell the coachman to wait where all of b.l.o.o.d.y St. James's Street couldn't see him!"

"It didn't occur to me," Clevedon said. "I didn't plan to stay above a quarter hour. I'm sorry you were obliged to wait for so long."

"It was boring," Longmore said. "And d.a.m.ned aggravating. What the devil am I to do? Is this fair to Clara? Should her brother tell her that the man she's been waiting for has well and truly lost his head over a milliner? It'll hurt her, you know. She's always been so tolerant of your foibles. She has a soft spot in her head, I daresay. But this- You know this isn't the usual thing for you."