Silk Is for Seduction (The Dressmakers 1)

“We can talk on Sunday,” she said.

“Later today,” he said.

“I’m engaged with Sylvie,” she said.

“Break the engagement.”

“I’m not free until Sunday,” she said. “You may take me riding in the Bois de Boulogne when it isn’t teeming with aristocrats showing off their finery. After Longchamp, the place will be relatively quiet.”

“I was thinking of a place not so public,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” she said. “But let’s not debate now. Send me a message on Saturday, and I’ll meet you on Sunday, wherever you choose, as long as it isn’t too disreputable. There are places even a lowly dressmaker shuns.”

“Wherever I choose,” he repeated.

“To talk,” she said.

“Yes, of course,” he said. “We have business to discuss.”

She was well aware that the business he wanted to discuss was not her shop and Lady Clara’s patronage thereof. She’d been a fool to imagine she could manage this man. She should have realized that a duke is used to getting his own way, to a degree common folk could scarcely imagine. She should have realized that getting his way all his life would affect his brain and make him not altogether like other men.

In short, she would have done better to keep out of his way and send Sophy after his bride-to-be.

But she hadn’t realized, and now she had to salvage the situation as best she could. She knew only one way to do that.

“I know your footmen are mere mechanical devices to you,” she said. “But I can only think that one or both of them is sure to take a chill, and develop a putrid sore throat or affection of the lungs. So bourgeois of me, I know, but I can’t help it.”

Again he glanced back. One footman stood at a discreet distance, holding the umbrella, awaiting his grace’s pleasure. The other stood on his perch at the back of the carriage. They’d both donned cloaks, which by now must be soaked through, in spite of their umbrellas.

“Until Sunday, then,” she said.

His gaze came back to her, unreadable. “Sunday it is.”

She smiled and said good night, and made herself stroll calmly through the door the hotel porter held open for her.

Clevedon strode briskly back to the coach, under the umbrella Joseph held.

He had to get her out of his mind. He had to regain his sanity.

He made himself speak. “Filthy night,” he said.

“Yes, your grace.”

“Paris isn’t pretty in the rain,” Clevedon said.

“No, your grace. The gutters are disgraceful.”

“What took us so long?”

“An accident, your grace,” Joseph said. “A pair of vehicles collided. It didn’t look serious to me, but the drivers were shouting at each other, then others got into it, and there was a bit of a riot. But when the lightning struck, they all scattered. Otherwise we might be boxed in there yet.”

The way Noirot had fussed about his poor, drenched footmen, Clevedon had expected to find them slumped on the ground, clutching their chests.

But when he’d looked back, Thomas was talking animatedly over the top of the carriage to Hayes, the coachman. And here was Joseph, full of youthful energy, though it must be close to two o’clock in the morning.

All three servants would have vastly enjoyed watching the Parisians pummel one another. They would have laughed uproariously when the lightning sent the combatants scurrying.

Hayes was a tough old bird who cared only how circumstances affected his horses, and he’d kept them calm. The footmen were young, and youth cared nothing for a bit of damp.

All of Clevedon’s servants were well paid and well dressed and well fed. They were doctored when they were ill and pensioned generously when they retired.

That wasn’t the case in every household, he knew, and a shopkeeper would have no way of knowing how well or ill his servants were treated. Being in the service line herself, Noirot was liable to attacks of sympathy.

Even so . . .

He climbed into the carriage. The door closed after him.

He didn’t trust her.

He didn’t trust her as far as he could throw her.

She cheated at cards—he was sure of it—or if she didn’t cheat, she shaved honesty mighty close.

She said she did not seduce her patron’s menfolk, but she’d—

“By God,” he muttered. “By God.” Her scent lingered in the carriage, and he could almost taste her still. He could almost feel her skin under his fingertips.

Only a kiss.

He’d gone from desire to madness in a single pulse beat.

He was still . . . not right.

And no wonder.

They would have to finish it. Then he could put her out of his mind and complete in peace his remaining weeks of freedom.

Chasing a provoking woman about Paris was not part of his plans, and certainly not in his style. He was accustomed to games with women, yes. He liked play as well as foreplay. But it was an altogether different matter, dancing to the tune of an impudent dressmaker who would not stop talking about her curst business—even if she made him want to laugh at the exact instant he wanted to choke her—and even if she kissed like Satan’s own mistress, trained specially by Mephistopheles, who’d helped design her body . . . her perfect breasts . . . the smooth arc of her neck . . . the exquisite curve of her ears . . .

Her wicked tongue.

Her lying tongue.

What engagement had she with Sylvie Fontenay that would occupy all of Friday and Saturday?

Meanwhile, at the Hotel Fontaine

“Pack?” Jeffreys repeated. Expecting Marcelline to come back late, she’d napped. She was brightly alert at the moment.

So was Marcelline. She was alert with panic. “We need to leave as early as possible

tomorrow. Today, I mean,” she said.

It was only two o’clock in the morning on Friday. If they could get seats on a steam packet to London on Saturday, they could be home as early as Sunday. The guests at the ball would not be writing their letters until later today, which meant they mightn’t be posted until Saturday. And the London post was closed on Sundays.

With any luck, she and Jeffreys would be in London before any letters arrived from Paris. That would give Sophy time to devise a way to capitalize on any rumors about Mrs. Noirot and the Duke of Clevedon.

“We haven’t a minute to lose,” she said. “By Tuesday or Wednesday, the rumors will be flying. We have to manage them.”

Jeffreys didn’t say, “What rumors?” She was not naïve and she was not stupid. She knew Marcelline had attended the ball with the Duke of Clevedon. She’d noticed the torn dress. She’d even raised an eyebrow. But it was an interested eyebrow, not a shocked or censorious one. Jeffreys was no innocent lamb. She’d had dealings with the upper orders, especially its male contingent. That was how she’d ended up as “an unfortunate female.”

No one had to tell her how the dress had come to be damaged. Her concern was whether the damage was reparable.

“It’s all a matter of interpretation,” Marcelline said. “We simply reinterpret. Something like—let me see—‘Duke of C captivated by Mrs. Noirot’s gown of poussière silk displayed to magnificent advantage in the course of a waltz,’ ” Marcelline said, thinking aloud. “No, it wants more detail. ‘Gown of poussière silk, dotted with crimson papillon bows, a black lace pelerine completing the ensemble . . . met with the approval of one of the highest ranking members of the peerage.’ Yes, that could do it.”

“I can mend it easily,” said Jeffreys. “Everyone will want to see it.”

“They will see it, if we manage this properly,” Marcelline said. “But that means taking charge of the tale before anyone else gets it. Sophy can give her contact at Foxe’s Morning Spectacle an exclusive, early report. She’ll tell him the Duke of Clevedon took me to the party as one of his jokes. Or to win a wager.”

“Wouldn’t a joke be better?” said Jeffreys. “To some people, a wager might sound disreputable.”