Silk Is for Seduction (The Dressmakers 1)

“No, Miss Leonie. It’s his grace the Duke of Clevedon and his friend, the other tall, dark gentleman.”

“Lord Longmore?” Sophy said. “He was here only a little while ago.”

“Yes, miss, that’s the one. They’re trying to kill each other, I vow! I couldn’t stand to watch—and besides, there was all sorts of men coming along to see. It wasn’t any place for a girl on her own.”

Sophy and Leonie didn’t have Jeffreys’s delicate scruples. They ran out to watch the fight. They didn’t notice that their older sister didn’t follow.

Sophy and Leonie returned not very long after they’d gone out.

Marcelline had given up trying to create something beautiful. She wasn’t in the mood. She looked in on the seamstresses, then she went upstairs and looked in on Lucie, who was reading to Susannah from one of the books Clevedon had bought.

After the visit to the nursery, Marcelline went into their sitting room and poured herself a glass of brandy.

She’d taken only a few sips before her sisters returned, looking windblown and sounding a little out of breath, but otherwise undamaged.

They poured brandy, too, and reported.

“It was delicious,” Sophy said. “They must practice at the boxing salons, because they’re very good.”

“It didn’t look like practice to me,” Leone said. “It looked like they were trying to kill each other.”

“It was wonderfully ferocious,” Sophy said. “Their hats were off, and their coats, too, and they were trampling their neckcloths. Their hair was wild and they had blood on their clothes.” She fanned herself with her hand. “I vow, it was enough to make a girl swoon.”

“It put me in mind of the Roman mobs at the Coliseum,” Leonie said. “Half of White’s must have been there—all those fine gentlemen, and all of them shouting and betting on the outcome and egging them on.”

“Leonie’s right,” Sophy said. “It did look to be getting out of hand, and I was thinking we ought to find a safer place to watch from. But then the Earl of Hargate came out of St. James’s Palace with some other men.”

“Straight through the crowd of men he came, pushing them out of his way—and he must be sixty if he’s a day,” Leonie said.

“But he carries himself like Zeus,” Sophy said. “And the men gave way, and he ordered his grace and his lordship to stop making damned fools of themselves.”

“They weren’t listening,” Leonie said.

“It was the bloodlust,” Sophy said. “They were like wolves.”

“None of the other men had dared to try to break it up,” Leonie said.

“But Lord Hargate waded right into the fight,” Sophy said. “And he got in the way of Longmore’s fist. But the earl dodged the blow—oh, Marcelline, I wish you’d seen it—and then he grabbed Longmore’s arm and pulled him away from Clevedon. And one of the gentleman with him—it had to be one of his sons—the same features, build, and coloring. Whichever one it was, he took hold of Clevedon.”

“And then the earl and his son dragged them away.”

“And one of the other gentlemen was threatening to read the Riot Act, and so we came away.” Sophy drank her brandy and poured some more.

“I’m sure we needn’t wonder what it was about,” Marcelline said. “Longmore avenging his sister’s honor, or some such.”

“Why should he need to?” Sophy said. “Everyone thought Lady Clara avenged her own honor very well. Anything Longmore did would be anticlimactic, don’t you think?”

“Then what provoked fisticuffs in St. James’s Street?” Leonie said.

“Don’t be thick,” Sophy said. “It’s not as though men need a sane reason. They were both in a bad mood. One of them picked a fight. And I’ll wager anything that now it’s over, they’ll be getting drunk together.”

“Why was Longmore in a bad mood, Sophy?” Marcelline said. “You said he’d been here, after Clevedon left.”

“He came to plague me about the ball and call me a traitor for spying for Tom Foxe on his sister and friend. I pretended not to know what he was talking about. Oh, Lord.” Her pretty countenance turned repentant. “Oh, Marcelline, what horrid sisters we are. We hear of a fight, and off we go, little bloodthirsty cats, and there you are, your heart breaking—”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Marcelline said. “Save the drama for the newspapers.”

“But what happened, dearest?” Sophy set down her glass and knelt by Marcelline and took her hand. “What did Clevedon say and what did you say—and why are you pretending your heart isn’t broken?”

Clevedon House

Sunday 10 May, three o’clock in the morning

The house was dark, everyone abed but one. In the library, a single candle flickered over a solitary figure in a dressing gown whose pen scratched rapidly across the paper.

The Duke of Clevedon had done his best to beat Longmore to a bloody pulp. Afterward they’d emptied one bottle after another. Yet he’d come home all too sober. It seemed there wasn’t enough drink in all the world to dull the ache in his heart or quiet his conscience and let him sleep.

Nothing to be done about the heartache but endure.

His conscience was another matter.

It drove him to the library. Then, even before he took up his pen to write to Clara, he knew how it must begin:

Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments, or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you.

It was the start of Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, Clara’s favorite novel. He could easily imagine her reluctant smile when she read it. He continued in his own words:

I was wrong to make an offer, and you were right in all you said, but you said not half enough. Our listeners should have heard the thousand ways I’ve taken you for granted and tried your good nature and the ways I’ve thought only of myself and never of you. You’ve been true to me for all the time I’ve known you, and for all that time I, too, have been true only to me. When you were grieving for the grandmother I knew you dearly loved, I abandoned you to jaunt about the Continent. I expected you to wait for me, and you did. How, then, did I return your patience and loyalty? I was neglectful, insensitive, and false.

He wrote on, of the many ways he’d wronged her. She’d brought joy and light into his life when he was a lonely, heartbroken boy. Her letters had brightened his days. She was dear to him, and always would be, but t

hey were friends and no more. Surely he’d known in his heart this wasn’t enough for marriage, but it was the easy way and he took it. He’d been false to her and false to himself, because he’d been a coward, afraid to risk his heart.

He acknowledged all his thoughtless and unkind acts, and concluded:

I’m sorry, my dear, so deeply sorry. I hope in time you’ll forgive me—though I can’t at the moment suggest a reason to do so. With all my heart I wish you the happiness I ought to have been able to give you and a hundred times more.

He wrote his usual affectionate closing, and signed with his initial, as he always did.

He folded up the letter, addressed it, and left it in the tray for the servant to take out with the morning mail.

Then, only the heartache remained.

Chapter Seventeen

Experience, the mother of true wisdom, has long since convinced me, that real beauty is best discerned by real judges; and the addresses of a sensible lover imply the best compliment to a woman of understanding.

La Belle Assemblée,

or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine,

Advertisements for June 1807

Early afternoon, Sunday 10 May

The Duke of Clevedon blinked at the excessively bright light. Saunders, the sadist, stood looking down at him. He’d opened the curtains, and the sun was as bright as lightning bolts. When Clevedon moved his head, thunder cracked, right against his skull.

“I’m so sorry to disturb you, your grace.”

“No, you’re not,” Clevedon croaked.

“Mr. Halliday was most insistent,” Saunders said. “He said you would wish to be wakened. Mrs. Noirot is here.”

Clevedon sat up abruptly. His brain thumped painfully against something hard and sharp. The interior of his skull had grown thorns. “Lucie,” he said. “Is she ill? Lost? Damn, I told her that child needed . . .” The sentence trailed off as his drink-poisoned brain caught up with his tongue.

“Mrs. Noirot said we were to assure your grace that the Princess Erroll of Albania is well and safely at home doing sums with her aunt. Mr. Halliday has taken the liberty of asking Mrs. Noirot to wait in the library. Being aware that you would need time to dress, he saw to it that refreshment was brought to her. I have brought your coffee, sir.”