Vixen in Velvet (The Dressmakers 3)

“It most certainly isn’t!”

“Don’t be absurd,” she said. “You make yourself a sort of Praetorian Guard for Lord Swanton, and try to do all his thinking for him, as though he were mentally deficient. I’ve seen no signs of that. He seems to me a perfectly normal, healthy, man—certainly not lacking in virility, if what that woman said is true.”

“Damnation, you don’t know anything about—” He broke off, aware of heads turning their way. “We can’t stand here arguing—and most certainly not about Swanton’s virility.” And he needed to calm down. “I understand you’re upset,” he went on, very very calmly. “You’ve more than sufficient reason. But can we discuss this in a rational manner in a less public place? Crawford and Hempton are gaping at us and trying to draw nearer to listen without making it obvious.”

She threw Crawford and Hempton a dazzling smile, and the pair of hardened rogues and gamesters looked abashed. They promptly turned away and began talking in an animated manner.

“We’re not discussing anything at present,” she said. “I need to find my girls and send them home before a jokester decides to humiliate them with Swanton’s folly. Someone’s bound to subject them to ghastly puns that will go over their heads. But we can expect more obvious and obscene jokes as well. We need to get them out of here.”

“I’ve sent Geddings after them,” he said, naming one of his cousin Clara’s numerous hopeless suitors. “His lordship is familiar with Simpson’s tours. Since they follow an established pattern, he’ll find them easily enough. Equally important, Geddings is a large fellow whose setdowns are famously deadly. Between his standing guard and Simpson’s talent for making trouble go away, your girls will be able to enjoy their evening unmolested. That’s one worry you can put out of your mind.”

She regarded him expressionlessly for a moment.

“A waiter is holding a supper box empty for us,” he said. He’d bribed the waiter to do so. He gestured. “This way, if you would be so kind, madame. And, yes, I know I deserve no kindness, but I’m counting on your charitable impulses.”

That won him a narrow look, which was marginally more encouraging than the blank stare.

“I realize you’d rather not be seen with me,” he began.

“On the contrary, I like being seen with you,” she said. “Your attire always sets mine off to advantage. I chose this dress because I’ve noticed that your valet often favors a dash of green to complement your eyes—an emerald stickpin, or a green waistcoat, or green embroidery on a white waistcoat. This is most convenient, because a redhead often looks well in greens and yellows few other women can carry off.”

He caught the tremor in her voice. She was furious. And why not?

“Thank you,” he said. “My humiliation is complete.”

“Yours?” she said. “My girls have been reduced to l-laughingstocks. My shop may n-never recover—”

“I’ll mend it, I promise,” he said. “You’re upset. You have every reason. Hate me all you like. Hate Swanton, too. But I must urge you to hate us in a less public place. And I must beg you to take some food and drink. You’re trembling.”

“With rage,” she said. She lifted her chin and blinked hard, once.

“You need to sit down,” he said. “You need a drink.”

“I don’t,” she said.

He gave her a little push. “Over there,” he said. “Don’t make me carry you.”

If Lisburne carried her, she would go to pieces.

Leonie let him take her arm and escort her to the supper box.

She sat, trying to summon her composure—and wondering at having lost it in the first place—while Lisburne gave the waiter an order.

The waiter had hardly gone when Lord Swanton turned up. And instantly launched into apologies.

She put up her hand. “Don’t,” she said. “Not a word.”

He looked at Lord Lisburne. “Sit,” he said. “Not a word.”

The poet sat. He looked wretched.

But what did she care? For him this was a temporary ailment, to which his lawyers would apply the infallible cure: money. For her and for her girls, it was a catastrophe.

“I do not understand,” she said. “Hadn’t you the slightest inkling?”

Swanton shook his head. “I swear—”

“No hint that you might be called to account publicly?” she said. “Because I recall one or two mentions of woman problems in Foxe’s Morning Spectacle. It never occurred to you that these might be warnings, rather than the usual random scandalmongering?”

Swanton pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. Lisburne can tell you. I get letters nearly every day from somebody claiming I promised this or that, including marriage.”

“But those were either typical begging letters or incompetent attempts at blackmail,” Lisburne said. “The writers seemed ignorant of Swanton’s having only recently arrived in London. He couldn’t possibly have formed the sort of ‘attachments’ they claimed. Or done any wooing. He hadn’t time. I can vouch for that.”

“Then the woman’s lying?” Leonie said. “It was a performance, meant to discredit you, no more?”

Lord Swanton looked at his cousin.

“Which is it?” Leonie said. She wanted to scream, but they’d all received quite enough attention. “The Milliners’ Society has lost at the very least a hundred pounds in pledges this night, because we’re instantly tainted by association. I can’t counteract this without knowing the truth.”

Lisburne began, “My dear, I promise—”

“Don’t,” she cut in. No my dears. Not now. Not ever. “For the same reason, it’s more than likely I’ll lose customers as well. I’ll be weeks, possibly months, undoing the damage. The least you gentlemen can do is answer me straight.”

“I wish I could,” Lord Swanton said. “The trouble is, I don’t know.”

Chapter Nine

A thousand faults in man we find—

Merit in him we seldom meet;

Man is inconstant and unkind;

Man is false and indiscreet;

Man is capricious, jealous, free:

Vain, insincere, and trifling too;

Yet still the women all agree,

For want of better—he must do.

&

nbsp; A.A., The Literary Gazette, 1818

For once Leonie Noirot wasn’t hiding much.

For once her face mirrored her feelings, and Lisburne well understood them.

She stared at Swanton in patent disbelief.

“The little girl,” Swanton said. “The woman said she was not five years old. She said it happened in Paris. It might have happened.”

“Might have,” she repeated.

“He doesn’t remember,” Lisburne said. “And it’s no use trying to make him remember.”

“Are you claiming amnesia?” she said. “Because otherwise . . .” She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, her mask was back in place. “It takes a great deal to shock me, Lord Swanton.” Her voice was nearly steady now. “Yet I’ll admit I’m a trifle taken aback. Were there so many women in your life in Paris at the time that you lost track?”

Swanton’s face reddened.

No help for it. He’d only jabber on inarticulately. Explanations would fall to Lisburne, as usual. “It was a difficult time,” he began. “After my—”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, Lady Alda,” came a familiar feminine voice from somewhere in the vicinity. “I had always thought—at least the general my papa said so, and as we all know, he’s always right—but where was I? Oh, yes, I had always thought that in this greatest of great nations of ours, a man was innocent until proven guilty.”

Everyone at Lisburne’s table went still.

The red faded from Swanton’s face, which settled into the frown of concentration he usually applied to composing verse.

“Yes of course, anything is possible, or so some will believe,” Gladys went on. “People believe in hobgoblins, too. Perhaps you weren’t aware, my dear, that Vauxhall is notorious for attracting strange characters, especially those desperate for attention. There was that fellow— What did he call himself? The Great something. What was it? About ten years ago, I believe. I read about it in one of Mr. Hone’s books. Do you know to whom I refer, Mr. Bates?”