Silk Is for Seduction (The Dressmakers 1)

He hurried to the back, keeping close to the wall to find his way, because the way was utter darkness. But he remembered seeing a back door on the ground floor. That would give way to a yard. All he needed was a back stair or a window or even a light closet, which would contain a window.

He came to the end of the passage, and his outstretched hand struck plaster. He’d found no door frame on the way. Now his hand met only flat wall.

No. There had to be a way out.

The smoke was thickening, the heat unbearable. Holding fast to Lucie, he slid one hand along the hot wall and struck wood—a window. He didn’t even try to wrench it open.

“Hold very tight, sweet,” he told Lucie. “Don’t look and don’t let go, no matter what.”

Then he kicked as hard as he could, and glass shattered, and wood, too. He kicked and kicked, knocking out the glass and the crosspieces. The night was dark, and he looked down, dreading what he’d find: a long leap down, for these buildings rarely offered any purchase for climbing. But his luck held, and below, he made out the outline of the yard’s back wall. Circling Lucie with his arms, to shield her from sharp ends of glass and wood, he climbed over the sill and dropped to the wall, then down, onto the roof of a privy on the other side of the wall. Though the air was smoky, it was cooler, and he could make out the faint glow of a street lamp through the smoke.

Yes, he said silently. Thank you.

His throat closed up and, cradling the child he’d feared he couldn’t save, he wept.

Marcelline was sunk so deep in grief that she scarcely noticed anything else.

At some point, though, she became aware of the atmosphere about her lightening, and the clamor abating. The street grew so hushed that she could hear clearly the hiss and gurgle of water streaming into the shop and the voices of the fire company men giving orders.

Even while she listened, their voices subsided, too, and someone cried, “Look! Look there!”

Noise again, but different. Glad noise. Cheering.

She felt hands on her shoulders, pulling. She lifted her head and thought at first it was a dream, a cruel dream.

That could not be Clevedon . . . that great, hulking, blackened and ragged mess . . . carrying . . . carrying a blackened bundle. Little legs dangling out from the edge of a dress . . . rumpled stockings . . . one foot missing a shoe.

Hands were pulling Marcelline to her feet and she shook her head and closed her eyes and opened them again. But it wasn’t a dream.

It was Clevedon, and that was Lucie in his arms.

Alive?

Marcelline couldn’t make her feet move. She only stood, swaying and confused, like one come back from the dead.

He walked out of the nightmare—the black monster behind him, flames still flickering in the windows.

He walked toward her, his big hand cradling Lucie’s head. She had her arms wrapped about his neck, her face buried in his chest. But as he neared, Marcelline saw the doll dangling from Lucie’s hands. She was holding tightly, to him, to the doll.

She was alive.

“Oh,” Marcelline said. And that was all she could say.

He came to her and then he looked down at the child he held. Taking his hand away from her head, he said, “It’s all right, Erroll. You’re the bravest girl there ever was. You can look now.”

As he gave her back to her mother he said gruffly, “I made her promise not to look. I thought it best she not see.”

He’d seen, though. He’d stared in the face of a fiery death. He’d faced it to save her daughter.

“Thank you,” Marcelline said. Two words. Inadequate, beyond inadequate. But there were no words. These were all the language gave her. All else was in her heart, and that could not be said and could never be eradicated.

The shop stood in blackened ruins. The stench drifted over Chancery Lane and Fleet Street.

It might have been far worse, Clevedon heard people say. The wind had not carried the fire east to the shop on the other side of Chancery Lane, and the fire engine had arrived in time to stop it from destroying the shop next door.

He knew it might have been infinitely worse. They might have lost a child.

Lucie rode her mother’s hip, and Noirot walked with her, back and forth, back and forth, in the street. Now and again her gaze turned upward, to her shop, in ruins.

Her sisters stood nearby, under a lamp post, standing guard over a paltry pile of belongings they must have grabbed before escaping the house. He watched their gazes swing from the shop to Noirot and back to the shop. The redhead held the doll. Even through the smoky atmosphere choking the gaslight he could read the despair in their faces.

They’d lost all their materials—the most expensive element of their business—along with all their tools and records. They’d lost everything.

But the child was alive.

He was aware of the ink-stained fellows from the various London journals converging on the scene. He ought to make himself scarce. The night was dark, the smoke made it darker, and with any luck, nobody had recognized him.

But he couldn’t turn his back on the three women and the little girl, all of them on the street, literally. No shop, no home, no money. He doubted anything could be salvaged from the blackened building.

Still, they had fire insurance, else the engine wouldn’t have come. And he knew that Noirot was practical and mercenary to an aggravating degree. She would have money in a bank, or safely invested.

But money in the bank wouldn’t put a roof over her this night, and he doubted she could have saved enough to rebuild her business in short order.

He stood for a moment, telling himself he couldn’t linger. He’d already dishonored his friendship with Clara and betrayed her love. But only he and Noirot knew that. What Clara didn’t know couldn’t hurt her, and he wouldn’t hurt her for worlds.

Find another way to help them, he counseled himself. There were discreet ways. One could aid those in need without courting notoriety. It was notoriety, furthermore, that would do Noirot no good.

He remembered what the other woman had screeched at her: Everyone knows you’re the duke’s whore. Everyone knows you lift your skirts for him, practically under his bride’s nose.

He remembered what Noirot had told him, early on: What self-respecting lady would patronize a dressmaker who specializes in seducing the lady’s menfolk?

It was time to leave, long past time. The sooner he left, the sooner he could send help.

Marcelline was weary, so weary. What now? Where would they go?

She ought to know what to do, but her brain was numb. She could only hold her daughter and stare at the black ruin of her business, her home, the life she’d built for her family.

“Let me hold her for a bit,” Sophy said. “You’re tired.”

“No, not yet.” Lucie still trembled, and she hadn’t said a word since Clevedon carried her out.

“Come.” Sophy put her hands out. “Erroll, will you come to Aunt Sophy, and let Mama rest for a moment?”

Lucie lifted her head.

“Come,” said Sophy.

Lucie reached for her, and Sophy unhitched her from Marcelline’s hip and planted the child on her own. “There,” she said. “It’s all right, love. We’re all safe.” She started to walk with her, murmuring comfort.

Leonie said, “We’ve insurance. We’ve money in the bank. But above all, we’re all alive.”

Completely true, M

arcelline thought. They were all alive. Lucie was alive, unhurt. Everything else . . .

Oh, but it would be hard. They hadn’t enough insurance. They hadn’t enough money in the bank. They would have to start over. Again.

Leonie put her arms about her. Marcelline couldn’t cry, though she wanted to. It would be a relief to cry. But tears wouldn’t come. She could only rest her head on her sister’s shoulder. She had her daughter, she told herself. She had her sisters. Right now, that was all that mattered.

All the same, they couldn’t stay like this, in the street. She needed to think. She raised her head and moved away and straightened her posture. “We’d better go to an inn,” she said. “We can send to Belcher.” He was their solicitor.

“Yes, of course,” Leonie said. “He’ll advance us some money—enough to pay for lodgings, I daresay.”

This area of London, where the Inns of Court lay, was the lawyers’ domain. Their solicitor’s office was only a short distance away. The question was whether they’d find him at his office at this hour.

“We’ll find a ticket porter, and send to Belcher,” Marcelline said. “Sophy, give Lucie back to me. We need you to talk sweet to one of the reporters, and get a pencil and paper to write a note to Belcher. I think I saw your friend Tom Foxe in the crowd.”

While Marcelline took Lucie back, she searched the area for the publisher of Foxe’s Morning Spectacle.

She became aware of a flurry of motion.

The Duke of Clevedon emerged from the shadows, Tom Foxe hot on his heels. “Your grace, I know our readers will be eager to hear of your heroic rescue—”

“Foxe!” Sophy cried. “Precisely the man I was looking for.”

“But his grace—”

“My dear, you know he won’t talk to the likes of you.” Sophy led him away.