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“What do you propose, Miss Noirot? Shall I drug her ladyship and carry her, senseless, to your lair, where you’ll force her into dashing gowns?”
“Only as a last resort,” she said. “What I have in mind for you at present is quite simple—and no one will ever know you aided and abetted the Enemy.”
“This is London,” he said. “There’s no such thing as ‘no one will ever know.’ “
“No, really, I promise you—”
“Not that I care what anybody knows,” he said.
“Right,” she said. “I forgot. But I must not be recognized.”
“Does that mean a disguise?” he said.
“Only for me,” she said. “I need to visit Dowdy’s, you see, and—”
“And Dowdy’s is …?”
“The lair of the reptile, Horrible Hortense Downes, the monster who puts your mother into those dreary clothes. I need to get into her shop.”
In her world, he knew, clothes were the beginning and the end of everything, and worlds were lost on the wrong placement of a bow.
“You’re proposing a spying expedition behind enemy lines,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s it exactly.”
“Are you going to blow up the place?”
“Only as a last resort,” she said.
He was quite happy to take her, even if she didn’t blow the place up. He’d be happy to take her anywhere. But his promptly agreeing meant her prompt departure and he wasn’t yet tired of looking at her ankles.
He pretended to ponder.
“It’s only for an hour or so,” she said. “That shouldn’t disrupt your busy schedule.”
“Ordinarily, no,” he said. “But I’ve got this Adderley problem to work on, and that wants deep and lengthy cogitation.”
“You do not have the Adderley problem to work on,” she said. “Did I not tell you my sisters and I would deal with it?”
“It’s not the sort of thing I want to leave to women,” he said. “It could get messy, and I’d hate to see your pretty frocks spoiled.”
“Believe me, Lord Longmore, my sisters and I have dealt with extremely messy situations before.”
He met her gaze. In those blue eyes he caught a glimpse of something, unexpected and hard. It was gone in an instant, but it set off a sharp recollection of the men who’d pursued her and emerged from the experience damaged.
There was more to her than met the eye: that much he’d recognized early on.
“Let me think it over,” he said. “Let me think it over in the cool depths of my club.”
He continued down the stairs.
Two hours later
From the environs of White’s famous bow window, where Beau Brummell had presided some decades earlier, a sudden buzz of excitement broke in upon a dull, drizzly afternoon. The noise gradually increased in volume sufficiently to obtain Lord Longmore’s attention.
He’d settled in the morning room with Foxe’s Morning Spectacle to review Sophy’s story about last night’s debacle. As regarded breathlessly dramatic style and fanatical attention to every boring inch of Clara’s dress, Sophy had outdone herself. Clara had been “innocence cruelly misled,” Longmore had appeared as a paragon among avenging brothers, and the dress description—dripping with an arcane French known only to women—took up nearly two of the front page’s three columns. Her account had routed from said page virtually all the other gossip Foxe called news.
Longmore had read it this morning after breakfast. He saw no more in it now than he had then. It was unclear what good the piece would do Clara—unless it was simply the first step in a campaign. If so, he looked forward to seeing where it would lead.
After chuckling over Sophy’s world’s-greatest-collection of adjectives and adverbs, he moved on to the other gossip and sporting news. Thence he proceeded to the advertising pages at the back.
There Maison Noirot had taken over prime real estate, squeezing into obscure corners the notices for pocket toilets, artificial teeth, and salad cream.
That was when he discovered Mrs. Downes’s announcement.
He was wondering about the connection between Sophy’s need to be taken to her rival’s shop and the advertisement when someone at the bow window said, “Who is she?”
“You’re joking,” someone else said. “You don’t know?”
“Would I ask if I knew?”
Other voices joined in.
“Hempton, you innocent. Have you been in a coma during the last month?”
“How could you not have heard about the Misalliance of the Century? They talk of it in Siberia and Tierra del Fuego.”
“But that can’t be Sheridan’s new bride.”
“Not the elopement, you slow-top.”
“You mean Clevedon?” said Hempton. “But he married a brunette. This one’s a blonde.”
Longmore flung down the Spectacle, left his chair, and stalked to the bow window.
“What now?” he said, though he could guess.
The men crowding the window hastily made room for him.
Sophy Noirot stood on the other side of St. James’s Street. A gust of wind blew the back of her pale yellow dress against her legs and made a billowing froth of skirt and petticoats in front. The wind made a complete joke of the lacy nothing of an umbrella she held against the rain. The previous downpour had diminished to a light drizzle, and the misty figure glimpsed between the clumps of vehicles, riders, and pedestrians seemed like something in a dream.
The commentary at the bow window, however, made it clear she was not a dream, except in the sense that she was, at the moment, the starring player in every man’s lewd fantasy.
Ah, she was real enough, wearing a scarf sort of thing that dangled to her knees—or where one assumed her knees must be, under all those yards of lace and muslin. Atop the golden hair perched a silly hat, dripping lace and ribbons and feathers. Longmore could see a sort of Dutch windmill arrangement of lace and feathers at the back of the hat when she bent to talk to a scruffy little boy. She gave him something, and he dashed across the street, dodging riders and vehicles.
Then she looked up, straight at the bow window and straight at Longmore.
And smiled.
Then all the men at the bow window looked at him.
And smiled.
And he smiled right back.
Longmore took his time. He finished his glass of wine, reread the advertisement, then called for his things.
He donned his hat and gloves, grasped his walking stick, and went out. The drizzle had dwindled to a fine mist and the wind had died down somewhat.
She had walked a little way up the street. She was watching the passing scene on Piccadilly. Every passing male was watching her.
He coolly descended the steps and strolled across the street to her.
“I should have thought you’d find an urchin nearer the shop to carry the message that my sister was ready to go home,” he said. “Or why not send a servant or a seamstress? You had to come yourself? In the rain?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I collect you had something particular to say to me, then,” he said.
“I daresay I could have said it elsewhere,” she said. “But this was a fine opportunity to show off my hat, which is my own design. I’m not a genius with dresses, like Marcelline, but my hats are quite good.”
He eyed the hat, with its lace and windmill and whatnot. “It strikes me as demented,” he said. “But fetching.”
She dimpled, and his heart gave a lurch that astonished him.
“I sincerely hope it’s fetching enough to weaken your resistance,” she said.
“What resistance?” he said.
“To my scheme.”
“Oh, that. Taking you to Dowdy’s.”
“I need to find out what they’re up to.”
“I should think that was obvious,” he said. “They’re out to crush the competition, as any self-respecting rival would do.”
He started walking down St. James’s Street, wondering what devious means she’d contrived to persuade him to do what he was going to do anyway.
She walked alongside him. “I know that,” she said. “But I need to see exactly what we’re up against: the old Dowdy’s or something new, something we hadn’t reckoned on. I need to see whether the place is the same and the clothes are the same.”
“I suppose you’ll be shocked if I say that all women’s clothes look the same to me,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be shocked at all,” she said. “You’re a man. And that’s the point of my asking you. I need a big, strong man in case I’m discovered, and run into difficulties with Dowdy’s bullies.” She paused briefly. “While we were fitting your sister, she happened to mention Lady Gladys Fairfax, and what a pity it was that we couldn’t take her in hand,” she said.
“Cousin Gladys,” he said. “Don’t tell me she’s coming to the wedding.”
“I don’t know who’ll be invited,” she said. “But when Lady Clara spoke of her, I got the idea for a way to manage this.”
They’d reached the corner of Bennet Street. He paused to check for carriages and riders turning off St. James’s Street.
When the way seemed clear, he took her elbow and hurried her across. As soon as they reached the pavement on the opposite side, he let go of her. He still felt the warmth of her arm under his palm, and the warmth raced straight to his groin so suddenly that it made him dizzy.
The rear entrance to the shop was through a narrow court off Bennet Street. She waited until they’d turned into the court. Then she said, “Lady Clara says your mother will go to Dowdy’s early in the week to order a dress for the wedding. Leonie can spare me from the shop most easily on Friday morning. Would you take me then?”
After the bustle of St. James’s Street, the tiny court seemed eerily quiet. He was aware of a scent, vaguely familiar, drifting about him. He drew a fraction closer and stared at the discreet door, pretending to think hard while he drank in the scent. Woman, of course, and … lavender … and what else?
He realized his head was sinking toward her neck. He straightened. “Bullies,” he said. “In a dressmaking shop.”
“Two great brutes,” she said. “To deal with the drunks and thieves. Or so Dowdy claims. Personally, I believe she’s hired the men to intimidate the seamstresses. You know, the way they keep them in brothels to—”
“That sounds like fun,” he said. “And you’ll be in disguise, of course.”
“Yes.”
“As a serving maid, I suppose.”
“Certainly not,” she said. “What would a serving maid be doing buying expensive dresses? I’m going to be your cousin Gladys.”
Lord Adderley wasted no time in putting the notice of his engagement in the papers, but the news traveled through London in a matter of hours—faster even than the Spectacle could get it into print. By Monday his tailor, boot maker, hatter, vintner, tobacconist, and others who provided for his comfort and entertainment had once again opened their account books and allowed him credit.
He’d had a narrow escape.
Another week and he would have had to flee abroad. While peers could not be arrested for debt, they weren’t immune to other unpleasantness, like having their credit shut off. All of his creditors seemed to have joined a cabal, because every single one, including all the shopkeepers, cut him off at the same time, two days before Lady Igby’s ball.
The forthcoming nuptials put everybody in a more forgiving frame of mind.
He celebrated on Monday night with Mr. Meffat and Sir Roger Theaker in a private dining parlor of the Brunswick Hotel. They toasted one another throughout the meal. By the time the table had been cleared, wine had loosened their tongues—no matter, since there was nobody nearby to hear.
“A close-run thing it was,” said Sir Roger.
“Perilously close,” said Lord Adderley.
“Wasn’t sure you’d manage it,” said Mr. Meffat. “Watching like hawks, they were.”
Lord Adderley shrugged. “As soon as I saw Lady Bartham settle in to gossip with the mama, I knew there wouldn’t be trouble from that quarter for a while.”
“It was Longmore who worried me,” said Mr. Meffat.
Adderley resisted the urge to feel his bruised jaw. He’d had more reason than anybody to worry. He’d broken into a sweat, which he’d explained away to Lady Clara as excitement, to be so close to her, to hold her in her arms—all the usual rubbish, in other words.
He said, “I only needed a few minutes, and he was on the other side of the room. Still, it was your quick acting that saved the day.”
It was Meffat’s and Theaker’s job to attract attention to the terrace without attracting too much attention. Not the most difficult job in the world. One only had to say, “Wonder what Adderley’s about on the terrace? Who’s the female with him?”
One didn’t have to say it to too many people. One or two would do. The drift terrace-wards would begin, and some others would notice, and follow, curious to see what was attracting attention.
Clara had been easiest of all to manage. Though no schoolroom miss—she was one and twenty, older than Adderley would have preferred—she was as ignorant about lovemaking as a child. All he had to do was keep her wineglass filled and whirl her about the floor until she was dizzy and whisper poetry in her ear. Still, one had to be careful. Too much wine and too much spinning and she’d be sick—on his last good coat.
