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 21

A lady of genius will give a genteel air to her whole dress by a well-fancied suit of knots, as a judicious writer gives a spirit to a whole sentence by a single expression.

John Gay, English poet and dramatist (1685–1732)

Marcelline reached Warford House at five minutes before seven. Though she arrived in Clevedon’s carriage, his crest emblazoned on the door, she knew better than to go to the front door. She went round to the tradesmen’s entrance, where she was made to wait. It had occurred to her that she might be rebuffed, but she’d refused to entertain doubts. The dress was magnificent. Lady Clara had understood she was in the hands of a master, else she’d have sent Marcelline away the other day, the minute she started tossing out her ladyship’s wardrobe.

At last Lady Clara’s maid, Davis, appeared and gave her permission to enter. Her expression grim, Davis led Marcelline past the staring servants and up the backstairs.

Her dour look was soon explained. Marcelline found both Lady Clara and her mother in the younger woman’s dressing room. Clearly, they’d been quarreling, and it must have been a prodigious row, to make both ladies’ faces so red. But when Davis entered and said, “The dressmaker is here, my lady,” a silence fell, as heavy and immense as an elephant.

Lady Warford was nearly as tall as Clara, and obviously had been as beautiful once. She by no means looked like the battle-ax she was well known to be. Though a degree bulkier than her daughter, the marchioness was a handsome woman of middle age.

Battle she did, though, going promptly on the attack. “You!” said her ladyship. “How dare you show your face here!”

“Mama, please,” Lady Clara said, her gaze darting to the parcel Marcelline carried. “Good heavens, I couldn’t believe it when they said you were here with the dress. Your shop—I read that it burnt to the ground.”

“It did, your ladyship, but I promised the dress.”

“Dress or not, I cannot believe this creature has the effrontery to show her face—”

“You made my dress?” Lady Clara said. “You made it already?”

Marcelline nodded. She set down the parcel on a low table, untied the strings, unwrapped the muslin, and drew the dress out from the tissue paper she and her sisters had carefully tucked among its folds.

She heard three sharp intakes of breath.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Lady Clara. “Oh, my goodness.”

“This is outrageous,” Lady Warford said, though with less assurance than before. “Oh, Clara, how can you bear to take anything from this creature’s hands?”

“I’ve nothing else to wear,” Lady Clara said.

“Nothing else! Nothing else!”

But Lady Clara ignored her mother, and signaled her maid to help her out of her dressing gown. Lady Warford sank onto a chair and glowered over the proceedings as Marcelline and the maid dressed Lady Clara.

Then Lady Clara moved to study herself in the horse-dressing glass.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh, my goodness.”

The maid stood, her fist to her mouth.

Lady Warford stared.

Marcelline’s creation comprised a white crape robe over a white satin under-dress. The neckline, cut very low, displayed Lady Clara’s smooth shoulders and bosom to great advantage, and the soft white enhanced the translucency of her complexion. Marcelline had kept the embellishments simple and spare, to better showcase the magnificent cut of the dress and the perfection of the drapery, particularly the graceful folds of the bodice. A few judiciously placed papillon bows adorned the very short, very full sleeves and trimmed the edges of the robe where it opened over the satin under-dress. The robe was delicately embroidered in gold, silver, and black sprigs. The style was not French, but it was just dashing enough to be not completely English.

Most important, though, the dress became the wearer. No, it was more than merely becoming. It made Lady Clara’s beauty almost unbearable.

Lady Clara could see that.

Her maid could see that.

Even her mother could see that.

The dressing room’s silence was profound.

Marcelline let them stare while she studied her handiwork. Thanks to her fanaticism about measurements, the fit was nearly perfect. She wouldn’t have to take the hem up or down. The neckline needed a little work in order to lie perfectly smoothly across the back. The puffs Davis had provided weren’t large enough to support the sleeves properly. But these and a few other very minor matters were easily corrected. Marcelline quickly set about making the adjustments.

When the technical work was done, she guided Davis in adding the finishing touches: a silver and gold wreath set just so to frame the plaited knot of her ladyship’s hair, heavy gold earrings, a gauze scarf. White silk slippers and white kid gloves embroidered in silver and gold silk finished the ensemble.

All of this took nearly an hour, while Lady Warford grew increasingly impatient, muttering about the time. She gave Marcelline scarcely a minute to admire her masterpiece. She’d made them late for dinner, Lady War-ford complained, and swept Lady Clara out of the dressing room without another word.

No thanks, certainly.

Davis admitted gruffly that her mistress looked very well, indeed. Then she ushered Marcelline down the backstairs like a dirty secret, and back to the tradesman’s entrance.

As she stepped out into the night, Marcelline told herself she was very, very happy.

She’d done what had to be done. Lady Clara had never looked so beautiful in all her life, and she knew it and her mother knew it. Everyone at Almack’s would see that. Clevedon, too. He would fall in love with Lady Clara all over again.

And in the midst of her triumph, Marcelline felt a stab, sharp and deep.

She knew what it was. She was a fine liar, but lying to herself wasn’t a useful skill.

The truth was, she wanted to be Lady Clara, or someone like her: one of his kind. She wanted to be the one he fell in love with, and once would be enough.

Never mind, she told herself. Her daughter was alive. Her sisters were alive. They’d start fresh—and after this night, the ton would be beating a path to their door.

Clevedon had hardly arrived at Almack’s before he was calculating how long it would be before he could decently escape. He wouldn’t stay as long as he ought to—at least in Lady Warford’s opinion—but it wasn’t his job to please Lady Warford. He’d come solely on Clara’s account, and he doubted Clara expected him to live in her pocket.

He’d arrived as late as he decently could. This didn’t improve matters, because Clara had little time for him, there wasn’t another interesting female in the place this night, and he was tired of playing cards with the same people. She’d saved only one dance for him. She hadn’t been sure he’d turn up at all, she said, and the other gentlemen were so pressing.

They certainly did press about her, a greater throng of them than usual. That, he supposed, was as she deserved. She looked very well in the dress Noirot and her women had slaved over. More important, he saw on the London ladies’ faces the same expressions he’d noticed on their Parisian counterparts. He wished Noirot could see those faces.

The time dragged on until at last he could claim his one dance. As he led her out, he told Clara she was the most beautiful girl in the place.

“The dress makes more of a difference than I could have guessed,” she said. “I couldn’t believe Madame Noirot was able to complete it so quickly, after all that had happened.”

“She was determined,” he said.

She glanced up at him and swiftly away and said, “Your dressmaker is a proud creature, I think.”

Proud. Obstinate. Passionate.

“She’s your dressmaker, my dear, not mine,” he said.

“Everyone says she’s yours. She lives in your house, with her family. Have you adopted her?”

“I didn’t know what else to do with them on short notice,” he said.

There was a pause in the conversation as they began to dance. Then Clara said, “I read once, that if one saves someone’s life, the person saved belongs to the rescuer.”

“I beg you won’t start that ridiculous hero talk, too,” he said. “It isn’t as though a man has a choice. If your mother had been trapped in that burning shop, I should have hardly stood by, looking on. Longmore would have done exactly what I did, no matter what he says.”

“Oh, he had something to say,” Clara said. “When he returned to Warford House after visiting you today, he told Mama not to make a fuss over a lot of dictatorial milliners. He said it was just like you to house the provoking creatures. He said they were ridiculous. Their shop had burned down, their child had nearly burnt to death, they had nothing but the clothes on their backs and some rubbishy ledgers, yet all they could think about was making my dress.”

“They’re dictatorial,” he said. “You saw for yourself.”

He’d seen, too: Noirot, as imperious as a queen, ordering Clara about.

So sure of herself. So obstinate. So passionate.

“I daresay everyone is shocked at me for having anything to do with her,” Clara said.

“Everyone is easily shocked,” he said.

“But I wanted the dress,” she said. “In spite of what Harry said, Mama didn’t want to let Mrs. Noirot in the house. But I made a dreadful fuss, and she gave in. I’m a vain creature, it seems.”

“What nonsense,” he said. “It’s long past time you stopped hiding your light under a bushel. Sometimes I wonder whether your mother—”

He broke off, dismayed at what he’d been about to say, and shocked that he’d only thought of it now: that her vain, proud mother had deliberately dressed her daughter like a dowd. She’d done it in hopes of keeping the other men off, because she was saving Clara for Clevedon.

She’d been saving Clara for a man who loved her but didn’t want to be here, didn’t want this life, and ached for something else, though he wasn’t sure what the something else was.

No, he knew what it was.

But it was no use knowing because it was the one thing his power, position, and money couldn’t buy.

“What were you about to observe regarding my mother?” Clara said.

“She’s protective,” he lied. “More than you like, I don’t doubt. But you got what you wanted in the end.”

He didn’t notice the searching gaze Clara sent up at him. His own attention was wandering to the ladies’ dresses floating about them. Nearly all wore the latter stages of court mourning: every shade of white, some black, soft shapes against the stark angles of black and white and grey of the men’s attire.

The air was warm, and thick with scent, recalling another time and place. But this wasn’t like Paris, and the difference wasn’t merely the monochromatic colors.

It was the monochromatic mood.

There was no magic.

In Paris, there had been a kind of magic or perhaps unreality: the absurdity of that ball where Noirot didn’t belong, yet made herself belong, where she was the sun, and everyone else became little planets and moons, orbiting about her.

Magic, indeed. What folly! What a fool he was! The most beautiful girl in London was in his arms. Every man in the place envied him.

Yes, he was a fool. The girl he’d always loved was in his arms, and every other man in the ballroom wanted to be in his shoes.

And all he wanted was to get away.

Library of Clevedon House

Friday 1 May

“We have to get away,” Marcelline told Clevedon.

She’d seen nothing of him since Wednesday night. She had no idea when he’d come home from Almack’s. His private apartments were on the garden front in the main part of the house—the equivalent of streets away.

Now it was ten o’clock on Friday morning. The seamstresses had arrived an hour ago and settled down to work on the most urgent orders. Normally, while they worked, Marcelline and one of her sisters would be in the showroom, attending to customers.

But they had no showroom. And after Lady Clara’s triumphant appearance at Almack’s, Marcelline could expect customers, a great many. If Maison Noirot didn’t quickly seize the opportunity, the ton—not noted for being able to keep its mind on any one thing for any length of time—would forget about Lady Clara’s mouth-watering dress.

Her ladyship would have other dresses from Maison Noirot, but the impact would not be quite the same as the first time.

This wasn’t the only reason for getting out, but it was the most practical and mercenary one.

Marcelline had been preparing to write him a note when Halliday reported that his grace was in the library, and had asked to see Mrs. Noirot when convenient.

She’d hurried in and found him bent over a table piled with papers and magazines.

She hadn’t waited to find out what he wanted to talk to her about.

“We can’t stay here,” she said. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful—you know I’m grateful—but this is very disruptive—of my business, my employees, my family. Lucie in particular. The maids. The footmen. She’s starting to think that’s normal. She’s much more difficult to manage than you’d suppose, and I’ll need weeks to undo the damage that’s been done in a few days by all the pampering and catering to her every…”

She trailed off as he lifted his head from his study of the paper in front of him and turned that green gaze on her. Her gaze slid away from those extraordinary eyes and drifted downward over his long, straight nose and paused at his mouth, the sensuous mouth that should have been a woman’s and was so purely male.

The room grew too hot. Her mind skittered from one thought to another, trying to avoid the one subject she couldn’t afford to dwell on. But the dark longing beat in her heart and sent heat lower, and she took a step back.

“And then there’s that,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “There is that.”

“Yes,” she said, and added quickly, “I’ve got Lady Clara, and I should like to keep her. The longer I stay here, the less her mother will love me. I’m not sure how long she can stand up to her mother.”

I’m not sure how much longer I can keep away from you.

He looked away and gave a little sigh.

She wanted to touch him. She wanted to lay the palm of her hand against his cheek. She wanted to step into his arms and lay her head on his chest and listen to his heart beat. She wanted to feel the warmth of his body and its strength. She wanted him inside her. She wanted him.

Last night she’d lain awake, imagining: a light footstep in the darkness…the sound of the door closing…the sound of his breath in and out…the motion of the mattress as his weight settled onto it…silk whispering as he shrugged off his dressing gown…his voice so low…his mouth against her ear…and then his hands on her, drawing up her gown…his hand between her legs…

Stop it stop it stop it.

“I’ve spoken to my sisters, and they agree that we can’t stay,” she went on. “Leonie and I are going out to find a place to move to.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he said.

“It’s crucial,” she said. “We must seize the moment. you don’t understand.”

“I understand perfectly,” he said. He pushed toward her across the desk the paper he’d been looking at. “Varley has found you a shop. Shall we go see it?”

One of Clevedon’s many properties, the building stood on St. James’s Street near the corner of Bennet Street. Clevedon told the dressmakers that the previous tenants (a husband and wife) had fallen into dire financial difficulties within months of opening the place. They’d absconded in the dead of night mere days ago, owing three months’ back rent. They must have borrowed or stolen a cart, because they’d taken away most of the shop’s contents and fixtures.

This was a complete lie.

The truth was, Varney had bribed them to move and sweetened the offer by allowing them to take with them everything that wasn’t nailed down.

“What a strange coincidence that this should fall vacant at precisely this time,” Miss Leonie said while Varley unlocked the door.

“It’s about time we had a strange coincidence in our favor,” Miss Sophia said.

While the others filed into the shop, Noirot lingered on the pavement. Clevedon saw her assessing gaze move up over the building, then down and about her to consider the neighborhood. It was certainly prestigious, even though some of the street’s establishments were less than savory. Alongside gentlemen’s clubs like White’s, Boodle’s, and Brooks’s and some of London’s most esteemed shops—Hoby the bootmaker, Lock’s the hatters, and Berry Brothers the wine merchants—stood gaming hells and brothels. These, however, tended to be tucked into narrow passages and courts.

“Well?” he said. “Do you approve?”

Her dark gaze shifted to his face then quickly away. “It was in my plans,” she said. “From Fleet Street to St. James’s. I knew it would happen, but not quite so soon.”

With a small, enigmatic smile, she went in. He followed her.

At their entrance, Miss Leonie looked up from her conversation with Varley. “I knew it was too good to be true,” she told Noirot. “It’s beyond our means. We haven’t enough business to cover the everyday expenses, let alone the outlay required to make this usable. We should need two lifetimes to repay his grace.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Clevedon began.

“Don’t be absurd,” Noirot said at the same time. “The address alone will increase our business prodigiously. We’ll have a proper space in which to work and display our work. We can hire another half dozen seamstresses, and increase our production accordingly. I have so many ideas, and not enough room and people to execute them.”

“My love, we need customers,” Miss Leonie said. “We should need to double our clientele—”

“Sophy, you must put something in the paper immediately,” Noirot cut in impatiently. “‘Mrs. Noirot begs leave to inform her friends and the public in general that she intends opening showrooms on Wednesday, the 6th instant at her new location, No. 56 St. James’s Street. With a collection of new and elegant millinery and dresses, which will be found to excel, in point of taste and elegance, collections found in any other house in London. Amongst which are sundry articles for ladies’ dress not to be found elsewhere.’ etc. etc.” She waved her hand. “You know what it must be. But more.”

“More, indeed,” Clevedon said. “You must invent a corset, if you haven’t already done so, and be sure to mention it.”

The three women turned to look at him.

“I’ve been reading the fashion periodicals,” he said. “There seems to be something irresistible about a new, unique style of corset.”

It was the subtlest change in expression. If he hadn’t spent so much time with them or paid such close attention to Noirot, he wouldn’t have recognized the slight movement of their eyes, a hint of rapid calculations going on inside their conniving skulls.

“He’s right,” Noirot said. “I’ll invent a corset. But for now, Sophy, for advertising purposes, you’ll invent a name for it. Something exotic. Remember Mrs. Bell’s ‘Circassian’ corset. But Italian. They want Italian corsets.”

“You ought to change the date of opening, too,” Clevedon said. “You can’t afford to lose another day. Make it tomorrow. You won’t have time to paint it exactly as you like, but it was painted only a short time ago for our absconders. With everything cleaned and polished, and with new fixtures, it will look brand-new.”

The younger sisters burst out at the same time:

“We can’t possibly do this!”

“How on earth can we have everything ready in less than twenty-four hours?”

Noirot put up her hand. The sisters subsided. “We’ll need to borrow most of your servants to do it,” she told Clevedon. “And carriages again. We’ll need materials, yes, beyond what we purchased for the emergency.”

“I understand,” he said.

“We can’t do it without your help,” she said.

“I’d planned on helping,” he said. “It’s a small enough sacrifice to have the lot of you out of Clevedon House forthwith.”

That would quiet Lady Warford. And the other cats. For himself, he cared nothing about talk or scandal. But he knew he was making matters very difficult for Clara. He couldn’t do as he pleased without causing her embarrassment at the very least.

In any event, he lacked the moral fortitude to resist temptation. The longer Noirot lived under his roof, the greater the likelihood he’d behave in his usual way.

“A small sacrifice,” Miss Sophia said with a laugh. “Oh, it’s good to be a duke.”

“It’s good to know a duke,” Miss Leonie said. “This place may give Marcelline’s genius scope, but it’s going to be deuced expensive to furnish, never mind the materials.”

Noirot was already beginning a circuit of what he supposed would be the showroom. “The drawers and counters will do,” she said, “but everything must be cleaned and polished within an inch of its life. All else must be purchased. Working our way down from the ceiling—chandeliers, wall sconces, mirrors…”

Clevedon took out his little pocket notebook and started making notes.

They had no trouble dividing responsibilities. Marcelline and her sisters had been at this long enough to know who did what best.

Sophia returned to Clevedon House to compose her deathless prose and supervise the seamstresses. Leonie remained at the shop to accept deliveries and supervise the servants and workmen who, they were told, Halliday had already begun organizing, and would be arriving shortly.

Clevedon was to take Marcelline shopping.

She saw no alternative. She needed him. She’d simply have to suppress her lust and longings and other inconvenient feelings and be stoical. She’d had plenty of practice with that.

“If we’re to get this done by the end of the day, you must come with me,” she told him at the end of her inventory of the place. “I’ve no time to waste while a clerk dithers or tries to sell me something I don’t want. I haven’t time for dickering about prices. I need prompt, preferably obsequious attention. Entering with the Duke of Clevedon is a sure way to get that and more.”

“I assumed I’d come with you,” he said. “Did you not notice how diligently I took notes?”

She had noticed and wondered at it. She held her tongue, though, until they were in his carriage. And then it wasn’t the notebook she asked about.

“I thought you loathed shopping with women above all things,” she said, remembering what he’d said to Lady Clara.

“That was before,” he said. “Now you’ve made it interesting, curse you.”

“Interesting?”

“All the bustling about,” he said. “All the drama. All that naked ambition coupled with passionate belief in the rightness of your vision. All that…purpose. It amuses me to catch the occasional stray bit of purpose by trailing in your wake.”

“What nonsense!” she said. “I found a way to make a living that doesn’t require me to drudge endlessly for someone else—and one that offers an avenue for advancement as well. If I weren’t obliged to work, I shouldn’t. I should be happy to have no purpose but to enjoy myself and occasionally bestow some generosity upon lesser mortals.”

“You’re the one talking nonsense,” he said. “You live for what you do. You live and breathe your work. It isn’t employment. It’s your vocation.”

“I look forward to the day when I can live in idleness,” she said. “That’s my goal.”

“The day will never come,” he said. “No matter what heights you achieve, you won’t be able to stop doing what you do. You can’t see yourself. I can. I saw you throw down Clara’s dress and kick it aside. It wasn’t merely unsatisfactory. In your view, it was criminal. You tore those clothes from her hands as though they’d do her grievous bodily harm. You made that dress overnight because it was a matter of life and death to you. It would have killed you if she’d gone to Almack’s wearing one of her old dresses.”

She looked out of the carriage window. “Talk of drama,” she said. “‘Life and death’…‘killed’ me.” She was uncomfortable. She’d never thought of herself in that way. She was stubborn, hardheaded, practical, mercenary. Everything she did was for gain, for ambition. Yet now he’d said it, she realized he wasn’t wrong. And she had to wonder at his noticing such a thing. She’d thought he noticed mainly what weakness or unguarded moment of emotion could get her on her back or against a wall…or onto a worktable.

“Oh, very well,” she said. “It wouldn’t have killed me—but it might have made me a little sick.”

He laughed.

The carriage stopped. They climbed out, the conversation ended, and the shopping commenced.

It was one of the most hectic days Clevedon had spent in his life—with the exception of the day he’d raced across France after her.

They went quickly from one shop to the next: linen drapers and furniture warehouses, shops specializing in lighting and shops specializing in mirrors.

He and Noirot received all the prompt, obsequious attention she’d wanted and more. The shop owners themselves came out to wait upon his grace, the Duke of Clevedon. They were prepared to move heaven and earth to get him precisely what he needed and to have it delivered that very day. If they hesitated, he had only to say to Noirot, “We had better try the next shop—Colter’s, is it?” As soon as a competitor’s name was mentioned, what had been impossible a moment ago became “the easiest thing in the world, your grace.”

Once the shopping began, there was no more personal conversation. Noirot hadn’t time to debate about what to purchase or wait to be shown the latest this or that. When she entered a shop, she had to know exactly what she wanted. And so, in those short intervals while they were traveling in the privacy of his carriage, the talk was purely practical, all about furnishings and what size was best, and what colors set off what.

He should have been bored witless. He should have been frantic to get away, to his club, to a card game, to a bottle or two or three with Longmore.

The Duke of Clevedon was so far from bored that he never noticed the time passing. At some point, they’d stopped to eat from a basket his cook had prepared for them. He couldn’t say when that was, an hour ago or five.

Then they left a warehouse, and when they reached the pavement she said, “Mon dieu, it’s done. I think. I hope. That’s everything, isn’t it?”

He took out his pocket notebook, and it was only when he had to squint at it that he realized evening had fallen. He’d stepped out of the shop and joined the flow of activity on the street without noticing that it had grown dark. He’d been too intent on his own plans and calculations. While she was occupied with choosing articles for her shop, he hadn’t been idle.

Now he looked about him at the gaslit streets. The shops would soon be closing, but the streets were busy, the pavements crowded with people passing to and fro, some pausing to look in the shop windows, others going inside—no doubt to the despair of shopkeepers eager for their dinners and the quiet of their hearths. Before long workers would spill from the various establishments, some hurrying home, others to their favorite chop houses and public houses.

What was the last place he’d wanted to hurry to? he wondered. When had he been eager for his own hearth-side?

“If we’ve forgotten anything, it’s minor,” he said.

“We’ll see soon enough,” she said.

He told his coachman to take them back to the shop on St. James’s Street.

After what seemed an eternity of crawling through London’s streets at a snail’s pace, Marcelline climbed down from the carriage and faced a darkened, empty shop.

“I can’t believe they’re all gone,” she said. She heard her voice wobble. She couldn’t remember when last she’d felt so deeply disappointed. “I thought—I thought—”

“We were more efficient than we guessed,” he said. “I’ll wager anything they’ve gone home—to Clevedon House, I mean—for a well-earned dinner and rest. As we shall do—as soon as we’ve had a look round.” He took out a key and brandished it. “I am the landlord, you know.”

Enough light entered from the street to allow them to make their way into the shop without tripping over furniture. After a moment, Clevedon got a gas lamp lit, then another.

Marcelline stood in the middle of the showroom, her hands clasped tightly against her stomach, against the butterflies quivering there—eagerness mixed with anxiety at once. She turned, slowly, taking it in: the gleaming woodwork, the elegant chandeliers, the artfully draped curtains, the furniture arranged as though in a drawing room.

“Does it pass the test?” Clevedon said. “Satisfactory?”

“More than that,” she said. “My taste is impeccable, I know—”

“Really, Noirot, you must strive to overcome this excessive humility.”

“—but to see it in its proper setting…” She paused. “Well, I shall need to rearrange the furniture tomorrow morning. Leonie is very good with numbers and legal gibberish, and her eye for artistic detail is better than most, but she can be a little conventional in her arrangements. The showroom is most important, because that’s what our patrons see. The first impression must be of elegance and comfort and the little something else that sets me apart from others.”

“The little touches,” he said.

“Nothing too obvious,” she said.

“The French would say je ne sais quoi,” he said. “And so would I, because while I know it’s there, I can’t for the life of me say what it is.”

She let herself look at him, but only for an instant. “You’ve come a long way from Paris,” she said. “Then you claimed not to notice such things.”

“I’ve tried not to notice,” he said. “But everywhere I look, there it is. There you are. I’ll be glad to be rid of you. When a man sinks to reading fashion journals—no, it’s worse than that. When a man finds himself plumbing their depths, seeking arcane knowledge of no use to him whatsoever…Oh, it’s your corrupting influence. I shall be so glad to see the back of you Noirots, and return to my life.”

“It annoys you to be a guardian angel,” she said.

“Don’t be absurd. I’m nothing of the kind. Come, let’s see the rest of the place.”

They moved more quickly through the rest of the shop: the offices and work and storage areas. He would be eager to be gone, she thought. For a time the details of setting up a shop, the details of trade might have offered an interesting change of pace for him. But he was no tradesman. Money meant something entirely different to him, insofar as it meant anything. And she supposed he was tired as well of being the subject of tedious gossip, and tired of having his household disrupted.

Little did he know how small a disruption that had been, compared to what her family typically did. Her ancestors had torn whole families apart, lured the precious offspring of noblemen from their luxurious homes to vagabond lives at best, abandonment and ruin at worst.

She had seen all of the new place that mattered, she thought, when he led her, not back the way they’d come, toward the entrance, but to the stairs.

Then it dawned on her what she’d missed. The first floor was to contain work areas: a well lit studio for her, a handsome parlor for private consultations with clients, and private work spaces for Sophia and Leonie.

The second and third floors had been reserved as living quarters.

And that hadn’t crossed her mind, not once while she shopped today.

“Good grief, I hope you’ve a mattress or two you can spare from Clevedon House,” she said. “A table and chairs would be useful, too, though not crucial. We’ve camped before. I can’t believe I forgot to buy anything for us.”

“Let’s go up and see what’s needed,” he said. “Maybe the absconders left something.”

He led the way, carrying a lamp.

He didn’t pause at the first floor but continued up to the second.

At the top of the stairs, he paused. “Wait here,” he said.

He crossed to a door, and opened it. A moment or two later, the faint light of the lamp gave way to soft gaslight.

“Well, well,” he said. “Come, look at this.”

She went to the door and looked in. Then she stepped inside.

A sofa and chairs and tables. Curtains at the windows. A rug on the floor. None of it would have suited Clevedon House. The furnishings weren’t grand at all. But they reminded her of her cousin’s apartment in Paris. Quiet elegance. Comfort. Warmth. Not a showplace like the shop below, but a home.

“Oh, my,” she said, and it was all she could trust herself to say. Something pressed upon her heart, and it choked her.

From this pretty parlor he led her into a small dining parlor. Then he led her to a nursery, laid out with so much affection and understanding of Lucie that her heart ached. She had her own little table and chairs and a tea set. She had a little set of shelves to hold her books, and a painted chest to hold her toys and treasures.

Thence he led Marcelline to another, larger room.

“I thought you would prefer this room,” he said. “If it doesn’t suit, you ladies can always rearrange yourselves. But you’re the artist, and I thought you should not overlook the busy street but the garden—such as it is—and perhaps catch a glimpse of the Green Park, though you might have to stand on a chair to do it.”

She was a Noirot, and self-control was not a family strong suit. But she, like the others, had a formidable control over what she let the world see.

At that moment, it broke. “Oh, Clevedon, what have you done?” she said, and the thing pressing on her heart pushed a sob from her. And then, for the first time in years and years and years, she wept.