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The dead thing sprang up from its corner and came running to the front of his mind. He knocked it down again. “It’s more than that,” he said. “You know it’s more than that.”
“Is it? Well, I don’t care.” She tossed her head. Clara actually tossed her head. “It isn’t more to me. When you’re about, it’s the same as if I were with Harry. No, it’s worse, because lately you’ve been a dead bore, and he, obnoxious as he is, is at least entertaining. I know you men are bound to have your outside interests—Oh, why should I bother with euphemisms? We both know we’re talking about other women. Mama has drummed that into me. We’re supposed to overlook it. Men are born that way and it can’t be helped. I was prepared to overlook it.”
“Clara, I swear to you—”
“Don’t,” she said. “I’m long past that. If you can’t keep an engagement for dinner, if you can’t be bothered to send a message—a few words only: ‘Sorry, Clara. Something came up.’ But you can’t do that much. If this is how it’s going to be—you getting all broody and distracted every time you fall in lust with somebody—well, I haven’t the stomach for it. I won’t put up with it, not for a dukedom. Not for three dukedoms. I deserve better than the role of quietly accepting wife. I’m an interesting woman. I read. I have opinions. I appreciate poetry. I have a sense of humor.”
“I know all that. I’ve always known.”
“I deserve to be loved, truly loved—mind, body, soul. And in case you haven’t noticed, there’s a line of men ready to give me all that. Why on earth should I settle for a man who can’t give me anything but friendship? Why should I settle for you?”
She put up her chin and stormed away.
It was then he became aware that the place had grown quiet.
He looked in the direction she was walking. As many of the guests as could fit had jammed into the open French windows. The crowd gave way as she neared, and let her pass, which she did without hesitation, head high.
From the crowd came scattered bursts of applause.
He heard, from a distance, a shriek. Lady Warford.
Then he heard the buzzing of a crowd excited by scandal. The music started up again, and people drifted back into the ballroom.
He did not.
He made his way across the terrace, past the couples returning to their shadowy corners. He walked out into the garden, through the garden gate, on through a passage, and into the street.
Then, finally, he paused and looked about him. That was when he realized he was shaking.
He lifted his hands and stared at them, wondering.
The thing inside, the thing he’d strangled and knocked down, bounded up again, and danced happily about.
The Duke of Clevedon stood, dragging in great lungfuls of the cool night air, as though…as though…
Then he realized why he trembled.
He felt like a man who’d climbed the steps to the gallows, felt the rope dropping over his head and onto his shoulders, heard the parson pray for his soul, felt the hood pulled over his head—
—and at the last minute, the very last minute, the reprieve had come.
It was near dawn before Sophy came home.
Marcelline, who’d been lying in her bed staring into the darkness, got up when she heard her come up the stairs.
Sophy had gone to the ball. Clevedon was going to propose, and the world needed to know exactly what Lady Clara was wearing, along with who had made it. Sophy hadn’t gone to find out what Lady Clara was wearing, of course. They already knew every detail, not only of the dress but of the accessories as well. Sophy had gone because, in exchange for the large amount of column space she wanted in tomorrow’s—today’s, actually—Morning Spectacle, Tom Foxe would want inside information. From an eyewitness.
It was by no means the first time Sophy had entered a great house for this purpose. Hosts often needed to hire additional staff for larger events. Reputable agencies existed to meet the need. Sophy was registered, under another name, of course, with all of the agencies. She knew how to wait on her betters. She’d been doing it since she was Lucie’s age. And she knew how to blend in. She was a Noirot, after all.
“It’s all right,” Sophy said as she took off her cloak. “It didn’t go exactly as planned, but I’ve taken care of it.”
“Didn’t go exactly as planned,” Marcelline repeated.
“She refused him.”
“Mon dieu.” Marcelline’s chest felt tight. It was hard to breathe. She was in knots. Relief. Despair.
“What?” came Leonie’s voice from behind her.
Marcelline and Sophy turned that way. Leonie stood in the open doorway of her bedroom. She hadn’t bothered to pull on a dressing gown, and her nightcap—a wonderful froth of ribbons and lace—hung tipsily to one side of her head. She had the owlish look of one barely awake.
At least someone had slept this night.
“Lady Clara refused him,” Sophy said. “I saw it all. He wooed her so beautifully. It was as though he was seeing her for the first time and he couldn’t see anybody else. It was so romantic, like something in a novel—really, because we all know that men, generally speaking, are not very romantic.”
“But what happened?” Leonie said. “It sounds perfect.”
“It looked perfect. I was in a prime position, by the open French windows, and the wind carried their voices beautifully. When she said no, I vow, my mouth actually fell open. I don’t know where she found the strength to refuse him, but she did, in no uncertain terms. They all heard it. The music had happened to stop at that moment, and others near the terrace heard, and word spread at a stunning rate. In a moment, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Everyone was straining to hear—and some of them were shoving to get to the windows.”
Marcelline’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, no.”
“No need to worry,” Sophy said briskly. “I saw at once what to do, and I’ve done it, and everything will work out very well. Please go back to bed. There’s nothing on earth to fret about. I expect to have proof in the morning, and then you can see for yourselves. But for now, my loves, I must have some sleep. I’m ready to drop.”
Chapter Sixteen (#ulink_7d6f3dc5-ab48-532e-9802-e501be4fbf8f)
If, some years ago, our neighbours in sneer, called us a nation of shopkeepers, we think that they must now give us the credit of being shopkeepers of taste: we apprehend, no place in the world affords so great a variety of elegant amusement to the eye, as London in its various shops.
The Book of English Trades, and Library of the Useful Arts, 1818
Eight o’clock, Saturday morning
Despite having gone to bed only a short time before, Sophy hurried in to breakfast only minutes after her sisters. She had a copy of the latest edition of Foxe’s Morning Spectacle in her hand, and she was grinning.
“I told you I did it,” she said. “Column inch after column inch, all about the gown Lady Clara Fairfax—or ‘Lady C’ as Foxe so delicately puts it—wore to the Brownlows’ ball.” She sat down and read aloud, “‘A white satin or poult de soie under-dress, a low corsage, the front square.’”
Marcelline paused, her coffee cup halfway to her lips. She needed coffee. She hadn’t slept. “Clearly you gave Tom Foxe what he wanted.”
“And he gave me columns of space,” Sophy said triumphantly.
Leonie snatched the paper from her. “Let me see. ‘Open robe of rose noisette crepe…corsage…descends in longitudinal folds on each side.’” She looked at Marcelline. “It goes on and on, like a fashion plate description. Down to the shoes. Good grief, what on earth did you do for him, Sophy? No, never mind. It’s none of our business.”
“I told you I’d take care of everything,” Sophy said. “Never mind the rest of the description. You know what she was wearing.” She pointed. “Start there.”
Leonie read, “‘The reader will wonder at our entering into minute detail regarding the fair attendee’s attire. But no lesser tribute, we feel, would suffice for a dress that inspired its wearer not only with the confidence to decline the addresses of a duke but with the fire of poetry, for no lesser description could properly characterize the speech with which she so unequivocally rejected his offer of matrimony.’”
Thence followed Lady Clara’s rejection speech. In this context it read like a scene from one of Lady Morgan’s novels.
Marcelline put down her coffee cup and rubbed her head. “He’s the Duke of Clevedon. She loves him. He’s the world’s foremost seducer of women—and he botched it. Well, goodbye Duchess of Clevedon.”
“Goodbye to the duchess, perhaps,” Sophy said. “It may take him a while to find another. But look on the bright side. Lady Clara will come back to Maison Noirot. She understands what we do for her. You read what she said to him. ‘I’m different.’”
“Her friends will come, too,” Leonie said. “Every woman who was at that ball will want to see the creations that could give a woman confidence enough to reject a duke. Sophy, my love, you’ve outdone yourself.”
“Leonie’s right,” Marcelline said. “Excellent work, love. Brilliant, actually. I would have stood there with my mouth hanging open and my mind completely blank. But you saw how to turn it to account, as you always do.”
“Your mind never goes blank,” Sophy said. “We’ve all mastered the art of quick thinking. And this was the easiest thing in the world. But now we’ve got to give them something to see. What dress shall we put out?”
“Leave it to me and Marcelline,” Leonie said. “You need to get more rest. The ton will be all atwitter about last night, and the other scandal sheets will rush to copy this piece. It’ll be all over London by afternoon. It’s going to be a busy day, and you’ve had only a few hours’ sleep.”
Marcelline had had no sleep, but they didn’t need to know that. She’d been lying awake in her bed, reminding herself she’d done the right thing, the only thing. If there had been an alternative, she would have jumped at it. But there wasn’t: She and her sisters had devoted themselves to winning Lady Clara’s loyalty. They’d given their utmost to make more of her than she realized she was.
Clevedon had to marry her. That was the whole point.
That was why Marcelline had pursued him in Paris, mad scheme that it was. The Duchess of Clevedon was their direct route to success. She’d end Dowdy’s dominance. Then the perverse incompetent who called herself a dressmaker would no longer have the power to undermine them.
That was the plan. The Duchess of Clevedon had been the main objective.
Lady Clara was not going to be the Duchess of Clevedon—not after that speech, in front of an audience. But Sophy had rescued them, which meant that the essential plan, of dominating London’s dressmaking trade, remained.
Marcelline’s feelings didn’t come into it. Her feelings were her problem.
Sophy, on the other hand, had spent the night on her feet, working, after a long day in the shop spent mainly on her feet, working.
“I’ll admit I met with a bit more excitement than I’d expected,” Sophy said. “I told you I’d maneuvered to a prime position near the French windows, where I could hear every word. No one noticed me. No one notices servants. Then, when I was coming away, I ran into Lord Longmore.”
Both Marcelline and Leonie looked at her, eyebrows aloft.
“Not literally,” Sophy said. “But there he was. I expected he’d look right through me and continue on his way the way they all do, as though nobody was there. Servants, like shopkeepers, are nobody, after all. But he stopped dead and said, ‘What are you doing here?’ You could have knocked me over with a feather, but I never blinked. ‘Working, sir,’ said I in my best maidservant voice—you know, the one with the hint of the Lancashire country girl. ‘What, did they turn you off from the shop?’ said he. ‘What shop?’ said I. And then, as deferential as you please, I suggested he’d mixed me up with another girl. But he wasn’t having any of it. He gave me a hard look, and I was sure he’d keep at the interrogation, and give me away, but then his mother started shrieking, and he rolled his eyes and went that way.”
“You’d better watch out for him,” Marcelline said sharply. “He’s not the fool he makes out to be, and the last thing we need is another one of us getting mixed up with an aristocrat.”
“I don’t think he wants to get mixed up with me,” Sophy said. “I think he wishes us all at the devil. I think he may even believe we are the devil.”
“Let’s hope the ladies of the beau monde don’t feel the same way,” Leonie said.
“They won’t,” Sophy said. She got up and started for the door. “I believe I will go back to bed. But don’t let me sleep for too long. I don’t want to miss the fun. Oh, and if I were you, I’d put out the grey dress.”
Downes’s shop, later that same day
Mrs. Downes grimly regarded the dress lying on the counter. “How many does this make?” she asked her forewoman Oakes.
“Six,” said Oakes.
“Lady Gorrell threw it at me,” said Mrs. Downes.
“Shocking, madam.” Oakes, who’d witnessed the event, wasn’t at all shocked. Had she been the one to learn she’d paid a premium price for a dress exactly like one her friends had seen at Covent Garden Theater last year, she’d have reacted the same way.
Oakes had warned her employer. The sleeves, she’d pointed out when she saw the patterns—allegedly sent by Madam’s associate in Paris—were in last years’ style. Mrs. Downes had assumed either that Oakes was an idiot or her customers wouldn’t notice. Many of them, accustomed to trusting her implicitly, didn’t. At first. But they were quickly set straight.
Only one dressmaker in London made such memorable attire for ladies, and that dressmaker was not Mrs. Downes. Her customers’ eyes were soon opened by their more observant friends and relatives, who recalled seeing such and such a dress at a banquet, the theater, Hyde Park, and so on. Of a dozen orders so far, six owners had returned their purchases, furious about having paid high sums for not merely copies, but copies of last years’ fashion. Mrs. Downes had been hoaxed, beyond a doubt, beautifully hoaxed.
Oakes wondered how much her employer had paid for old patterns, and how many customers she’d lose as word got about.
It was time, the forewoman thought, to find a new position.
As Clevedon had expected, the shop was mobbed that day.
He passed it on his way to White’s Club and again on his way to the boot makers, the hat makers, the wine merchant, and others. He’d shopped for things he didn’t need, simply to keep in St. James’s Street. He was waiting for Maison Noirot’s eager throngs to melt away.
He’d read the Morning Spectacle, as had most of the Beau Monde, apparently. He wasn’t amazed at Foxe’s having got hold of the story. The man was noted for that. The detail was another matter. Clearly, Foxe had planted a spy in their midst.
The spy could be none other than Miss Sophia. The story—entirely about the dress, lovingly described, with the dressmaking establishment prominently mentioned—was in her dramatic style. To have done all that in time for today’s edition, she had to have been on the spot.
That, actually, was a relief.
His one great worry was that last night’s debacle would mark the end of Maison Noirot. The ton would blame Mrs. Noirot for leading him astray, and they’d shun her, as she’d warned him time and again. Clara would never return to the shop, and Mrs. Noirot would be marked down as a temptress and a harlot. Henceforth the ladies would have nothing to do with her.
But the ladies came today in an endless parade, stepping down from their carriages and peeping into the shop windows before going in. At this rate, they’d wear out the shop bell.
…a dress that inspired its wearer not only with the confidence to decline the addresses of a duke but with the fire of poetry…
The impudence of it passed all bounds.
Typical. The impudence of those Noirot women was beyond anything. And like all else they did, the article was well done, indeed. He would have liked to hug Sophia for it, but Sophia wasn’t the first person on his mind.
It wasn’t Sophia who’d kept him awake all night.
It wasn’t Sophia who’d got him up to pace and argue with himself. A futile argument.
From the time he’d escaped the party, from the time he’d stood on the pavement and realized why he was shaking, he’d seen there was only one way to put an end to this farce.
And so he waited until the afternoon waned and the ladies had gone home to dress for the ritual promenade in Hyde Park.
Then he crossed to the other side of St. James’s Street and entered Maison Noirot.
The shop bell tinkled, and Marcelline thought, Will they never go home?
She was happy, of course. This had been a day like no other—not even the day after she’d returned from Paris and the ladies had come to stare at the poussière dress. Today, though, herds of women had come. Their old shop could never have contained them all. As it was, she needed to find at least six more seamstresses in no time at all, otherwise they would never complete all the orders by the dates promised.
All this went through her head in the instant before she lifted her gaze from the tray of ribbons she was sorting, and looked toward the door.
Her heart beat painfully.
The gentleman stepped inside, and stopped and looked about. He did it exactly in the way all gentleman did when entering a shop for the first time: gazing coolly about them, evaluating what they saw, deciding whether it was worth their notice, and taking no notice of the lowly shopkeeper behind the counter.
But this wasn’t the first time he’d been here and this wasn’t any gentleman.
This was Clevedon, tall and arrogant, his hat tipped precisely so, his black hair curling under the brim. He carried a gold-tipped walking stick, and as he paused to examine the shop, he set both hands on it. His tan gloves fit like skin. She could see the outlines of his knuckles.
