“You’re the expert on everything I do wrong,” he said. “You’re the autocratic female who knows exactly what everyone ought to do.”
“No, I know how everyone ought to
dress,
” she said.
“I’ll wager anything she knew why I was there,” he said. “I saw Lady Gorrell as I was leaving the jeweler, and she was bound to tell everybody. But I know Clara, and she didn’t seem very happy to see me—and when I offered to go, she looked relieved.”
“And you have no idea why she’d want you gone?” Marcelline said. “You’ve neglected her for weeks. You’ve made a spectacle of yourself with a lot of milliners.” Then you go out and buy a ring. And without any warning, you turn up, all braced for matrimony.”
“It was hardly like that,” he said.
“It was wrong, in any event,” she said. “You haven’t spent a minute
wooing
her.”
“I’ve known her since she was five years old!”
“Women like to be courted. You know that. What is wrong with you? Have you a blind spot when it comes to Lady Clara?”
He stopped in his tracks and looked at her while a comical look of horror overspread his beautiful face. “Are you telling me I have to chase her and make sheep’s eyes at her and hang on her every word the way her sodding idiot beaux do?”
“Don’t be thick,” Marcelline said. “You of all men know how to cast your lures at a woman. The trouble is, you treat her like a
sister
.”
He stiffened, but recovered immediately. In the blink of an eye, he was moving again, walking alongside her in his usual easy, arrogant way, expecting all the world to give way before him. Why shouldn’t he demand she solve his romantic difficulties? It was her purpose in life, as it was the purpose of all ordinary beings, to serve him. And wasn’t that her job, serving people like him? Not merely her job, but her
ambition
?
It wouldn’t occur to him that this was a thoroughly unreasonable way to behave with a woman he’d driven himself mad trying to make love him.
It wouldn’t occur to him how painful this was for such a woman.
She reminded herself the pain was nobody’s fault but hers for letting herself fall in love with him. She was a Noirot. She of all women ought to know better.
And being a Noirot, she needed to be thinking with her head—and not the soft bit, either.
He had to marry Lady Clara. All Marcelline’s plans had one objective: making the Duchess of Clevedon her loyal client. If this marriage didn’t take place, who knew how long it would be before he found someone else? It could be days. It could be years. And regardless how much time it took, how many other women in London could provide as splendid a framework for Marcelline’s dresses?
Furthermore, that framework wouldn’t provide nearly as good advertising were Lady Clara to marry a lesser being than the Duke of Clevedon.
In any case, she’d already cultivated Lady Clara and was grooming her to be a leader of fashion. Marcelline had already won her loyalty. In spite of all the rumors and scandal. In spite of Lady Warford.
In fact, Lady Clara had a fitting this afternoon.
A nursemaid walking with a little girl stopped to admire Lucie’s doll. She obligingly stopped the baby carriage and took out Susannah for inspection.
“What a pretty dress!” the little girl exclaimed.
“My mama made it,” Lucie said. “She makes dresses for ladies and princesses.”
She put Susannah back and the nursemaid led the little girl away. The latter dragged her feet, looking back over her shoulder at Lucie’s doll.
“You ought to give Lucie business cards to hand out,” Clevedon said. “Have you thought of adding a line of doll dresses?”
“No.”
“Think about it.”
She had too much to think about as it was. “Lady Clara is coming for a fitting later today,” she said. “A dress for Friday night. One of the Season’s most important balls, I understand.”
“Friday?” He frowned, thinking. “Damn. That must be Lady Brownlow’s do. I suppose I’d better attend.”
“Of course you’ll attend,” she said. “It’s one of the high points of the Season.”
“That doesn’t say much for the Season.”
“What is the matter with you?” she said. “I know you like to dance.”
“In Paris,” he said. “In Vienna. In Venice.”
“Do you know how many men and women would give a vital organ to be invited to that ball?” she said.
“You?” he said. “Wouldn’t you like to be there, showing off one of your creations?” A smile caught at the corner of his mouth and devilment danced in his eyes. “I should like to see you get into that party, uninvited.”
She wanted to scream.
“Are you not paying attention?” she said. “You need to court Lady Clara. What you don’t need is the woman everybody thinks is your latest liaison calling attention to herself. And what I don’t need is to alienate precisely the people I want to come into my shop. How many times must I explain this to you? How can you be so thick?”
He looked away. “I was picturing you at the ball, and it amused me. Well, I’ll imagine it while I’m there. That should allay the tedium.”
She could picture herself there, too—not the self she was, but the self she might have been, a gentleman’s daughter. But then, if she’d been welcome to that ball, she wouldn’t have Lucie. She would never have learned how to make clothes. She would never have truly found herself.
Not to mention she’d look like the rest of them.
Her life wouldn’t be so hard but it wouldn’t be nearly so much fun. One need only consider how bored he was, the great, spoiled numskull! Lady Brownlow had recently been elected a patroness of Almack’s. She was one of Society’s premier hostesses. Her parties were famous. And he acted as though he was forced to attend a lecture in calculus or one of those other horrible mathematical things.
“You will attend,” she said. “And you will
not
arrive late. You’ll make it clear that you want only to see Lady Clara, to be with Lady Clara. You’ll act as though no other woman in the place exists for you. You’ll act as though you haven’t known her for ages, but have only now truly discovered her. It will seem as though she has suddenly appeared to you, like a vision, like Venus rising from the sea.”
She wished Sophy were here to offer less clichéd dramatic imagery.
“You’ll sweep her off her feet,” she went on. “If the weather allows, you’ll lure her out onto the terrace or balcony or someplace private, and you’ll make it very romantic, and you’ll make it impossible for her to say anything but yes. It’s a seduction, Clevedon. Do keep that in mind. This isn’t your dear friend or your sister. This is a woman, a beautiful, desirable woman, and you are going to
seduce
her into becoming your duchess.”
Countess of Brownlow’s ball
Friday night
T
he Duke of Clevedon resolved to do exactly as Noirot advised. He refused to let himself think about what he was doing because, he told himself, there was nothing to think about. He wanted Clara to marry him. She’d always been meant for him. He’d always loved her.
Like a sister.
He crushed the thought the instant it popped into his mind. He went to Lady Brownlow’s ball. He followed Noirot’s instructions to the letter. He arrived not too early, because that would be gauche, but in good time. And he hunted Clara as he would have hunted a popular demimondaine or a dashing matron.
He exerted himself to amuse her, whispering witty remarks into her shell-shaped ear whenever he could get close enough. She was looking quite handsome this evening, and the sodding idiot beaux couldn’t keep away.
Noirot had dressed Clara in rose crepe, one of those robe sort of things. The front opening of this one revealed a white satin under-dress. Some ribbons crisscrossed the deep white V of the bodice, calling attention to her décolletage, while the bodice itself was shaped in diagonal folds that emphasized her voluptuous figure.
The men were almost visibly drooling and the women were almost visibly green.
He led her out to dance, aware that he was the luckiest man at the ball.
And he loved her.
Like a sister.
He strangled the thought while they danced, and it lay lifeless and forgotten in a dark, cobwebbed corner of his mind for the ensuing hours. It still lay dead in the shadows when, as instructed, he led Clara out to the terrace. Others were there, but they’d found their own relatively private corners. No one could be completely private, of course. It wasn’t that sort of party. The lights from the ballroom cast a faint glow over the terrace. A sickle moon was sinking behind the trees toward the horizon, but the wispy clouds racing overhead didn’t conceal the stars. It was a romantic enough evening.
He made her laugh and he made her blush, and then, when he deemed the moment exactly right, he said, “I have something very important to ask you, my dear.”
She smiled up at him. “Do you, indeed?”
“All my happiness depends on it,” he said. Was that an amused smile? Mocking? But no, she was probably nervous. He was, certainly.
Time to take her in his arms.
He did it. She didn’t push him away.
Good. That was good.
But something was wrong.
No, everything was perfect.
He bent his head to kiss her.
She put her hand up, blocking the route to her mouth.
He lifted his head, and something skittered inside, cool, like relief . . .
But no, that was impossible.
She was looking up at him, still smiling, but now there was a spark in her eyes. He tried to remember when he’d seen that expression before. Then he recalled her eyes sparking in the same way when she snapped at something her mother said.
He wished Noirot were there to shout instructions—or get control of Clara—because he sensed that the situation had taken an unexpected turn, and not a good one, and he wasn’t at all sure how to turn it back.
Then he realized what he should have done.
Idiot.
He should have asked first.
He drew back and said, “Forgive me. That was stupid. Presumptuous.”
She raised her perfect eyebrows.
His speech, the speech he’d practiced for hours, went straight out of his head. He plunged on. “I meant to ask, first, if you would do me the very great honor of becoming my wife.” He started to reach inside his coat for the ring. “I meant—I hardly knew what I meant . . .” Where the devil was it? “You look so beautiful—”
“Stop it,” she said. “Stop it. How stupid do you think I am?”
He paused in his searching. “Stupid? Certainly not . . . We’ve always understood each other, you and I. We’ve shared jokes. How could I write all those letters to a stupid girl?”
“You stopped writing them,” she said. “You stopped writing as soon as you met— But no, that isn’t the point. Look at me.”
He took his hand away from his coat. “I’ve been looking all night,” he said. “You’re the most beautiful girl here. The most beautiful girl in London.”
“I’m different!” she said. “I’m completely different. But you haven’t noticed. I’ve changed. I’ve learned. All the other men notice. But not you. I’m still Clara to you. I’m still your friend. I’m not really a woman to you.”
“Don’t be absurd. All night—”
“All night you’ve been
acting
! You practiced this, didn’t you? I can tell. There’s no
passion
!”
Her voice was climbing and he became aware of other terrace occupiers casually drawing nearer. “Clara, maybe we—”
“I deserve passion,” she said. “I deserve to be loved—in
every
way. I deserve a man who’ll give his whole heart, not the part he isn’t using at the moment, the part he can spare for his
friends
.”
“That isn’t fair,” he said. “I’ve loved you all my life.”
“Like a
sister
!”
The dead thing sprang up from its corner and came running to the front of his mind. He knocked it down again. “It’s more than that,” he said. “You know it’s more than that.”
“Is it? Well, I don’t care.” She tossed her head. Clara actually tossed her head. “It isn’t more to me. When you’re about, it’s the same as if I were with Harry. No, it’s worse, because lately you’ve been a dead bore, and he, obnoxious as he is, is at least entertaining. I know you men are bound to have your outside interests— Oh, why should I bother with euphemisms? We both know we’re talking about other women. Mama has drummed that into me. We’re supposed to overlook it. Men are born that way and it can’t be helped. I was prepared to overlook it.”
“Clara, I swear to you—”
“Don’t,” she said. “I’m long past that. If you can’t keep an engagement for dinner, if you can’t be bothered to send a message—a few words only: ‘Sorry, Clara. Something came up.’ But you can’t do that much. If this is how it’s going to be—you getting all broody and distracted every time you fall in lust with somebody—well, I haven’t the stomach for it. I won’t put up with it, not for a dukedom. Not for three dukedoms. I deserve better than the role of quietly accepting wife. I’m an interesting woman. I read. I have opinions. I appreciate poetry. I have a sense of humor.”