Silk Is for Seduction (The Dressmakers 1)

Mrs. Michaels’s eyebrows went up. “Now, madam, I know you’ve had a dreadful time of it, but here are Mary and Sarah.” She beckoned, and two young maids stepped out from among the swarm of servants and curtseyed—quite as though the Noirots were persons of quality. “Very good with children, I assure you. I know you can do with a little rest and quiet while the maids tend to Miss Noirot. And his grace said particularly that the young lady was to see Lady Alice’s dollhouse. That was his grace’s late sister,” she explained in a lower voice to Marcelline. “He said he thought that playing with the dollhouse would take the child’s mind off her shocking experience.”

She moved to Lucie and, bending down, said gently, “Did his grace not promise you a dollhouse?”

“A dollhouse, yes, he did,” Lucie said. She held out the sooty doll, the doll that had nearly killed her, for Mrs. Michaels’s inspection. “And Susannah needs a bath.”

“And she shall have one,” said Mrs. Michaels, not in the least nonplussed. She straightened and put up her hand, and the two young maids drew nearer. “Would you like to have a bath as well? And then a little supper? Would you like to go with Sarah and Mary?”

Lucie looked at Marcelline. “May I go with them, Mama?”

Marcelline looked at the maids. They had eyes for no one but Lucie, of course. She was recovered enough to be winsome; and bedraggled and dirty though she was, her great blue eyes worked their usual magic on the unsuspecting.

“Yes, you may,” Marcelline said.

She would have added, They are not to indulge your every whim, but she knew that was a waste of breath. They would pet and spoil Lucie, and she would do as she pleased, and probably drive them mad, as she’d driven Millie mad. It was very difficult to discipline a charming child, even when she was extremely naughty. Lucie, who had the passionate nature and obstinacy of her ancestors, was also gifted with their complete lack of scruples. Being a child, she had not yet learned to get everything she wanted by guile. When her charm didn’t work, she threw stupendous temper fits.

Yet she’d had a terrifying time, and the pampering would not go amiss. The dollhouse would draw her mind away from what had happened in the shop. At any rate, it was only for a night, Marcelline told herself while she watched the maids lead Lucie away. And while Lucie played princess, Marcelline would have some quiet time to collect herself and plan what to do next.

It would have been easier if she weren’t under Clevedon’s roof, if her surroundings didn’t remind her of who and what he was . . . apart from being a desirable man who’d belonged to her for a short, short time.

But that was nothing, she told herself. It was lust, no more. From the start, she’d wanted him and he’d wanted her. She’d had him, and that turned out to be more than she’d bargained for.

Still, no matter what she’d bargained for, he was more than simply a desirable man. He was the Duke of Clevedon. She was a shopkeeper. She could never be anything more than a mistress to him. It was a position any of her ancestors would have accepted. But along with the family she had to consider, she had her own aspirations to keep in the front of her mind: the something she’d made of herself, the greater something she meant to be, the work she truly loved.

What was between them was done. It belonged to the past.

She had to think about the future.

They had to find lodgings. They needed a place to work. Sophy would need to deal with the newspapers immediately. Their story was a nine-days’ wonder, and Sophy must turn it to account . . . though it might already be too late. Headlines swam in Marcelline’s head. The duke’s heroics—yes, of course—running into a burning building to save a child—but then the newspapers would speculate about what he was doing there at that hour . . . and why he’d taken the lot of them home with him . . . and what his intended bride would make of it.

“Oh, my God,” she said. She clutched her forehead.

“What?” Sophy said. “You’re not panicking about Lucie, I hope.”

“It’s obvious that his grace has ordered his servants to dote on her,” Leonie said.

“And what better remedy could she have for her fears than this?” Sophy said with a sweeping gesture at their surroundings. “Nothing but luxury as far as the eye can see. And not one but two maids to slave for her. They’ll wash her curst doll, you may depend on it, and style her hair, I don’t doubt.”

“Not Lucie,” Marcelline said. “Lady Clara! Her dress! What on earth are we to do?”

Pritchett raced to her lodgings, packed, told her landlady a story about a dying relative, and took a hackney to the Golden Cross Inn at Charing Cross. From there she sent a message to Mrs. Downes, explaining that she intended to board the very next coach to Dover, and if Mrs. Downes wanted any articles from her, she’d better get there quickly. The Royal Mail had left for the General Post Office at half-past seven, but if all went well, Pritchett could hire a post chaise, and would not have to wait for tomorrow’s day coach.

Mrs. Downes made her appearance before too long. She made it clear she didn’t like being summoned at a late hour to a public inn, and liked still less transacting business in the coach yard. About them, despite the hour, horses were being harnessed, coachmen and postboys fraternized, inn servants came and went, prostitutes tried to lure passengers, and bawds hunted for innocent country lasses.

Ignoring the dressmaker’s sour look, Pritchett went straight to the point. “I got more than I expected. Found her portfolio, which they usually keep under lock and key.” She took out a drawing.

Mrs. Downes pretended to barely glance at it. “I heard about the fire,” she said with a shrug. “She’s finished. These are worthless.”

Pritchett put the drawing back into the portfolio. “She has insurance and money in the bank. She’ll be back in business in a matter of weeks. She’s the most determined woman in London. If you don’t want these, I’ll take them with me. I shouldn’t have any trouble doing well with them in the provinces. The patterns are worth their weight in gold, and I know the trick of making them. I can expect to do a great deal better than twenty guineas. Yes, you’re quite right. They’re more good to me than they are to you.”

“You said twenty guineas,” Mrs. Downes said.

“That was for the sketchbook,” Pritchett said. “And tonight I was in a hurry enough to make it twenty for the portfolio as well. But now you’ve annoyed me.”

“I ought to report you. They hang people for arson.”

“I wonder what would happen if I said you put me up to it,” Pritchett said. “We’ll never know, I suppose. There’s my coach.” She nodded at a vehicle entering the inn yard. “Fifty guineas. Now or never.”

“I don’t carry that sort of money with me.”

Pritchett tucked the portfolio under her arm, picked up her bag, and started to walk away. She counted under her breath, “One. Two. Three. Four. F—”

“Wait.”

Pritchett paused without turning around.

Mrs. Downes walked very quickly toward her. Not a minute later, a very large purse changed hands, and a very short time thereafter, Pritchett stepped into the coaching office to order a post chaise.

Though she and her sisters had made a plan before they collapsed, exhausted, in their beds, Marcelline slept poorly.

She’d watched while one of the maidservants bathed Lucie—and the other one bathed the doll, taking off her filthy little gown and sponging her off—even sponging the soot from her hair—as though it was the most normal thing in the world. They took the doll’s dress away to clean, along with Lucie’s cloth

es. Then Lucie had to see the dollhouse. By that time, she had three maidservants wanting to look after her. They moved a dainty little bed into a pretty little room adjoining Marcelline’s. And that was where Lucie had wanted to sleep: not with her mother, but in state.

Her child was safe, probably safer than she’d ever been in all her short life. All the same, Marcelline had nightmares. She dreamed that Lucie hadn’t escaped the fire, and Marcelline had gone to the mouth of Hell, screaming for her daughter, and she’d heard horrible laughter in answer before the door slammed in her face.

The next morning, when the maid came in with chocolate, Marcelline discovered that she’d slept much later than usual. It was past nine o’clock, she was told, and Lucie was having breakfast with the duke.

She leapt from the bed, rejecting the chocolate. “Where are my sisters?” she said.

They’d agreed to rise by half-past six. The seamstresses had been told to go to the shop at eight. By now they would have arrived and found a charred spot where the shop used to be.

“Mrs. Michaels said we were not to disturb you, Mrs. Noirot,” the maid said. “But Miss Lucie was asking for you, and I was told I might wake you.”

Noirot didn’t burst into the breakfast room, and she didn’t seem any more flurried or disordered than usual. Her hair was slightly askew, as always, but in a manner Clevedon felt certain was deliberate, not careless. No matter what happened, she couldn’t present herself with anything less than style.

Her face was pale, her eyes deeply shadowed. She couldn’t have slept well. He hadn’t slept well, either, and he’d awakened in low spirits.

But then he’d come down to breakfast and found Lucie, with Joseph the footman’s assistance, investigating the sideboard’s contents. Seeing her made him smile, and lightened his heart.

Now she sat at his right, enthroned upon a chair piled with pillows. She was happily slathering butter and jam on bread. Her doll sat next to her, on another chair piled with pillows.

“Ah, here is your mother,” Clevedon said, while his heart pounded. So stupid it was to pound that way, like a boy’s heart upon seeing his first infatuation.