Silk Is for Seduction (The Dressmakers 1)

What a state he was in!—a contained fury that made the air about him seem to thrum even while he appeared outwardly calm.

Clevedon wasn’t like this—not the Clevedon she knew, the man she’d recognized when he’d entered the drawing room and smiled in his old, fond way. This was a stranger.

She looked away, to gaze blankly at the passing scene while she tried to form an answer. She hardly knew what the other two women had been saying about the green dress. She’d been trying to hear what he was saying to Mrs. Noirot. She’d been trying to watch them without appearing to do so.

“I didn’t quite understand,” she said. “It was a beautiful dress, I thought, but they seemed to be discussing how to remake it.” She tried desperately to remember what exactly they’d said, but she had only half-listened, and now her mind was whirling.

She was not naïve. She knew Clevedon had affairs. Longmore did, too. But she’d never seen her brother in a state anything like Clevedon’s when Mrs. Noirot approached them. She’d been trying to make sense of that, when he snapped about Mama and . . . what Clara wore?

“I think . . .” She thought frantically. “I received the impression that something was wrong with the dress, but not wrong with the dress.”

“Clara, that makes no sense.”

Really, he could be as irritating as any of her brothers. She said goodbye to her patience. “If it’s so important to you, you’d better ask Mrs. Noirot,” she said. “What did you mean about Mama and what I wear?”

“Damnation,” he said.

“You told me I ought to shop there, but you said I must not take Mama.”

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I should not have said that.”

“Oh, come, Clevedon. When did you ever mince words with me? What makes you so missish all of a sudden?”

“Missish?”

“So delicate. One of the things I have always liked about you is your refusing to treat me like an imbecile female. In your letters, you speak your mind. Or so I thought. Well, perhaps you don’t tell me everything.”

“Good God, certainly not. And I shall not tell you where to have your dresses made. It’s of no concern to me.”

“You may be sure that I shall take care not to ask you to accompany me to a dressmaker ever again,” she said. “It puts you in the vilest temper.”

Some hours later

“The little wretch!” Marcelline said, when they were closing up the shop that evening. “I knew she wouldn’t forget his fine carriage or his fine self.”

“My dear, she can’t help it,” said Sophy. “It’s in her blood. She can spot a mark at fifty paces.”

“He didn’t seem to mind,” said Leonie. She’d come out into the showroom in time to see Clevedon and Lady Clara leave.

All three sisters had had time to observe Lucie/Erroll’s antics through the shop windows. It was clear in an instant that Millie had lost control of her, but it had taken Marcelline precious minutes to extract herself from Lady Renfrew and go out to collect her wayward child.

Sitting on his lap, the schemer, and holding the ribbons! She’d be expecting to drive her own carriage next.

“Of course he didn’t mind,” Marcelline said. “She was at her winsome best, and even the Duke of Clevedon can’t help but succumb.” Meanwhile, she, more cynical and calculating than he could ever be, had not been able to steel her heart against the sweet, indulgent smile he bestowed upon her daughter.

“She made sure to shed some winsomeness on Lady Clara, I noticed,” said Sophy.

“Yes,” Marcelline said.

“He did bring her,” Leonie said. “And not a moment too soon.”

They hadn’t had time until now to talk of the day’s events, because the day had been exceedingly eventful.

Marcelline had had her hands full, making the changes to Lady Renfrew’s dress. She’d had to do this in secret, of all things—upstairs, away from the seamstresses, as though she were forging passports. Meanwhile Sophy and Leonie, in between trying to calm two other irate customers, had to dance attendance on the steady trickle of curious ladies who’d come mainly to stare at the famous gown.

The curious ladies gaped at the dress and peered into every corner of the shop, looking for Marcelline. They made the sisters show them lengths of fabric and take out of the drawers any number of buttons, ribbons, beads, feathers, fur, and other trim.

They left without buying anything.

At present, Sophy and Marcelline were restoring order to the drawers of trim and accessories. Leonie, as she did every evening, was taking an inventory of the showroom and trying to deduce which of their visitors had made off with a length of black satin ribbon, eleven jet buttons, and three cambric handkerchiefs.

“His timing couldn’t have been better,” Marcelline said. “If he hadn’t turned up while Lady Renfrew was in the shop, I think we might have lost her forever.”

She told herself to concentrate on that, and never mind the savage beating of her heart when she’d heard his voice. He’d come in the nick of time, and that was what mattered. It was all very well to offer to remake a dress to appease an irate customer, but customers had no idea of the amount of work involved. Meanwhile, into Lady Renfrew’s mind would enter poisonous doubts about Marcelline’s advertised ability to create “unique styles, designed for the individual, not the general.”

“That doesn’t bear thinking of,” said Leonie. “Lady Clara is all very well, but we haven’t got her yet. At present Lady Renfrew is our best customer. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

Lady Renfrew’s gown had been delivered precisely at seven o’clock—a few last, minor alterations had taken not half an hour—and Sophy had left a mollified customer behind her.

“She’ll be back,” Sophy said. “The whole time I was there, she talked about the duke and Lady Clara. You know that’s all she’ll talk about tonight at Mrs. Sharp’s. She’ll be quoting him, you may be sure: ‘You won’t find a better dressmaker in London—or Paris, for that matter.’ ” She mimicked Clevedon’s bored voice and his accent—the unmistakable sound of the upper reaches of the privileged classes.

“We can only hope she was too busy being impressed with his grandeur to notice the way he looked at Marcelline,” said Leonie.

“Like a hungry wolf,” said Sophy.

Marcelline went hot all over. She still hadn’t shaken off the feelings he’d stirred, And with what? A look. The sound of his voice. She still felt his melting green gaze upon her. She still heard the husky intimacy of his voice. Had she been free to do so, had she nothing and no one else to consider but herself, she would have led his provoking self away into one of the shop’s back rooms and had her way with him, and there would be an end of it.

But she wasn’t free, on a dozen counts. His beautiful bride-to-be stood a few yards away, across the shop, and the easy way he and she conversed made their mutual affection clear. Marcelline had pointed this out to herself. She’d planted Lucie’s image firmly in her mind, too. And

her own parents, the living example of what happened to a family when the adults thought only of themselves, their whims and passions.

She had no morals to speak of, but her survival instincts were acute. Succumbing to Clevedon was a mistake that would undermine the respect she’d worked day and night to earn. That would destroy her business and, with it, her family.

Even so, when she’d looked up into his eyes, and felt as much as heard the sound of his voice, her brain clouded over and her willpower ebbed away.

Such a fool she was! She need only recall how Charlie had looked at her, and the husky longing in his voice . . .

And where had that led?

“That’s the way Clevedon always looks at women,” she said. “That’s the look of an expert seducer. Engrave it upon your mind, if you don’t want to end up on your back, or against a wall, losing your maidenhead before you’d quite meant to.”

“He didn’t look at Lady Clara that way,” Leonie said.

“Why should he?” Marcelline said. “Everything between them is settled or as good as settled. He takes her for granted, the coxcomb. But that’s their problem. If she’s wise, she’ll find a way to get his full attention. It’s not that difficult. Meanwhile, we have a serious problem.” She glanced at the door leading to the workroom, now empty, the seamstresses having gone home at their usual time.

“Well,” said Leonie, “I have my suspicions.”

On Tuesday night, Mrs. Downes met with the seamstress at the usual time at the usual place.

The seamstress gave her a pattern she’d copied.

“That’s all?” Mrs. Downes said. “You promised me a book of patterns, with details.”

“And you’ll get it,” the seamstress said. “But they were in an uproar over that green dress of Lady Renfrew’s, and then we were run ragged, fetching this and that for all the ladies coming to look at the dress Mrs. Noirot wore to that ball.”

Mrs. Downes knew about the poussière dress, and the excitement it had stirred among the ladies. Her own customers had been talking about it, right in front of her!