Silk Is for Seduction (The Dressmakers 1)

He took the lid off the box, and lifted from it a doll—such a doll! She had black curling hair and vivid blue glass eyes. She was dressed in silver net and lace, trimmed with pearls. “I’m not taking it back,” he said. “Burn it, then.”

At that moment, Lucie burst through the door from the back. She stopped short at the sight of the doll, which the beast hadn’t the grace to return to its box.

She’d been watching the street from the window upstairs, no doubt, as she always did. She’d recognized his fine carriage.

She was six years old. It was too much to expect her to resist the doll. Her eyes widened. Yet she managed a creditable “Good evening, your grace,” and a curtsey. All the while, her eyes never left the doll. “My, that’s a fine doll,” she said. “I think it’s the most beautiful doll I’ve ever seen in all my life.”

All six years of it.

“You’re going to pay for this,” Marcelline said under her breath. “And painfully.”

“Is it, indeed?” he said to Lucie. “I’m not a good judge of these matters.”

“Oh, yes.” Lucie drew a step nearer. “She isn’t like ordinary dolls. Her eyes are blue glass, you see. And her face is so lifelike. And her hair is so beautiful, I think it must be real hair.”

“Perhaps you’d like to hold her,” Clevedon said.

“Oh, yes!” She started toward him, then hesitated and looked at Marcelline. “May I, Mama?” she asked in her best Dutiful Child voice.

“Yes,” Marceline said, because there was nothing else she could say. She was hardheaded and practical, and any mother would know this was setting a terrible precedent as well as compromising her reputation.

But to deny her child—any child—such a treat, after the child had seen it and had done nothing wrong to be punished for, was wanton cruelty. She was a strict mother. She had to be. But too many cruelties, large and small, had marked her own childhood. That was one legacy she wouldn’t pass on.

Folding his large frame, he crouched down to Lucie’s level. Solemnly he held out the doll. Equally solemnly, she took it, holding her breath until it was safely in her arms. Then she held it so carefully, as though she believed the thing was magical, and might disappear in a minute. “What is her name?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” he said. “I thought you would know.”

Oh, the wretched, manipulative man!

Lucie considered. “If she were my doll, I should call her Susannah.”

“I think she would like to be your doll,” Clevedon said. He slanted a glance upward, at Marcelline. “If she may.”

Though she was captivated by the doll, Lucie didn’t fail to see whose permission he sought. “Oh, if Mama says she may? Mama, may she? May she be my doll?”

“Yes,” Marcelline said. What other answer could she make, curse him!

“Oh, thank you, Mama!” Lucie turned back to Clevedon, and the look she sent him from those great blue eyes was calculated to break his heart, which Marcelline sincerely hoped it did. “Thank you, your grace. I shall take very good care of her.”

“I know you will,” he said.

“Her limbs move, you see,” Lucie said, demonstrating. “She needn’t wear only one dress. This one is very beautiful, but she’s like a princess, and a princess must have a vast wardrobe. Mama and my aunts will help me cut out and sew dresses for her. I’ll make her morning dresses and walking dresses and the most beautiful carriage dress, a blue redingote to match her eyes. The next time you come, you’ll see.”

The next time you come.

“Why don’t you take Susannah upstairs to meet your aunts?” Marcelline said. “I have something to discuss with his grace.”

Lucie went out, cradling the doll as though it were a living infant. Clevedon rose and watched her go out, through the door to the back of the shop. He was smiling, and it was a smile Marcelline had never seen before. It was not his charming smile or his seductive one or his winning one.

It was fond and wistful, and she could not withstand it. It won her and weakened her will more effectively than any of his other smiles could have done.

Which only made her angrier.

“Clevedon,” she began.

He turned back to her, the smile fading. “You may not rake me over the coals,” he said. “She set out to captivate me, much as her mother did—”

“She’s six years old!”

“You both succeeded,” he said. “What was I to do? She’s a little girl. Why should she not have a doll?”

“She has dolls! Does she seem neglected to you? Deprived in any way? She’s my daughter, and I take care of her. She has nothing to do with you. You’ve no business buying her dolls. What will Lady Clara think? What do you think your fine friends in the ton will say when they hear you’ve given my daughter gifts? You know they’ll hear of it.” Lucie would show the doll to the seamstresses, naturally, and they’d tell everybody they knew, and word would spread through the ton in no time at all. “And do you think their speculations will do my business any good?”

“That’s all you think about. Your business.”

“It’s my life, you great thickhead! This”—she swept her hand to indicate the shop—“This is how I earn my living. Can you not grasp this simple concept? Earning a living?”

“I’m not—”

“This is how I feed and clothe and house and educate my daughter,” she raged on. “This is how I provide for my sisters. What must I do to make you understand? How can you be so blind, so willfully obtuse, so—”

“You’ll make me run mad,” he said. “Everywhere I turn, there you are.”

“That’s monstrous unfair! Everywhere I go, there is your great carcass!”

“You upset everything,” he said. “I’ve been trying for a fortnight to propose to Clara, and every time I steel myself to it—”

“Steel yourself?”

“Every time,” he went on, unheeding, “you”—he waved his hand—“There you are. I went to Warford House today to come up to scratch, as you so poetically put it, but you had her worked up into such a state, we

couldn’t have a proper conversation, and all my speech—and I spent half an hour composing it—went out of my head.”

The door to the back of the shop opened again and Leonie came in.

“Oh, your grace,” she said, feigning surprise, though she’d probably heard the row from the stairs. Marcelline hoped the seamstresses had followed orders and left early, else they’d have had an earful.

“He was about to leave,” Marcelline said.

“No, I wasn’t,” he said.

“It’s closing time,” Marcelline said, “and we know you aren’t buying anything.”

“Perhaps I shall,” he said.

“Leonie, please lock up for me,” she said. To him she said, “I’m not keeping my shop open all night to pander to your whims.”

“Do you plan to throw me out bodily?” he said.

She could knock him unconscious. Then she and her sisters could drag him out into the alley behind the shop. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d had to dispose of a troublesome male.

“You’re too big, curse you,” she said. “But we’re going to settle something, once and for all.”

Chapter Ten

Approaching Marriages in High Life.—A marriage is on the tapis between Mr Vaughan and Lady Mary Anne Gage, sister of Lord Kenmare. Viscount Palmerston, it is said, will shortly be united to the rich Mrs Thwaites.

The Court Journal, Saturday 25 April 1835

Marcelline stormed through the passage, past the stairs toward the back of the building, and through the open door into the workroom.

She met chaos.

Worktable covered with scraps of fabric, thimbles, thread, pincushions. Floor littered with debris. Chairs left where they’d been pushed out. It looked as though seamstresses had fled or been chased out.

She didn’t have time or mind to wonder at it. She didn’t have time or mind to put two and two together. The state of the room was one more trial in a long, wearying day of biting her tongue and maintaining an even temper in the face of stupidity, rudeness, and ill-usage. A long day of crushing her own wants and giving all her energy to winning and pleasing.