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“Because I’m delicious,” she said.
“The delicious Duchess of Clevedon,” he said. “I like the sound of that. I like the feel of her better,” he said. “And the scent of her. And the sound of her voice. And the way she moves. I love her madly. I would like to stay here, and count all the ways I love her, and show her all the ways I love her. But the world calls. Life calls.” He kissed her, so tenderly, on her forehead. “We have to put our clothes on.”
It took only a minute or two, since they hadn’t taken very much off. For her, a slight rearrangement of her undergarments, a few hooks to fasten, a stocking to pull up, a garter to tie. For him, a quick business of pulling up his drawers and trousers, tucking his shirt in, and buttoning a handful of buttons.
He found her black lace fichu, and she tied it.
He collected her hat from the corner it had bounced to. He brushed it off, and attempted to straighten the plumes.
She watched him for a moment, then laughed. “Oh, Clevedon, you’re the dearest man,” she said. “Give me that thing. You’ve no idea what to do with it, but I do love you for trying.”
He stilled briefly. Then he looked down at the hat and back at her. “Isn’t that it?” he said. “Trying? If we try with all our hearts, do you not think we can make a go of this—of us? And then, even if it doesn’t come out quite as we wish, at least we’ll know we tried wholeheartedly. That’s the way you do everything, is it not? With all your heart. And look how far you’ve come and all you’ve achieved. Only think what we can do together.”
“Well, there’s that,” she said, gesturing with her hat at the sofa. “We did that very well. Together.”
He laughed. “Yes. And don’t you think that a man who could do that—after a fight and a night of maudlin drinking—don’t you think he could take on the ton? I may not be much of a duke, but I haven’t given any time to the job. Only think what I might do, once I set my mind to it—with madame la duchesse at my side.” He grinned and added, “And under me or on top of me or behind me as the case may be.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Behind you, your grace?”
“I see that you still have some things to learn,” he said. He straightened his waistcoat.
“I was married very young, for a very short time,” she said. “I’m practically a virgin.”
He laughed again, and the sound was so sweet to her ears. He was happy, and so was she. And so she dared to hope, and dream, as she always did. And she dared to believe, that it would all come out as it ought, somehow, eventually.
He took her into his arms, crushing the hat.
She didn’t care.
“I have a plan,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Let’s get married,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
“Let’s conquer the world,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. No one in her family had ever been accused of dreaming small.
“Let’s bring the beau monde to its knees.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s make them beg for your creations.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, yes, yes.”
“Is tomorrow too soon?” he said.
“No,” she said. “We’ve a great deal to do, you and I, conquering the world. We must start at once. We’ve not a minute to lose.”
“I love hearing you say that,” he said.
He kissed her. It lasted a long time.
And they would last, she was sure, a lifetime. On that she’d wager anything.
Epilogue (#ulink_f561381b-ae1f-5c2a-86aa-681531f85b41)
The dresses were brilliant in the extreme; and it afforded us much gratification to notice that those worn by her Majesty and the Royal Family, as well as many others, were chiefly composed of British manufacture.
The Court Journal, Saturday 30 May 1835
The Duke of Clevedon married Mrs. Charles Noirot at Clevedon House on Saturday the 16th of May. In attendance were her sisters, his aunts, Lord Longford, and Lady Clara Fairfax.
The two latter appeared in defiance of their parents—but Longford had never been noted for filial obedience, and Lady Clara had lately developed an invigorating habit of defying her mother. She’d worn a Noirot creation to the Queen’s Drawing Room the previous Thursday, which caused a most gratifying stir.
When her brother had taxed her with aiding and abetting Clevedon’s lunacy, she said, “He’s still my friend, and I scorn to hold a grudge. I certainly shan’t cut off my nose to spite my face. You know that no one has ever or will ever make me look as well as Mrs. Noirot does. Do stop acting like Mama.”
That last remark brought Longmore around.
The duke’s aunts presented a more formidable challenge. As soon as they received his message regarding his impending nuptials, they hurried to Town and took possession of Clevedon House, determined to bring him to his senses. On Wednesday afternoon, they’d settled down for a bout of tea drinking and bullying their nephew when Halliday ushered in his grace’s prospective wife and in-laws and, as heavy artillery, Lucie. the aunts might have withstood the Noirot charm alone, but charm combined with mouth-watering dresses weakened their defenses, and Lucie, at her winsome best, routed them utterly.
On the Monday following the wedding, the youngest aunt, Lady Adelaide Ludley, visited the queen, with whom she shared a given name and was on warm terms. Her ladyship extolled the new duchess’s deportment and taste. On learning that the queen had admired Lady Clara Fairfax’s dress, Lady Adelaide pointed out that Maison Noirot patronized British tradesmen almost exclusively—a cause dear to Their Majesties’ hearts. She mentioned that the Noirot sisters were founders of the Milliners’ Society for the Education of Indigent Females—another point in their favor.
Lady Adelaide agreed with the queen that the Duchess of Clevedon, in intending to keep up her shop, presented the Court with a social dilemma. On the other hand, said her ladyship, the duchess acted on good moral principle in being unwilling to abandon either her customers or the young women she was training as seamstresses. In any event, as the duke had pointed out to his aunts, one could not expect an artist to give up her art.
In the end, Lady Adelaide received permission to present the new duchess to the queen. She did so at the Drawing Room held in honor of the King’s Birthday, commemorated on the 28th of May. At one point during the festivities, the king summoned Clevedon, and spoke to him privately. His Majesty was heard to laugh.
When Clevedon returned to his wife’s side, she said, “What was that about?”
“The Princess Erroll of Albania,” Clevedon said. “He asked after her.” His smile was conspiratorial. “I think we’ve done it. They’ve decided I’m eccentric and you’re irresistible.”
“Or the other way about,” she said.
“Does it matter?” he said.
“No,” she said. She bent her head, and the sound was soft, but he recognized it. “Duchess,” he said, “are you giggling?”
She looked up, laughter dancing in her dark eyes. “I was only thinking: This has to be the greatest trick any Noirot or DeLucey has ever brought off.”
“And to think,” he said, “this is only the beginning.”
Not many days thereafter, in the course of a promenade in St. James’s Park, Miss Lucie Cordelia Noirot allowed the Princess Victoria to admire Susannah. The doll, as would be expected, was dressed for the occasion, in a lilac pelisse and a bonnet of paille de riz, trimmed with white ribbons and two white feathers.
Scandal Wears Satin (#ulink_4f8e6dac-9906-5de7-9e93-587862b0a081)
She did a great deal he found intriguing—starting with the way she walked. She carried herself like a lady, like the women of his class, yet the sway of her hips promised something tantalisingly unladylike.
‘I married Marcelline knowing she’d never give up her work,’ Clevedon was saying. ‘If she did, she’d be like everyone else. She wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with.’
‘Love,’ Longmore said. ‘Bad idea.’
Clevedon smiled. ‘One day Love will come along and knock you on your arse,’ he said. ‘And I’ll laugh myself sick, watching.’
‘Love will have its work cut out for it,’ Longmore said. ‘I’m not like you. I’m not sensitive. If Love wants to take hold of me, not only will it have to knock me on my arse, it’ll have to tie me down and beat to a pulp what some optimistically call my brains.’
‘Very possibly,’ Clevedon said. ‘Which will make it all the more amusing.’
LORETTA CHASE has worked in academe, retail and the visual arts, as well as on the streets—as a meter maid (aka traffic warden)—and in video, as a scriptwriter. She might have developed an excitingly chequered career had her spouse not nagged her into writing fiction. Her bestselling historical romances, set in the Regency and Romantic eras of the early nineteenth century, have won a number of awards, including the Romance Writers of America’s RITA
.
Website: www.LorettaChase.com (http://www.LorettaChase.com).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#ulink_e5ff165e-04f4-59a8-b93c-614934a183b9)
This book was made possible by the support of: my insightful and inspiring editor, May Chen; my indefatigable agent, Nancy Yost; my witty and fashion-wise friend and blogging partner, Isabella Bradford, aka Susan Holloway Scott; my patient French adviser, Valerie Kerxhalli; my loyal, funny and crazy sisters, Cynthia, Vivian and Kathy; and, most especially, my brainy and brave husband, Walter, a hero every single day.
Prologue (#ulink_dfadbe79-1eee-5e24-9fc3-c23e818e8e3b)
Observe his fierce, fighting-cock air; his coal-black gipsy curls; his aristocratic (not to call it arrogant) expression of countenance—never laid aside, whether he is smiling on a fair dame or frowning on a fawning dun.
—The Court Magazine,
“Sketches from Real Life,” 1835
London
Thursday 21 May 1835, early morning
The trollops knew how to throw a party.
On Wednesday nights, after dancing or playing cards with Society’s crème de la crème at Almack’s, London’s wilder set continued more eagerly to a very different assembly at the house of Carlotta O’Neill. On offer was a roulette table, along with other games of chance, as well as spicier games with the demireps who played ladies-in-waiting to London’s current queen of courtesans.
Harry Fairfax, Earl of Longmore, was on the scene, naturally.
Carlotta’s wasn’t the sort of place his father, the Marquess of Warford, would wish his twenty-seven-year-old son and heir to frequent, but heeding his parents’ wishes, Longmore had decided a long time ago, was the fast and easy route to murderous boredom.
He was nothing like his parents, on any count. He’d inherited not only his great-uncle Lord Nicholas Fairfax’s piratical looks—black hair, black eyes, and a tall, muscular physique usually associated with buccaneers—but Great-Uncle Nicholas’s talent for Doing What He Was Not Supposed To.
And so Lord Longmore was at Carlotta’s.
And she was draped over him, wafting waves of scent. And talking, unfortunately.
“But you’re intimately acquainted with them,” she was saying. “You must tell us what the new Duchess of Clevedon is really like.”
“Brunette,” he said, watching the roulette wheel spin. “Pretty. Says she’s English but acts French.”
“My dear, we could have found that out from the Spectacle.”
Foxe’s Morning Spectacle was London’s premier scandal sheet. The high-principled Marquess of Warford called it disgusting tripe, but he read it, as did everyone else, from London’s bawds and pimps on up to the Royal Family. Every detail it published regarding the Duke of Clevedon’s new bride had, Longmore knew, been artfully crafted by the bride’s fair-haired sister Sophia Noirot, evil dressmaker by day and Tom Foxe’s premier spy by night.
Longmore wondered where she was this night. He hadn’t spotted her at Almack’s. Milliners—especially slightly French ones—had as much chance of receiving vouchers to Almack’s as he had of turning invisible at will. But Sophia Noirot had her own mode of invisibility, and she was perfectly capable of inserting her elegantly curved body anywhere she pleased, in the guise of a temporary servant. That was how she dug up so much dirt for Foxe’s scandal sheet.
The roulette wheel stopped spinning, one of the fellows at the table swore, and the wench acting as croupier raked a pile of counters in Longmore’s direction.
He scooped them up and handed them to Carlotta.
“Your winnings?” she said. “Do you want me to keep them safe for you?”
He laughed. “Yes, m’dear, keep them safe. Buy yourself a bauble or some such.”
Her well-groomed eyebrows went up.
Until a moment ago, when visions of Sophy Noirot sashayed into his mind, he’d assumed what Carlotta had assumed: that he’d soon disappear with her into her bedroom. She was supposed to be in Lord Gorrell’s keeping, but he, while rich enough, wasn’t quite lively enough to keep Carlotta fully amused.
Dependent on an allowance and gambling winnings, Longmore probably wasn’t rich enough. But while he didn’t doubt he possessed the necessary stamina and inventiveness to hold her interest, it occurred to him now that she wasn’t likely to hold his for more than five minutes. Even by his careless standards, that hardly justified a large financial investment and the subsequent tedium of listening to his father rant about overspent allowances.
In other words, Longmore was tired of her already.
Not too long after abandoning his winnings, he took his leave, along with two of his friends and two of Carlotta’s maids of honor. They found a hackney and after a short discussion, set out for a gaming hell with a very bad reputation, in the neighborhood of St. James’s. There, Longmore could count on a brawl.
Bored with the conversation inside the coach, he turned to gaze out of the window at the passing scene. The sun rose early at this time of year, and though the window was dirty, he could see well enough. A drably dressed female carrying a shabby basket was hurrying along the street. Her pace and dress, along with the basket, made it clear she wasn’t one of London’s numerous streetwalkers but an ordinary female on her way to work at about the time her betters in the beau monde were going home from their parties.
She moved at a fast clip, but it wasn’t fast enough. A figure darted out of an alley, grabbed her basket, and knocked her into the street.
Longmore stood, put down the window, opened the carriage door, and jumped out of the moving carriage, deaf to his companions’ shrieks and shouts. After the first stumble, he quickly gained his balance, and charged after the thief. His prey was fast, darting this way and that. At a busier time of day, he would have soon shed any pursuer. But the hour was early, and hardly anybody stood in Longmore’s way. He wasn’t thinking, only running, in a blind fury. When the fellow sprang into a narrow court, Longmore never thought of ambush or danger—not that he’d care, had he thought about it.
The fellow was making for a door, and it opened a crack, its inhabitants expecting him, no doubt. Longmore got to him first. He grabbed the thief and dragged him backward. The door banged shut.
Longmore slammed him against the nearest wall. The man instantly crumpled and slid to the ground, dropping the basket. Though he couldn’t be much damaged—these villains didn’t break easily—he stayed where he was, eyes closed.
“I shouldn’t get up again in a hurry, if I were you,” Longmore said. “Filthy coward. Attacking women.” Longmore collected the basket and cast a glance round the court. With any luck, dangerous accomplices would hurry to their friend’s rescue.
But no luck. The area was quiet, though Longmore was well aware he was being watched. He sauntered out into Piccadilly.
He found the girl minutes later. She stood slumped against a shop front, weeping. “Never mind the bawling,” he said. “Here’s your precious goods.” He fished some coins from a pocket and thrust those and the shabby basket into her hands. “What in blazes was in your mind, rushing on blindly without minding your surroundings?”
“W-work,” she said. “I had to get to work … your lordship.”
He didn’t ask how she knew he was a lord.
Everybody knew the Earl of Longmore.
“Thieves and drunken aristocrats roaming the streets, looking for trouble, and you without a weapon,” he said. “What’s wrong with women these days?”
