Читать книгу Regency Rogues and Rakes: Silk is for Seduction / Scandal Wears Satin / Vixen in Velvet / Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed / A Rake's Midnight Kiss / What a Duke Dares - Loretta Chase - Страница 15

Between the first week in April, and the last in November, Steam-Packets run daily, weather permitting, from their Moorings off the Tower of London to Calais, in about twelve hours; and likewise from Calais to London, in about the same time. Carriages, horses, and luggage, conveyed by Steam-Packets, are shipped and relanded free of expense.

Mariana Starke, Travels in Europe, 1833

She stood completely still, but for the feathers and lace of her bonnet shuddering in the wind. Out-wardly Clevedon was as still as she was, while his heart leapt with an excitement growing all too familiar.

He strode toward her. “Surprise,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed. They were deeply shadowed, and he doubted that was merely the moonlight’s effect. She was fatigued, and no wonder. He was amazed at the speed with which she’d quit Paris. She couldn’t have slept at all after the party. Then, to reach Calais so soon, she couldn’t have stopped for more than the change of horses on the way.

He wondered how she’d done it. Getting all her papers signed in the middle of the night must have cost a fortune in bribes—paid, no doubt, from the money she’d won at roulette and cards.

Even he, for all his great rank, had not had an easy time getting through officialdom, and he’d set out hours after she did, when the bureaucrats were awake at least, though not all of the offices had been open.

Had he not been the Duke of Clevedon, and furthermore, had he not thrown his full ducal weight about, the packet would have sailed an hour ago, and he’d be in Calais watching it retreat across the Channel while he cursed himself for a fool.

He was a fool, and he was cursing himself now, but to little effect.

In any event, she was angry enough for the two of them.

“Surprise?” she said. “There’s an understatement. Have you taken leave of your senses?”

Yes.

“I was worried about you,” he said. “When you left Paris so suddenly, I thought a catastrophe had occurred. Or a murder. Have you murdered anybody, by the way? Not that I would dream of criticizing, but—”

“I left Paris to get away from you,” she said.

“Well, that didn’t work.”

“How in blazes did you do it?” she said. “How did you know? How did you—but no, I won’t ask how you got through French officialdom. You’re a duke, and they haven’t cut off any noble heads this age. Still, one would have thought they’d learned how useless aristos are, not remotely worth indulging.”

He smiled. “But you need my noble head, Madame Noirot. You need me to pay the bills.”

“How did you know I was leaving?” she said.

“You are single-minded, I notice,” he said.

“How did you know?” she demanded, hands clenched.

Though he felt his face heat, he answered carelessly, “I sent my porter to spy on you. He was loitering about your hotel in the small hours of the morning when you and your maid departed from it, in a fiacre. At first he assumed you’d merely set a shockingly early hour for meeting Mademoiselle Fontenay. Then, when he counted the number of portmanteaux being stowed in the vehicle, he grew curious. From one of the inn servants, he learned that you had quit the hotel. Your destination, he discovered, was the posting office, and you were traveling to ‘visit a relative.’ In point of fact, I should be asking how you contrived to get out of France. You left hours before any of the officials who must approve your exit were even awake.”

“It didn’t occur to you that I might have made my arrangements previously?” she said.

“Did you?” he said.

“Ah, your spying porter didn’t find that out,” she said. “What a pity, because I’m not going to satisfy your curiosity. I’ve been traveling for a day and a half over wretched French roads, and I’m tired. Good night, your grace.”

She dipped the barest of curtseys and walked away from him.

He fought the urge to follow her. He’d behaved absurdly enough as it was. For what? What did he think he’d achieve aboard a steam packet mobbed with travelers? He was lucky this was an English boat, or they would not have delayed its departure for him. As it was, he’d paid massive bribes to change places with other passengers. Even so, had he been a man of lesser rank, he’d be waiting in Calais for the next vessel.

Staying in Calais was what he ought to have done. No, he ought not to have left Paris at all. Six more weeks of freedom, and he’d thrown them away—for what?

But he’d done it, and having spent a day and a half racing over abominable roads, he was hardly likely to stand tamely on the dock, watching the packet sail away.

His behavior was lunatic—but never mind. In truth, Paris was growing wearisome, and a mad race to Calais was better excitement than anything he’d done in recent weeks, perhaps months. Certainly it had been worth it, simply to see Noirot’s shocked expression when she caught sight of him.

Surprise, indeed. He doubted anybody or anything had surprised her in a very long time.

He stayed on deck until the packet had sailed out of the harbor and out into the Channel. He noticed the clouds drifting across the heavens, dimming the starlight and moonlight, but he thought nothing of it. The sky over the English Channel was never perfectly clear.

He went below, where he let Saunders peel off his coat and relieve him of his neckcloth, waistcoat, and boots. Then his grace fell into bed and instantly asleep.

Not an hour later, the storm struck.

Marcelline staggered out into the narrow passage. The smell was foul: scores of panicked passengers being sick. Her own stomach, usually reliable even in rough seas, heaved. She paused for a moment, breathing through her mouth, willing her insides to quiet.

The ship lurched hard to her right, and she fell against a door. From behind it came shrieks and shouts, the same she’d heard from other cabins. The vessel screamed more loudly, its timbers groaning as the waves knocked it about.

She walked on unsteadily, telling herself that this was normal, the ropes and timbers protesting the sea’s pummeling. Her heart thudded all the same, with fear. It was hard not to imagine death when every lurch threatened to overturn them, and the vessel itself seemed to be screaming.

The crew had closed the hatches, but water washed in. Under her feet, the deck was wet and slippery.

Nearby, someone was crying.

“Repent!” a man shouted. “Thy time is nigh.”

“Go to the devil,” she muttered. Yes, she was afraid, as any sane person would be. But her time was not nigh and she was not going to die. She was not going to drown. The ship was not going down. She had a daughter and sisters waiting for her in London.

She trembled all the same, and her stomach churned. She was never sick. She couldn’t be sick. She hadn’t time. Jeffreys was ill, desperately so, and needed Marcelline’s help.

But oh, she did not feel well at all.

Later. Later she could be as sick as she wanted.

One thing at a time.

She came to the door she thought was the right one, the one where she’d seen the liveried servants loitering earlier. She’d heard, on her way back to her cabin, that the Duke of Clevedon had commandeered the best cabin for himself and two lesser ones for his retinue.

She pounded on the door. It opened abruptly at the same moment the ship gave an almighty lurch. She slid, stumbled, and fell straight into the cabin. Two big hands caught her and pulled her upright.

“Dammit, Noirot. You might have broken your neck.”

The hands bracing her were warm and firm, and she wanted to lean into him. He was big and strong and so was his personality. An image rushed into her mind of medieval knights protecting their castles, their women—and for one mad moment she wanted nothing but to put herself in his hands.

But she couldn’t. She daren’t lean on him.

She certainly daren’t look up. She did not feel well at all, at all.

“Had…to…come,” she managed to say.

“I was on my way out to find you, to see if you needed—Noirot, are you all right?”

She was looking down at his feet and thinking that any minute now she was going to be sick on his costly slippers. But the sea had ruined them already. Pity. Such fine slippers. He had big feet. Funny.

“Quite well,” she said, gagging.

“Saunders, brandy! Quick!”

Yes, that was it. Brandy. Why she’d come. Brandy. Jeffreys needed it.

So, heaven help her, did she.

“My…my s-seamstress,” she began. “Sh-she—”

“Here.” He put a flask to her lips. “Drink.”

“I’m n-never sick,” she said.

“Drink,” he said.

She drank, welcoming the fire sliding down her throat. If it scoured her insides, so much the better.

For a moment she thought she’d be well again.

Then the deck tilted and she slid and stumbled. This time his arms were about her, though. “Don’t,” she said. “Going to be…going to be—”

“Saunders!”

Something was thrust in front of her. A bucket. Good.

Then she was retching, doubled over, so sick she couldn’t see straight. Her head pounded and her knees gave way.

Sick, so sick.

Someone was holding her. Men talked above her head. His voice. Another’s. She was shifted onto something soft. A bed. Oh, that felt good. To lie down. She would simply lie here for a moment while the boat rose and fell, rocked this way and that.

But no. She hadn’t time for this.

Someone slid a pillow under her head, then drew a blanket over her. That felt so good. But she wasn’t supposed to feel good. She had to get up. It was Jeffreys who needed help. But if she moved, she’d be sick again.

Must lie very quietly.

Impossible, with the ship pitching so. Slowly it tilted up, then slowly down again, and all the while, the horrible noises, ropes and timbers grinding and creaking and groaning as though all the souls of the drowned were rising to meet them. From a distance came the sounds of passengers crying and screaming. And somewhere above all the noise of the ship, she heard the storm’s fury, the wailing wind.

Hell, she thought. Dante’s Inferno. Or that other thing. Not a poem but a picture of Hell, of the damned. Curse it, what was wrong with her? She couldn’t lie here, wondering about paintings.

“No.” She could barely form the words. “Not me. My—my—s-seamstress.”

“Your maid?” His voice was so calm. So reassuring.

“Jeffreys. She’s badly ill. Brandy. I came for…brandy.”

More talking, over her, around her. She heard screaming and shouting, too, but far away. The world went up, then down, and down, and down.

Don’t let me be sick again. Don’t let me be sick again.

Something cool and wet touched her face. “Saunders will see about your maid,” the familiar voice said.

“Don’t let her die,” she said. Or did she? Her voice sounded far away, so small against the infernal clamor about them. Hell, she thought. This was like the Hell the righteous ranted about. The Hell in the pictures.

“People almost never die of seasickness,” he said.

“They only wish they might,” she said.

An odd sound. A chuckle? It was his voice, low and close. Behind it, around it, above it were horrible sounds, like death. A long, drawn-out moan, a terrible grinding, then a crack.

The ship…cracking open…

“We can’t go down,” someone said. Had she spoken?

Don’t talk. Lie quietly. Don’t move. Don’t breathe.

“We won’t go down,” he said. “It’s bad, but we won’t go down. Here, swallow this.”

She moved her head from side to side. That was a mistake. Bile rose. “Can’t.”

“Only a drop,” he coaxed. “Laudanum. It will help. I promise.”

She couldn’t raise her head, couldn’t even open her eyes. The world was spinning round and round, leaping up and down, throwing itself from side to side.

Where am I?

He lifted her head, so gently. Was it he? Or was it she, spooning medicine into Lucie? Lucie, Lucie.

But she was away from this. She was safe in London with her doting aunts, who spoiled her appallingly. Lucie was safe because her mother and aunts had turned into three witches, brewing potions to keep her alive.

They had not fought so hard only to leave Lucie an orphan, because her mother had made a foolish mistake. A man-mistake. More than six feet tall and beastly arrogant and…oh, those big, beautiful hands.

“A little more,” he said. “Another drop.”

Take your medicine. Get better. Get back to Lucie.

She swallowed it. So bitter.

“Vile,” she said. “Vile.”

“I know, but it helps. Trust me. I know.”

“Trust you,” she said. “Hah.”

“Clearly you’re not dying.”

“No. Devil won’t take me.”

The low chuckle again. “Then we’re all safe.”

She wasn’t safe. The storm raged and the ship moaned and rose and fell and flung itself from wave to wave. She’d been in rough seas before. She knew this was very bad, and she wasn’t remotely safe. Yet while her mind knew this, her heart understood matters altogether differently: his voice, his surprisingly gentle touch, and the calm of his presence. Reassuring. How ironic!

“Ah, you’re smiling,” he said. “The opium is starting to take hold already.”

Already? Had she fallen asleep? She’d lost track of time.

“No, it’s you,” she said. How far away her voice sounded, as though it had traveled to London already, ahead of her. “Your ducal self-assurance. Everything will give way to you. Even Satan’s own storm.”

“You’re definitely improving,” he said. “Full, mocking sentences.”

“Yes. Better.” Her insides seemed to be quieting. But her head was so heavy. She opened her eyes, and that was hard work. He was leaning over her. The light was too dim to make out details, and nothing would stay put. His eyes were deep shadows in his face. But she knew they were green. Jade green. Or was it sea green? A color not many women could wear successfully. A color not many women could withstand…in a man’s eyes.

She closed her eyes again.

She felt the cool cloth on her forehead. So gentle. A feeling she had trouble naming washed over her. Then she realized: She was protected. Sheltered. Safe.

What a joke!

“Strange,” she said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

The world grew heavy and dark, then everything went away.

Clevedon had no idea long the storm lasted. He’d long since lost all sense of time. He’d awoken in a room heaving this way and that, to a clamor of panicked voices, a roaring storm, and the creaking and groaning vessel. He’d been sick, a bit. But his was a strong stomach—as numerous drunken entertainments testified—and the first thing in his mind was Noirot, somewhere on this boat. He’d been about to go to her cabin, medicine box in hand, when she fell through his door.

Since then, he hadn’t time to be sick or to worry about anybody else. Her pearly skin was dull and drawn. That much one could see even in the dim light. She’d been shockingly ill, and delirious. That was so unlike her. She was strong, strong to a fault, and the change had him halfway into a panic before his frantic mind sorted it out.

This was no more than seasickness, reason told him. The delirium must be part of it—or due to her having little sleep and hurried meals, thanks to her mad haste to get away from him.

Whatever caused the alarming symptoms, she was too ill to be left on her own. He left his servants to look after themselves while he tended to her and tried to stay calm. He knew what to do, he told himself. He worried all the same.

He was no physician and he wasn’t used to playing nursemaid. He told himself that he and Longmore had lived through the cholera epidemic on the Continent, and he’d learned a few basic principles from the doctors who’d had any success with the disease. They hadn’t much success, and they argued about what worked and what didn’t, but this wasn’t the cholera. This was seasickness, and there was nothing to worry about, he told himself. When the storm passed, she’d be better.

If the ship didn’t go down.

But it wouldn’t.

Meanwhile, he knew he needed to make sure she took in nourishment, and especially liquids—not easy when she couldn’t keep anything down. The brandy might have helped a little, but the laudanum proved more effective. It took a while, and she was out of her head for part of the time, muttering about witches and Macbeth and angels and devils, but eventually she quieted. When at last she fell asleep, he let himself draw a breath of relief.

He sat on the edge of his bunk and gently bathed her face now and again with a wet cloth. He didn’t know that it did any good, but he needed to do something. Saunders undoubtedly would know what to do, but Saunders was attending the maid—or seamstress—or whatever she was.

Gad, the facts about Madame Noirot were as slippery as the deck under his feet.

Deception, thy name is Noirot.

Manipulative and elusive and not to be trusted.

If he had trusted her, he wouldn’t have set a spy on her, he wouldn’t have pursued her from Paris, and he wouldn’t be on this curst vessel in this hellish storm.

Yet not trusting was no excuse for his deranged behavior. He had no excuse. She wasn’t even beautiful, especially not now. In the murky light, she looked like a ghost. He found it hard to believe that this was the same vibrant, passionate creature who’d straddled him in the carriage and kissed him witless.

He smoothed the damp hair back from her forehead.

Dreadful, dreadful woman.

Marcelline awoke to a watery light.

At first she thought she’d died and was floating in another realm.

By degrees she realized that the ship was rocking, but not in the deranged way it had done before. The clamor had quieted.

It was over.

The storm had passed.

They’d survived.

Then she became aware of the weight and warmth pressing against her back. Her eyes flew open. In front of her was only blank wood. She remembered: her desperate visit to Clevedon’s cabin, the vicious seasickness that seized her…brandy…laudanum…his hands.

This wasn’t her cabin, her bed.

She was in his bed.

And judging by the size of the body squeezed alongside her in the narrow bunk, Clevedon was in it with her.

Oh, perfect.

She tried to turn over, but he was lying on the skirt of her dress, pinning her down.

“Clevedon,” she said.

He mumbled and moved, flinging his arm over her.

“Your grace.”

His arm tightened, pulling her closer.

How she wished she might snuggle there, her back curved against the front of his hard, warm body, his strong arm holding her safe.

But she wasn’t safe. When he woke up, he’d be in the state men usually were in when they woke, and she had no confidence in her powers to resist so much temptation.

She shoved her elbow into his ribs.

“What?” His voice was low, thick with sleep.

“You’re crushing me.”

“Yes,” he said. He nuzzled her neck.

She was desperately aware of his arousal, the great ducal phallus awake well before his brain was.

“Get off,” she said. “Get off. Now.”

Before it’s too late, and I decide to celebrate a narrow escape from death in the traditional manner of our species.

“Noirot?”

“Yes.”

“Then it wasn’t a dream.”

“No. Get off.”

He muttered something too low for her to hear, but he moved away. She turned over. Her head spun. She had to struggle to focus.

He stood at the side of the bunk, looking down at her. The shadow of a beard darkened his face, and he was scowling.

She started up from the bed.

Then fell back onto it, clutching her head.

“That wasn’t wise,” he said. “You’ve been sick. All you’ve had to eat was cold gruel and a little wine.”

“I ate?”

“You don’t remember.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t,” she said. “I’m having trouble sorting out what I dreamed and what happened. I dreamed I was in London. Then I wasn’t. I was at the bottom of the sea, looking up at the bottom of the boat.” For a moment she saw the dream clearly in her mind’s eye, and for that moment she felt the despair she’d felt then. I’ve drowned. I’ll never see Lucie again. Why did I leave London? “People hung over the rail, looking down at me. They were gesturing and seemed to be saying something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. You were there. You were very angry.” And that, strangely enough, had been the most reassuring part of the dream.

“That much was real enough,” he said. “You’ve tried my patience past all endurance. I’m not accustomed to playing nursemaid, and you didn’t make it easy, thrashing about like a lunatic.”

“Was that why you were lying on top of me?”

“I was not lying on top of you,” he said. “Not on purpose. I fell asleep. I was tired. I’d had very little sleep before the storm broke. Then you burst in and decided to be sick in my cabin.”

“I didn’t decide to be sick—though now I consider, it was a good idea,” she said. “I wish I had thought of it. But I didn’t. I came for help—for Jeffreys. I was only a bit queasy—but then…something happened.” She shook her head. “I’m never sick. I should not have been sick.”

“You’re very lucky I was here,” he said. “You’re very lucky I’m a patient man. You’re a deuced difficult patient. I would have thrown you overboard, but the crew had closed the hatches.”

She made herself sit up, but more slowly and carefully this time. Her head pounded. She clutched it.

“You’d better not get up,” he said.

She remembered his patience, his gentle touch. She remembered the feeling, so rare that she’d had trouble recognizing it: the feeling of being sheltered and protected and being looked after. When last had anybody looked after her? Not her parents, certainly. They’d never hesitated to abandon their children when the children became inconvenient. Then they’d turn up, months and months later, expecting those children to run into their open arms.

And we did, Marcelline thought. Naïve fools that we were, we did. Whether Mama and Papa were about or not, it was always Marcelline, the eldest, who looked after everybody, because one couldn’t rely on anyone else. Even after she was wed. But what could she expect when she wed her own kind? Poor, feckless Charlie!

Clevedon wasn’t her kind. He was another species altogether. She remembered his hand at her back, guiding her to the shelter of his well-appointed carriage. A woman could be spoiled so easily by a rich, privileged man. So many women were.

She couldn’t afford it.

“I…truly, I thank you for enduring the ghastliness of nursing me,” she said. ”But I must get back, before anyone realizes where I’ve been.”

“Who do you think will notice or care?” he said. “We sailed into the devil’s own storm. People have been running about screaming and puking and generally making nuisances of themselves for hours. I doubt most of them even know where they’ve been this night.” He looked about him. “Morning, rather. Since most of them were sick, they’ll be starved by now, and the only thing they’ll think about is getting something to eat. Your head is aching because you’re hungry.” He scowled again. “Or perhaps I gave you too much laudanum. I wasn’t sure what was the proper dose for a woman. You’re lucky I didn’t poison you.”

“Clevedon.” She winced. It hurt to speak.

“Don’t move,” he said. “You’ll make yourself sick again, and I’m tired of that.” He moved away from the bunk. “I’ll have one of the servants fetch you something to eat.”

“Stop taking care of me!”

He turned back to look at her. “Stop being childish,” he said. “Are you afraid I’ll ply you with food in order to seduce you? Think again. Have you looked in a mirror lately? And may I remind you that I was the one holding your head while you were sick last night. Not exactly the most arousing sight I’ve ever seen. In fact, I can’t remember what I ever saw in you. I only want to feed you so you’ll be well and get out of my cabin and out of my life.”

“I want to be out of your life, too,” she said.

“Right,” he said. “Until it’s time to pay my duchess’s dressmaking bills.”

“Yes,” she said. “Exactly.”

“Good,” he said. “That suits me very well.”

He went to the door, opened it, went out, and slammed it behind him.

By the time the packet docked at the Tower Stairs, Marcelline wanted to scream. The storm had blown the ship off course, and a trip that in good weather took about twelve hours had taken more than twenty. The advertised “refreshments” had run out, the ship’s servants were limp with fatigue, and the mood of the hungry passengers was vile, as was their smell. Even above deck, in the brisk sea air, it was impossible to escape the evidence of too many people confined with one another in too small an area for too long. Couples quarreled with each other and scolded their whiny children, who picked fights with their siblings.

Naturally, nobody could wait to get off the boat, and they all tried to disembark simultaneously, shoving and shouting and even kicking.

Though she longed desperately get off the vessel as well, Marcelline decided to wait. She fended off the packet’s servants, eager to help her with her belongings, telling them to come back later. While she felt a good deal better, she didn’t feel quite herself. Too, Jeffreys was still weak from her own far worse bout with sickness. It made no sense to endure the pushing and hurrying and ill temper—and above all, the whiny children.

Marcelline wanted her own child. Lucie was no angel, but she did not whine. and when her mama surprised her by returning home a week early, that mama would be smiling and happy.

She would be smiling and happy, Marcelline assured herself, once the crowd dissipated, and she could have a moment’s peace, to sort herself out.

Clevedon must be long gone by now. He wouldn’t have to shove people out of his way. His servants could do that for him—not that it would be necessary. Clevedon appeared, and people simply made way for him.

“Make way, make way!”

She looked up. A tall, burly footman was bearing down on her, another footman behind him. The livery was all too familiar.

The first one elbowed an indignant packet servant aside, strode to her, and bowed. “His grace’s compliments, Mrs. Noirot, and would you be so good as to let him see you and Miss Jeffreys home. He understands Miss Jeffreys was dire ill, and he dislikes to leave her to the public conveyances, let alone being jostled by this infern—this crowd. If you ladies would come with us, me and Joseph will take you along to the Customs officers and then in a trice we’ll have you in the carriage, which is only around the corner.”

Even as he spoke, he was collecting their things, hoisting one portmanteau under one arm and another under the other. His counterpart made easy work of the remaining bags, ignoring the protests of the packet servants they’d displaced and deprived of their tips.

It all happened so quickly that Marcelline had no time even to decide whether to object. She’d hardly taken in what they were about when Thomas and Joseph marched away with her luggage.

The drive to the shop on Fleet Street, silent for the most part, seemed interminable.

The first thing Jeffreys did when she settled into her seat, next to Marcelline and opposite the duke, was thank him for sending Saunders to look after her when she was ill.

He shrugged. “Saunders dotes on playing physician,” he said. “He likes nothing better than to make disgusting potions to cure the effects of overindulgence. It’s his subtle way of punishing us, no doubt, for getting wine stains on our linen.”

“He was very kind,” Jeffreys said.

“That would make for a change,” said Clevedon. “He isn’t, usually.”

And that was all he said, all the way from the Tower to Jeffreys’s lodgings.

From there it was an easy walk to the shop. The drive was not so easy.

Marcelline’s mind was working as always, looking for a way to turn matters to her account. He’d said…what had he said before he slammed out of his cabin?

He’d said something about paying the dressmaking bills. That it suited him very well.

But he’d been so angry, and he hadn’t come back.

His valet had appeared, though, with a bottle of wine and assorted cold meats and cheese that must have cost a king’s ransom in bribes.

A woman could, too easily, get used to such luxury.

She couldn’t afford to get used to it.

“I can’t decide,” she said, “whether you’re exercising forbearance or merely indulging your curiosity to see my lair.”

“Why should I do either?” he said. Seeming to make himself perfectly at ease, he stretched out his long legs, as he hadn’t been able to do when Jeffreys shared the seat with her. He rested one arm along the back of the richly appointed seat and looked out of the louvered panel, open at present to let him see out while shielding him from others trying to look in. Not that it was any secret who he was, when the crest emblazoned on the door shouted his identity to all the world.

The late afternoon light traced the smoothly sculpted lines of his profile.

Longing welled up. To touch his beautiful face. To feel that arm curl about her shoulders. To tuck herself into that big, warm body.

She crushed it. “Or perhaps you took pity on us,” she said.

“It was your maid or seamstress or whatever she is upon whom I took pity,” he said. “You can take care of yourself, I’ve no doubt. But Saunders told me the girl was prodigious ill. For a time, he said, he wasn’t sure she’d survive the voyage. She did not look well just now.” He paused briefly. “She doesn’t lodge with you?”

“She did, but that was only temporary. I can hardly lodge my seamstresses. For one thing, it isn’t good for them to do nothing but eat, drink, and live nothing but shop. For another, there isn’t room. Not that I should want half a dozen seamstresses about all day and all night. The working hours can be trying enough, what with their little jealousies and—”

“Half a dozen?” he said. He leaned forward. “Half a dozen?”

He was too astonished to pretend he wasn’t.

Yes, of course she’d babbled that advertisement for the corner of Fleet Street at Chancery Lane, and it was the direction she’d given the coachman. That didn’t mean her shop wasn’t squeezed into a passage or a cellar.

“Half a dozen girls at present,” she said. “But I’ll certainly be hiring more in the near future. As it is, we’re shorthanded.”

“Half a—Devil take you, what is wrong with you?”

“You’ve already pointed out any number of my character flaws,” she said. “To which do you now refer?”

“I thought…Noirot, you’re the damndest woman. Your dogged pursuit of me led me to believe you were in desperate straits.”

“How on earth did you come by that idea?” she said. “I told you I was the greatest modiste in the world. You’ve seen my work.”

“I imagined a dark little shop in a basement, drat you,” he said. “I did wonder how you contrived to make such extravagant-looking dresses in such a place.”

“I’m sure you didn’t wonder about it overlong,” she said. “You were mainly occupied with bedding me.”

“Yes, but I’m done with that now.”

He was. He truly was. He’d had enough of her. He’d had enough of himself, chasing her. Like a puppy, like the veriest schoolboy.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” she said.

“It’s only Clara I’m thinking of,” he said. “Much as it pains me to contribute to your vainglory, it was clear, even to me, that the women of Paris were besotted with your work. You’re the most aggravating woman I’ve ever met, but you make yourself agreeable to women, I noticed, and that and beautiful, fashionable clothes are what matter, I daresay. I should not hold a grudge, merely because I long to shake you until your teeth rattle.”

Her weary face lit up, her eyes most brilliantly of all. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew you’d see.”

“Still, I don’t trust you.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but she said nothing, only waited, her attention riveted.

She was riveted on him—for her business. He was merely the means to an end.

But he scorned to hold grudges, especially on such a petty account—his vanity, of all things!

“I wanted to see the place for myself,” he said. “To make sure it truly existed, for one thing—and to see what sort of place it was. For all I knew, you were toiling alone in a dark room in a cellar.”

“Good grief, what a mind a man has,” she said. “How could you imagine I should produce such creations in—But never mind. Maison Noirot is an elegant shop. Everything is of the first stare, exceedingly neat and clean and airy. It’s much more neat and elegant, I promise you, than the den of that dull-witted incompetent—but no, I will not foul the air with her name.”

He was done with her. He needed to be done with her. But now, when she spoke of her shop, she was so animated. So passionate.

“I smell a rival,” he said.

She sat straighter. “Certainly not. I have no rivals, your grace. I am the greatest modiste in the world.” She leaned forward to look out of the door window. “We’re nearly there. You’ll soon see for yourself.”

It wasn’t as soon as it might have been, the street being a tangle of carriages, riders, and pedestrians. But eventually they came to the place, and there it was, a handsome modern shop, with a bow window and the name in gold lettering over the door: Noirot.

The carriage stopped. The door opened. The steps were folded down.

Clevedon stepped out first, and put out his hand to steady her.

As she took his hand, he heard a cry behind him.

She looked up, looked past him, and the light he’d seen in her face before was nothing to this. Her countenance was the sun, shedding happiness and setting the world aglow.

“Mama!” the voice cried.

Noirot practically leapt from the last step, past him, forgetting him entirely.

She crouched down on the pavement and opened her arms, and a little girl, a little dark-haired girl, ran into them.

“Mama!” the child cried. “You’re home!”