Vixen In Velvet

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“It hasn’t occurred to you that I might put you out of business? All of London knows you’ve taken me in hand. They’re already betting on the outcome.”

In truth, of all the matters that might be making Lady Gladys irrational, this hadn’t been the first to cross Leonie’s mind—probably because of the large mental distraction known as the Marquess of Lisburne.

Still, the betting didn’t surprise Leonie. Members of the ton, men and women alike, gambled, mainly because they were bored and idle. And whether they made bets or not, the women would be deeply interested in the results of Lady Gladys’s visits to the shop.

Leonie knew this. It was, in fact, part of what had propelled her toward Lady Gladys. Once Maison Noirot succeeded in showing her ladyship at her best, all the fashionable world would be pounding on Maison Noirot’s doors.

But her ladyship did have to cooperate.

“Aristocrats wager about everything,” Leonie said briskly. “Naturally, you find it galling—”

“Especially when Lady Bartham’s irritating daughter takes great pains to explain the terms,” Lady Gladys said. “As will not surprise you, the phrase ‘silk purse from sow’s ear’ came up more than once.”

Lady Bartham was a close friend and venomous social rival of Lady Clara’s mother, Lady Warford. Leonie didn’t understand why anybody would make friends—or having made them in ignorance, continue—with an adder. She was aware that one of Lady Bartham’s daughters, Lady Alda, was equally toxic.

“Some people are either so ignorant, self-centered, or deeply unhappy that hurting others makes them feel good,” Leonie said. “It’s perverse, but there it is. The best way to fight back is to find a reason to laugh or to feel pleased. It will confuse and upset them. A good revenge, I think.”

Lady Gladys scowled at her. “Tell me what’s amusing. Tell me what I ought to feel pleased about.”

“Why should she go to so much trouble to insult and hurt you unless she’s trying to undermine your self-confidence? Maybe she’s afraid you’ll turn into competition.”

Lady Gladys gave Leonie a you-need-medical-help look.

“Only imagine,” Leonie said, “if you had patted her hand reassuringly and said, ‘Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry to worry you, but I promise to try not to steal any of your beaux, if I can help it.’ Then you could laugh. You have such a pretty laugh. And she would go away a good deal more upset than you.”

“A pretty laugh?” Lady Gladys said. She turned away to stare at a French fashion print on the opposite wall.

“A beautiful voice altogether.” Leonie rose. “Please stop wishing to look like your cousin. It makes you blind to your own assets. You’ll never look like Lady Clara. But she’ll never have your voice.”

“That hardly makes us even!”

“The biggest army, even in the smartest uniforms, doesn’t always win the battle,” Leonie said. “Did his lordship your father never tell you that cleverness and luck come into it?”

Shortly thereafter

At this time of day, when ladies of fashion were dressing for the parade in Hyde Park, Lisburne had expected to find the shop relatively quiet. Otherwise he wouldn’t have let Swanton come with him. The shop was quiet enough. The showroom held a few shopgirls restoring order after their most recent customers. They were putting ribbons and trinkets into drawers, reorganizing display cases, straightening hats their clientele had tipped askew, and rearranging mannequins’ skirts. The only remaining customer was an elderly lady who couldn’t make up her mind among several shades of brown ribbon.

Swanton was pacing at one end of the showroom when the girl returned to inform them that they needed to make an appointment.

“They must be busy with an important client,” Lisburne told him. “Why don’t you toddle up to White’s? The club will be free of women, and you can compose your turbulent mind with the aid of a glass of wine or whiskey.”

Swanton had stopped pacing when the girl returned from her errand. Now he looked about him as though he’d forgotten where he was. “White’s,” he said.

“Yes. The young ladies can’t get to you there.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to wait,” Lisburne said. “I’m perfectly capable of carrying out our errand on my own. And I can do it in a more businesslike manner if you’re not mooning about.”

“I need to write half a dozen new poems in less than a week!” Swanton said. “You’d be in a state of abstraction, too.”

“All the more reason for you to go away to a quiet place, where the women are not giggling and blushing and making up excuses to get close to you.”

Naturally Swanton didn’t realize what was going on about him. The shopgirls would have to hit him on the head with a hat stand to get his full attention. Still, unlike the young ladies of the ton, they were mainly excited to have a celebrity in their midst. They probably hadn’t time to read his poetry—if they could read. Their interest wasn’t personal, in other words.

Swanton looked about him, seeing whatever hazy version of reality he saw. “Very well,” he said. “I can take a hint.”

No, you can’t, Lisburne thought.

With any luck, Swanton would manage to cross St. James’s Street without walking into the path of an on-coming carriage. If not, and if he seemed headed into danger, a sympathetic female would rush out and rescue him, even if she was one of the two people in London who didn’t know who he was. Because he looked like an angel.

In any case, Lisburne wasn’t his nursemaid. Furthermore, he’d wrestled with enough of the poet’s problems in the past two days.

He was in dire need of mental relief.

Such as Miss Leonie Noirot.

Who was too busy to see him.

He walked about the shop, studying the mannequins and the contents of the display cases. He even allowed himself to be consulted on the matter of brown ribbons.

He was solemnly examining them through his quizzing glass, trying to decide which had a yellower cast, when Gladys hurried out into the showroom, then swiftly through the street door. Clara followed close behind. Neither noticed him, and he didn’t try to attract their attention.

“I wonder if Miss Noirot will see me now,” he said to the girl who’d told him to make an appointment.

The girl went out.

She returned a quarter hour later and led him to Miss Noirot’s office.

Chapter Five (#ulink_64afe4b9-0c19-585a-b56f-eb65d050eea1)