But Clevedon in person was a different proposition than Clevedon via letter.
Now that he was here, she wasn’t sure she was ready for him to be here.
But any doubts or shyness she’d felt vanished the instant he entered the drawing room on Tuesday. He wore the same affectionate smile she knew of old, and she smiled at him in the same way. She loved him dearly, always had, and she knew he loved her.
“Good grief, Clara, you might have warned me you’d grown,” he said, stepping back to look her over, quite as he used to do when he came home from school. “You must be two inches taller at least.”
He didn’t remember, she thought. She’d always been a tall girl. She hadn’t grown at all since last he saw her. He was used to French women, she supposed. The observation, which she wouldn’t have hesitated to put in a letter, she wouldn’t dream of uttering aloud, most certainly not in front of her mother.
“I should hope she is not such a gawky great Amazon as that,” said Mama. “Clara is the same as she ever was, only perhaps a little more
womanly
than you recollect.”
Mama meant
more shapely
. For a time, she’d claimed that Clevedon had “run away” because Clara was too thin. A man liked a woman to have some flesh on her—and she would never have a good figure if she would not eat.
It hadn’t occurred to Mama at the time that Grandmama Warford had died only a few months earlier, and Clara, still grieving, had no appetite and did not particularly care what Clevedon thought of her figure.
But a great deal did not occur to Mama. She’d ordered tray upon tray of refreshments, and plied Clevedon with cake, which he took politely, though Mama ought to know by now he did not have a sweet tooth. And while she fed him sweets he didn’t want, she dropped what she thought were exceedingly subtle hints about Clara’s numerous beaux, with the obvious intent of stirring his competitive instincts.
In her mind’s eye, Clara saw herself jumping up, covering her mother’s mouth, and dragging her from the room. A tiny snort of laughter escaped her. Mama, happily, was too busy talking to hear it. But Clevedon noticed. He shot her a glance, and Clara rolled her eyes. He sent her a small, conspiratorial smile.
“I’m relieved I didn’t have to fight my way through hordes of your beaux, Clara,” he said. “I’m still a little tired, I confess, after the Channel tried so determinedly to drown me.”
“Good heavens!” Mama cried. “I read in the
Times
of a near shipwreck in the Channel. Were you aboard the same vessel?”
“I sincerely hope ours was the only one caught in that storm,” he said. “Apparently it took our mariners unawares.”
“I would not be too sure of that,” said Mama. “They’re supposed to know about the wind and that sort of thing. Those steam packets take too many risks, and as I have told Warford any number of times . . .” She went to repeat one of Papa’s harangues about the steam trade.
When she paused for breath, Clevedon said, “Indeed, I’m glad to be on English ground again, and to breathe English air. I drove here today because I woke up wishing to take a turn round Hyde Park in an open vehicle. If you would be so kind as to give your permission, perhaps I might persuade Clara to join me.”
Mama threw Clara a triumphant glance.
Clara’s heart began to pound.
He can’t be meaning to propose. Not yet.
But why should he not? And why should she be so alarmed? They’d always been meant to marry, had they not?
“I should like it above all things,” Clara said.
“A
n original design!” Lady Renfrew cried. She pushed the ball gown that lay on the counter at Marcelline. “You assured me it was an
original
design, your own creation. Then how, pray, did Lady Thornhurst come by precisely the same dress? And now what am I to do? You know I meant to wear the dress to Mrs. Sharpe’s soirée this very night. You cannot expect me to wear it now. Lady Thornhurst will attend—and she’ll recognize it. Everyone will recognize it! I’ll be mortified. And I know there isn’t time to make up another dress. I’ll have to wear the rose, which everyone has seen. But that isn’t the point. The point is, you
assured
me—”
A clatter behind her made her break off. She turned an indignant look in that direction. But the irritation vanished in an instant, and wonder took its place. “Good heavens! Is
that
it?”
Clever, clever Sophy. She’d stepped away from the temper tantrum to the other side of the shop. There stood a mannequin, wearing the gown Marcelline had worn to the comtesse’s ball. Sophy had knocked over a nearby footstool accidentally on purpose.
“I beg your pardon?” Marcelline said innocently.
She wasn’t sure what exactly Sophy had done to or with Tom Foxe. Perhaps it was better not to know. What mattered was, the tale—of Mrs. Noirot’s gown and her dancing with the Duke of Clevedon at the most exclusive ball of the Paris Season—had appeared in today’s
Morning Spectacle
.
Lady Renfrew was a reader, apparently, because she moved away from the counter to the famous
poussière
gown. When she’d first entered the shop, His Majesty might have been there, telling his favorite sailor jokes, and she wouldn’t have noticed. She’d been in too hysterical a state to heed anything but her own grievances and Marcelline, the ostensible cause of them.
“Is this the gown you wore to the ball in Paris, Mrs. Noirot?” her ladyship said.
Marcelline admitted that it was.
Lady Renfrew stared at it.
Marcelline and Sophy exchanged looks. They knew what the lady was thinking. The highest sticklers of the Fashion Capital of the World had admired this gown. Its designer stood, not in Paris, but a few feet away, behind the counter.
They let Lady Renfrew study it. She had a great deal of money, and she had taste—which was not the case with all of their customers. She was socially ambitious, which they understood perfectly well, for they were, too.
After Marcelline reckoned her ladyship’s meditations upon the wondrous dress had calmed her sufficiently, she said, “Was it precisely like?”
Lady Renfrew turned back to her, still looking slightly dazed. “I beg your pardon.”
“Was the gown Lady Thornhurst wore
precisely
like this one?” Marcelline ran a loving hand over the beautiful green gown lying rejected upon the counter.
Lady Renfrew returned to the counter. She considered the dress. “Not precisely. Now I think of it, her gown was not so—not so . . .” She trailed off, gesturing helplessly.
“If your ladyship would pardon me for speaking plainly, I should suggest that the other was not so well made,” Marcelline said. “What you saw was a mere imitation, of inferior construction. I’m sorry to say this is not the first case that has been brought to our attention.”
“There’s shocking skullduggery at work,” Sophy said. “We haven’t yet got to the bottom of it—but that is not your ladyship’s problem. You must have a magnificent gown for the ball tonight—and it must not be in any way like the other lady’s.”
“I shall remake this dress,” Marcelline said. “I shall remake it myself, in private. When I’m done, no one will see the smallest resemblance to the
thing
Lady Thornhurst wore. I call it a
thing
, your ladyship, because it would shame any proper modiste to call those abominations
dresses.
”
The shop bell tinkled.
Neither Marcelline nor Sophy so much as glanced toward the door. Lady Renfrew was their best customer to date. They could not afford to lose her. All their world—their very beings—revolved around her. Or so it must appear.
“I or one of my sisters will personally deliver it to you, at not later than seven o’clock this evening, at which time we shall make any final adjustments you require,” Marcelline continued. “The dress will be
perfect
.”
“Absolutely perfect,” said Sophy.
Lady Renfrew was not listening. Not being a shopkeeper in danger of losing her most profitable and prestigious customer, she did look over her shoulder at the door. And she froze.
“Well, then, here we are,” said a familiar, deep voice. “You may see for yourself, my dear. And there is the dress itself, by gad.”
And the Duke of Clevedon laughed.
H
is heart was beating in an embarrassingly erratic way.
He’d opened the door, and tried to keep his attention on Clara, but it was no use. He was talking to her, treating this visit to the shop like the joke he’d made out the entire Noirot Episode to be. Meanwhile, though, he couldn’t stop his gaze from sweeping the shop, dismissing everything until he found what he was looking for.
Noirot stood behind the counter, dealing with an apparently troublesome customer, and she did not at first look toward the door. Neither did the blonde standing nearby, who appeared to be a relative.
He quickly looked away from her, past the gaping customer, and spotted the mannequin wearing the dress. How could he forget that infernal dress? Then he had to laugh, because Noirot had done exactly as she’d promised. She’d taken charge of the gossip before it could take hold, and turned it to her own account.
Saunders had brought him a copy of today’s
Morning Spectacle.
There it was, impossible to miss on the front page: Noirot’s version of events in all its stunning audacity—and not very unlike the mocking advertisement she’d composed when he’d driven her home from the ball. He remembered the tone of her voice when she’d come to the last bit:
Mrs. Noirot alone can claim the distinction of having danced with a duke
.
Mrs. Noirot’s dark, silken hair was, as usual, slightly askew and contriving to appear dashing and elegant rather than untidy under a flimsy, fluttery bit of lace apparently passing for a cap. Her dress was a billowy white froth, adorned with intricate green embroidery. A lacy cape sort of thing floated about her neck and shoulders, fastened in front with two bows of the same shade of green as the embroidery.
He’d taken all that in with only a glance before making himself look away—but what was the good of looking away when it wanted only the one glance to etch her image in his mind?
“My goodness,” said Clara, calling his attention back to her, back to the dust-colored dress with its red bows and black lace. “This is . . . rather daring, is it not?”
“I know nothing of these matters,” he said. “I only know that every lady at the Comtesse de Chirac’s ball wanted this dress—and those were the leaders of Parisian Society. I shall not be at all surprised if one of them at least sends to London— Ah, but here she is.”
He’d done a creditable job, in the circumstances, of pretending not to be watching Noirot out of the corner of his eye, while all his being was aware of her every movement. He’d been aware of her stepping out from behind the counter and approaching them, seeming not at all in any hurry. She brought with her a light haze of scent, so familiar that he ached with recollection: her scent swarming about him while they waltzed, and when she’d kissed him, and when she’d climbed onto his lap in the carriage. He tried to make his mind call up images of her sick on the boat, but those only made him ache the more. For a time she’d been vulnerable. For a time, she’d needed him. For a time, he’d been important to her—or at least he’d believed himself to be.
Meanwhile, she wore a smile, a professional smile, and her attention was on Clara, not him.
He introduced her to Clara, and at the words “Lady Clara Fairfax,” a sharp little gasp emanated from the troublesome customer, who’d evidently been handed off to the blonde.
Noirot curtseyed. It was nothing like the outrageous thing she’d done at the ball, but light and polite and graceful, exactly the proper amount of deference in it.
“I thought Lady Clara would like to be among the first to view your ball gown,” he said, “before the curious hordes descend upon your shop.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Clara said.
“We wonder whether one ought to call the gown ‘daring,’ ” he said.
“It’s daring compared to the usual run of English fashion, admittedly,” said Noirot. “The color combination is not what English ladies are accustomed to. But pray keep in mind that I designed this dress for an event in Paris, not London.”
“And you designed it to attract attention,” he said.
“What was the point of attending that ball if not to attract attention?” she said.
“Indeed, I do wish you had been there, Clara,” he said, turning back to her. But she wasn’t there. She was circling the dress, warily, as though it were a sleeping tiger. He went on doggedly, “I thought it would be amusing, to discover whether Mrs. Noirot and I should be admitted or ejected. But the joke was on me.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Clara said. “How pretty it must have been, when you were dancing.” She looked at Clevedon, then Noirot, then quickly looked away, toward the counter. “Oh, what a beautiful shade of green!”
The troublesome customer laid her hand protectively over the dress. “This is mine,” she said. “It only wants . . . alterations.”