The Mad Earl's Bride (Scoundrels 3.50)

One day, she’d marry a respectable man who would not get in the way of her work.

Not only was Longmore far from respectable, but he was a great thickhead who constantly got in one’s way—and who happened to be the eldest son of a woman who wanted the Noirot sisters wiped off the face of the earth.

Only a self-destructive moron would get involved with him.

Sophy directed her attention to his clothes. As far as tailoring went, his attire was flawless, the snug fit outlining every muscled inch from his big shoulders and broad chest and his lean waist and narrow hips down, down, down his long, powerful legs . . .

She scrubbed her mind again, reminded herself that clothing was her life, and regarded his attire objectively, as one professional considering the work of another.

She knew that he usually started an evening elegantly turned out. His valet, Olney, saw to it. But Longmore did not always behave elegantly, and what happened after he left the house Olney could not control.

By the looks of him, a great deal had happened after Olney released his master yesterday.

“You always were the intellectual giant of the family,” Longmore said to the duke. “You’ve deduced correctly. I stopped at Crockford’s. And elsewhere. I needed something to drive out the memory of those dreary hours at Almack’s.”

“You loathe those assemblies,” Clevedon said. “One can only assume that a woman lured you there.”

“My sister,” Longmore said. “She’s an idiot about men. My parents complain about it endlessly. Even I noticed what a sorry lot they are, her beaux. A pack of lechers and bankrupts. To discourage them, I hang about Clara and look threatening.”

Sophy could easily picture it. No one could loom as menacingly as he, gazing down on the world through half-closed eyes like a great, dark bird of prey.

“How unusually brotherly of you,” said Clevedon.

“That numskull Adderley was trying to press his suit with her.” Longmore helped himself to coffee and sat down next to Clevedon, opposite Marcelline. “She thinks he’s charming. I think he’s charmed by her dowry.”

“Rumor says he’s traveling up the River Tick on a fast current,” Clevedon said.

“I don’t like his smirk,” Longmore said. “And I don’t think he even likes Clara much. My parents loathe him on a dozen counts.” He waved his coffee cup at the newspaper. “They won’t find this coup of Sheridan’s reassuring. Still, it’s deuced convenient for you, I daresay. An excellent way to divert attention from your exciting nuptials.”

His dark gaze moved lazily to Sophy. “The timing couldn’t have been better. I don’t suppose you had anything to do with this, Miss Noirot?”

“If I had, I should be demanding a bottle of the duke’s best champagne and a toast to myself,” said Sophy. “I only wish I could have managed something so perfect.”

Though the three Noirot sisters were equally talented dressmakers, each had special skills. Dark-haired Marcelline, the eldest, was a gifted artist and designer. Redheaded Leonie, the youngest, was the financial genius. Sophy, the blonde, was the saleswoman. She could soften stony hearts and pry large sums from tight fists. She could make people believe black was white. Her sisters often said that Sophy could sell sand to Bedouins.

Had she been able to manufacture a scandal that would get Society’s shallow little mind off Marcelline and onto somebody else, Sophy would have done it. As much as she loved Marcelline and was happy she’d married a man who adored her, Sophy was still reeling from the disruption to their world, which had always revolved around their little family and their business. She wasn’t sure Marcelline and Clevedon truly understood the difficulties their recent marriage had created for Maison Noirot, or how much danger the shop was in.

But then, they were newlyweds, and love seemed to muddle the mind even worse than lust did. At present, Sophy couldn’t bear to mar their happiness by sharing her and Leonie’s anxieties.

The newlyweds exchanged looks. “What do you think?” Clevedon said. “Do you want to take advantage of the diversion and go back to work?”

“I must go back to work, diversion or not,” Marcelline said. She looked at Sophy. “Do let’s make a speedy departure, ma chère sœur. The aunts will be down to breakfast in the next hour or so.”

“The aunts,” Longmore said. “Still here?”

Clevedon House was large enough to accommodate several families comfortably. When the duke’s aunts came to Town on visits too short to warrant opening their own townhouses, they didn’t stay in hotels, but in the north wing.

Most recently they’d come to stop the marriage.

Originally, Marcelline and Clevedon had planned to wed the day after he’d talked—or seduced—her into marrying him. But Sophy and Leonie’s cooler heads had prevailed.

The wedding, they’d pointed out, was going to cause a spectacular uproar, very possibly fatal to business. But if some of Clevedon’s relatives were to attend the ceremony, signaling acceptance of the bride, it would subdue, to some extent, the outrage.

And so Clevedon had invited his aunts, who’d descended en masse to prevent the shocking misalliance. But no great lady, not even the Queen, was a match for three Noirot sisters and their secret weapon, Marcelline’s six-year-old daughter, Lucie Cordelia. The aunts had surrendered in a matter of hours.

Now they were trying to find a way to make Marcelline respectable. They actually believed they could present her to the Queen.

Sophy wasn’t at all sure that would do Maison Noirot any good. On the contrary, she suspected it would only fan the flames of Lady Warford’s hatred.

“Still here,” Clevedon said. “They can’t seem to tear themselves away.”

Marcelline rose, and the others did, too. “I’d better go before they come down,” she said. “They’re not at all reconciled to my continuing to work.”

“Meaning there’s a good deal more jawing than you like,” Longmore said. “How well I understand.” He gave her a wry smile, and bowed.

He was a man who could fill a doorway, and seemed to take over a room. He was disheveled, and disreputable besides, but he bowed with the easy grace of a dandy.

It was annoying of him to be so completely and gracefully at ease in that big brawler’s body of his. It was really annoying of him to ooze virility.

Sophy was a Noirot, a breed keenly tuned to animal excitement—and not possessing much in the way of moral principles.

If he ever found out how weak she was in this regard, she was doomed.

She sketched a curtsey and took her sister’s arm. “Yes, well, we’d better not dawdle, in any event. I promised Leonie I wouldn’t stay above half an hour.”

She hurried her sister out of the room.

LONGMORE WATCHED THEM go. Actually, he watched Sophy go, a fetching bundle of energy and guile.

“The shop,” he said when they were out of earshot. “Meaning no disrespect to your duchess, but—are they insane?”

“That depends on one’s point of view,” Clevedon said.

“Apparently, I’m not unbalanced enough in the upper storey to understand it,” Longmore said. “They might close it and live here. It isn’t as though you’re short of room. Or money. Why should they want to go on bowing and scraping to women?”

“Passion,” Clevedon said. “Their work is their passion.”

Longmore wasn’t sure what, exactly, passion was. He was reasonably certain he’d never experienced it.

He hadn’t even had an infatuation since he was eighteen.

Since Clevedon, his nearest friend, would know this, Longmore said nothing. He only shook his head, and moved to the sideboard. He heaped his plate with eggs, great slabs of bacon and bread, and a thick glob of butter to make it all slide down smoothly. He carried it to the table and began to eat.

He’d always regarded Clevedon’s home

as his own, and had been told he was to continue regarding it in the same way. The duchess seemed to like him well enough. Her blonde sister, on the other hand would just as soon shoot him, he knew—which made her much more interesting and entertaining.

That was why he’d waited and watched for her. That was why he’d followed her from Maison Noirot to Charing Cross. He’d spotted the newspaper in her hand, and deduced what it was.

By some feat of printing legerdemain—a pact with the devil, most likely—Foxe’s Morning Spectacle usually slunk onto the streets of London and into the newspaper sellers’ grubby hands not only well in advance of its competitors, but containing fresher scandal. Though many of the beau monde’s entertainments didn’t start until eleven at night or end before dawn, Foxe contrived to stuff the pages of his titillating rag with details of what everyone had done mere hours earlier.

This was no small achievement, even bearing in mind that “morning,” especially among the upper classes, was a flexible unit of time, extending well beyond noonday.

Curious about what was taking her to Clevedon House at this early hour, he’d bought a copy from the urchin hawking it on the next corner, and had dawdled for a time to look it over. By now familiar with Sophy’s writing, Longmore knew it wasn’t the sort of thing to take on an empty stomach. He’d persevered nonetheless. Though he couldn’t see how she could have had a hand in the Sheridan scandal, that was nothing new. She did a great deal he found intriguing—starting with the way she walked: She carried herself like a lady, like the women of his class, yet the sway of her hips promised something tantalizingly unladylike.

“I married Marcelline knowing she’d never give up her work,” Clevedon was saying. “If she did, she’d be like everyone else. She wouldn’t be the woman I fell in love with.”