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“And the patterns?” Marcelline said. “Lady Warford’s dress?”
“We’d give it to the girls at the Milliners’ Society to pick apart and remake,” Sophy said. “Of course, Lady Warford won’t see its flaws.”
“How can she stand next to her daughter and not see the difference?”
“She’s the way Lady Clara was before we took her in hand,” Sophy said. “Her eye is untrained. And at the moment, I don’t see a way to train her. I’m thinking I need to give my attention to Lady Clara’s problem first. Right now, she’s all that stands between us and failure. If she continues to shop with us, we have a prayer. If she marries Adderley, she can’t shop with us.”
Marcelline paced for a few minutes.
“Leonie would say we need to set priorities,” Sophy said. “We’ve three problems, and rating them from simplest to hardest, I’d put Lady Warford as the hardest nut to crack, Lady Clara’s difficulty as next hardest, and Dowdy’s as the most manageable. Do you agree?”
Marcelline nodded, still pacing.
“We know what to do about Dowdy’s—at least for the moment,” Sophy said. “So I’m tackling Lady Clara next.”
Marcelline paused in her pacing. “It would help to know what’s going on in her head.”
Lady Clara had come by on Wednesday, to order another riding dress and two more hats, but Sophy had been busy with Lady Renfrew, one of their earliest and most loyal customers of rank.
“Can we bring her in for a fitting tomorrow?” Sophy said. “If I can get her to myself, I’ll get her to talk.”
“We can send a seamstress with a message,” Marcelline said. “But I hate to remind anybody at Warford House that she’s patronizing her mama’s enemies.”
“We can ask Lord Longmore to take the message,” Sophy said. “He’s supposed to come back in an hour or so.”
Marcelline’s eyebrows went up.
Sophy told her sister about Fenwick, and about Longmore’s attempt to make off with him.
“How sweet of him!” Marcelline said with a laugh “He’s trying to protect you from the dangerous criminal. If only he knew.”
Fenwick was a little innocent, compared to them. Not that they’d ever picked pockets. But there wasn’t a game or a trick of the streets they didn’t know. In Paris, they’d had to deal with every sort of knave and villain, from minor to major. For a time, during the cholera, Paris had been almost completely lawless. But they’d survived.
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Sophy said. “I was too furious with his highhandedness. So angry that for a moment I couldn’t even think what to do. But it was only for a moment. Then I made a scene, and fainted. Unfortunately, I had to faint on the pavement, which is vile.”
Marcelline smiled. “I can picture it. But couldn’t you have thought of a less disgusting measure?”
“Maybe, but I hadn’t time. I was afraid he’d get away. He drives like a drunken charioteer, headlong, and never mind what might be in the way.”
Marcelline kicked to one side the heap of ugly clothing on the floor. “I agree we’d better burn them. And I’ll send Mary to run you a proper bath.” She eyed Sophy’s stringy tresses. “We ought to wash that mess out of your hair.”
“That will have to wait until tonight,” Sophy said. “I’ve left you and Leonie on your own all day, and I have a customer expecting to see me this afternoon. I’ll pin it up tight and put on a pretty lace cap, and no one will notice.”
“You’re not going out tonight?”
“There’s only Lord Londonderry’s party, and no one there will be wearing our dresses.”
“Good,” Marcelline said. “You could use a proper night’s sleep.”
What Sophy could use was some big hands on her body, leading her into temptation.
One of these days, she promised herself. But they wouldn’t be Longmore’s hands. Nothing but horrible consequences there.
She told herself she had enough difficult matters to deal with, and she ought to deal with the ones that weren’t completely impossible.
All she needed to know about Longmore was whether he’d bring the boy back or force her to take drastic measures.
She cheered herself up by devising the measures.
More than two hours after making off with Fenwick, Longmore returned to the rear entrance of the dressmakers’ shop. He told the maidservant Mary who answered the door to tell Sophy Noirot that he’d brought back her “young ruffian.”
The maid led them into a room on the ground floor. It was more Spartan in appearance than the parlor upstairs, being reserved, the numerous cupboards and drawers told him, for more commercial uses.
Though this wasn’t a room customers would enter, it was as scrupulously clean as every other part of the shop he’d seen.
Fenwick kept looking the floor as though he’d never seen one before.
He’d probably never seen a clean one before.
They had only a few minutes to wonder what was in the cupboards and drawers before Sophy appeared.
She’d completely shed her Lady Gladys persona.
Fenwick didn’t recognize her at all. For a long time he stood uncharacteristically silent, staring at her.
“Yes, it’s the same lady,” Longmore said impatiently. “As I mentioned, she has a hundred names, and becomes a hundred different people. And this,” he told her, “is your dear Fenwick.”
“What did you do to him?” she said.
“We removed some layers of dirt,” he said.
“It looks as though you removed some layers of skin as well,” she said.
Fenwick found his tongue. “His worship made me have a baff,” he said. “I told him I had one last week. I fink they rubbed my face off.”
“Bath,” Longmore said. “Not baff. Think, not fink. You put your tongue between your teeth, as I showed you.”
“Think,” Fenwick said with exaggerated care.
“My head got tired, translating from whatever language it is he speaks,” Longmore told her.
“I had pie,” Fenwick said. “A meat pie big as my head.” He gestured with his hands. “We went to some shop and he found me these fings.”
Longmore looked at him.
The boy put his tongue between his teeth. “Things.”
“We called on a dealer in readymade clothing near the baths,” Longmore said. “I know you mean to stitch him into wildly gorgeous livery, but it made no sense to have him scrubbed clean, only to put him back into those—what he was wearing.”
She looked up at him. Her eyes wore a softer expression than usual.
Was that approval? Good gad.
He’d inched forward another step.
“Fenwick and I talked the matter over at length,” he said. “We concluded that he was likely to be happier in your service than anywhere else I could think to place him. He’ll have a roof over his head, regular meals, unusually fine clothing, and a place to sleep where he’s unlikely to be robbed or assaulted or dragged off to jail or the workhouse.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself,” she said.
“Perhaps not, but you would have used more adjectives,” Longmore said. “In any event, I couldn’t ascertain his real name or where he came from or who he belongs to, if anybody. It’s more than possible he truly doesn’t know.”
London’s streets teemed with abandoned children who weren’t sure what parents were, let alone whether they had any.
“I daresay you can ferret out his deep, dark secrets,” Longmore went on.
Her sisters entered before she could answer.
Fenwick stared at them.
Longmore couldn’t blame him. One Noirot woman was stunning enough, with all the lace and the great ballooning sleeves and skirts, and ruffles and ribbons. Three of them, in all the colors of the rainbow, all rustling as they moved, made for a hallucinatory experience.
“This is Fenwick,” Sophy said.
All three women regarded the boy with the same expression of polite interest.
Longmore wondered what was going on in their heads. No, the truth was, he only wondered what was going on in her head.
Fenwick said, “I had a bath.”
“With soap,” Longmore said. “Well, do you mean to keep him or not?”
The Duchess of Clevedon smiled. “I think he’ll do very well.”
Miss Leonie said, in her usual brisk way, “Yes, come along, Fenwick. Our maidservant Mary will take charge of you for now. We’re rather busy today. But we’ll talk later, after closing time.” She put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and steered him through the interior door.
“How very good of you to have him cleaned and re-upholstered,” said the duchess, still smiling.
“I thought it would be easier to simply take him to the baths and let them do a thorough job with him,” he said. “But now he’s yours, and I shan’t keep you any longer from your customers.”
He bowed, and was turning to leave when he heard the noise. The room wasn’t far from the back door, which someone seemed to be trying to batter down.
He remembered Dowdy’s hired ruffians.
He remembered Fenwick talking about his friends. Young thieves usually traveled in packs led by an older criminal.
He blocked Sophy from going out ahead of him, strode quickly down the short passage, and flung open the door.
His brother Valentine stood with fist upraised, about to thump on the door again.
“What the devil?” said Longmore. “Does everybody know about this door?”
“I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Valentine said. “I tried your house, then White’s, then I went to Clevedon House—but they hadn’t seen you and he wasn’t in and nobody knew where he’d gone. Then I thought maybe you’d made a long night of it, and so I came back, to look in at Crockford’s, and someone there told me he’d seen you turn into Bennet Street a while ago. I came here and saw your carriage. I tried five doors in this curst court. What is this place?”
“Never mind what it is. What the devil do you want?”
Valentine glanced past him.
Longmore turned and discovered that Sophy had followed him into the passage.
“I’d rather talk to you outside,” Valentine said. “Something’s happened.”
“It’s Lady Clara,” Sophy said.
Valentine’s eyes widened. “How the devil—”
“What’s she done now?” Longmore demanded. “Has she killed her fiancé? Our mother?”
“Does she know everything?” Valentine said, his glance flicking to Sophy.
“This is Clevedon’s sister-in-law, you nitwit. She’s practically family.”
“Not our family,” said Valentine.
“Don’t be pompous,” Longmore said. “Makes you look constipated. What’s Clara done now?”
“Will you not come outside? I’d rather the world didn’t know.”
“This world,” Longmore said with a nod at Sophy, “finds out everything anyway.”
Valentine muttered under his breath, let out a sigh, then stepped into the passage, closing the door behind him.
“Clara’s bolted,” he said.
Chapter Six (#ulink_7c8e88a7-51cb-54d7-b733-4116f6c54a53)
Some persons think the sublimest object in nature is a ship launched on the bosom of the ocean: but give me, for my private satisfaction, the Mail-Coaches that pour down Piccadilly of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way before them to the Land’s-End!
—William Hazlitt, Sketches and essays, 1839
Don’t be an idiot,” Longmore said. “Clara would never—”
“My lords,” Sophy cut in. “This isn’t the best place to discuss the matter. People coming and going. Doors opening and closing.”
“What the devil is there to discuss?” Longmore said. “You can’t possibly take this seriously.”
Her expression was all too serious. “I recommend you do so,” she said. “But a quieter place would be better.”
She walked away, back to the room Longmore had just left. She didn’t wait to see whether they followed. For a moment he watched her hips sway. Then he noticed that his brother was watching the same thing.
