Silk Is for Seduction (The Dressmakers 1)

He wanted to stay, still.

“We have to leave,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.”

It was late. They had to leave. No time to make love again. No time to simply linger, touching her, being touched. No time to bask in lovemaking’s afterglow.

This time he helped her dress and she helped him. It didn’t take long, not nearly long enough.

The drive back to Clevedon House was far too short.

He hadn’t time enough to study her profile as she looked out of the window into the gaslit street. He hadn’t time enough to burn the fine contours of her face into his mind. He’d see her again, he supposed. She wanted him to keep away and he knew he must, but he’d see her again, perhaps, by accident. He might see her stepping out of a linen draper’s or a wineshop.

But he’d never see her in exactly this way: the play of light and shadow on her face as she looked out onto Pall Mall. He would not, he supposed, ever be close enough again to catch her scent, so tantalizingly light but impossible to overlook. He’d never be close enough to hear the rustle of her clothes when she moved.

He told himself not to be a fool. He’d forget her. He’d forget all the details that at this moment seemed to mean so much.

He’d forget the way he’d stood on the pavement this day, pretending not to look at her ankles while he watched her step down from or up into the carriage. He’d forget the elegant turn of her ankle, the arc of her instep. He’d forget the first time he’d looked at her ankles. He’d forget the first time they’d made love, and the way she’d wrapped her legs about his waist and the choked sounds of pleasure he’d heard when he thrust into her, again and again. He’d forget his own pleasure, so violent that pleasure seemed too feeble a word, a word meant for ordinary things.

He’d forget all that, just as he would forget this night.

The memories would linger for a time, but they’d grow dull. The ache he felt now, the frustration and anger and sorrow—all those would fade, too.

She’d given him a night to remember, but of course he’d forget.

Marcelline and her sisters rose early the following day. By half-past eight they were at the shop. The seamstresses arrived shortly thereafter, in a flutter of excitement. But they settled down before the morning had much advanced. At one o’clock in the afternoon, the shop opened for business, as promised in the individual messages Sophy had dispatched and the advertisements she’d published in all the London newspapers.

At a quarter past one, Lady Renfrew and Mrs. Sharp appeared for their fittings. A steady stream of ladies followed them. Some came to shop. Some came to stare. But they kept Marcelline and her sisters busy until closing time.

She was happy, very happy, she told herself.

She’d be a fool to want anything more.

Chapter Fourteen

The rank which English Ladies hold, requires they should neglect no honourable means of distinction, no becoming Ornament in the Costume.

La Belle Assemblée,

or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine,

Advertisements for June 1807

Sunday 3 May

Clevedon House seemed oppressively quiet, even for a Sunday. The corridors were silent, the servants having reverted to their usual invisibility, blending in with the furnishings or disappearing through a backstairs door. No one hurried from one room to the next. No Noirot women appeared abruptly in the doorway of the library.

Clevedon stood at the library table, which was heaped with ladies’ magazines and the latest scandal sheets. Of the latter, Foxe’s Morning Spectacle was the most prominent, its front page bearing a large advertisement for “Madame Noirot’s newly-invented VENETIAN CORSETS.”

He felt a spasm of sorrow and another of anger, and wondered when it would stop.

He told himself he ought to throw the magazines in the fire, and Foxe’s rag along with them. Instead, he went on studying them, making notes, forming ideas.

It staved off boredom, he supposed.

It was more entertaining than attending to the stacks of invitations.

It was a waste of time.

He rang for a footman and told him to send Halliday in.

Three minutes later, Halliday entered the library.

Clevedon pushed to one side the provoking Spectacle. “Ah, there you are. I want you to send the dollhouse to Miss Noirot.”

There was an infinitesimal pause before Halliday said, “Yes, your grace.”

Clevedon looked up. “Is there a problem? The thing can sustain a twenty-minute journey to St. James’s Street, can it not? It’s old, certainly, but I thought it was in good repair.”

“I do beg your pardon, your grace,” Halliday said. “Naturally there is no problem whatsoever. I shall see to it immediately.”

“But?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“I hear a but,” Clevedon said. “I distinctly hear an unsaid but.”

“Not precisely a but, your grace,” Halliday said. “It is more of an impertinence, for which I do beg your pardon.”

When Clevedon only looked at him expectantly, Halliday said, “We had been under the impression that Miss Erroll—that is, Miss Noirot—would be visiting us again.”

Clevedon straightened away from the table. “What the devil gave you that impression?”

“Perhaps it was not so much an impression as a hope, sir,” Halliday said. “We find her charming.”

We meant the staff. Clevedon was surprised. “I should like to know what it is about them. They seem to charm everybody.” The housemaid Sarah had gone happily enough to live above a shop and act as interim nursemaid until the Noirots had time to hire a suitable person. Miss Sophia had even disarmed Longmore.

“Indeed, they possess considerable charm,” Halliday said. “But Mr

s. Michaels and I both remarked their manner. We agreed that it was nothing like what one expected of milliners. Mrs. Michaels believes the women are ladies.”

“Ladies!”

“She is persuaded that they are gentlewomen in reduced circumstances.”

Clevedon remembered his first impression of Marcelline—his confusion. She’d sounded and behaved like the ladies of his acquaintance. But she wasn’t a lady. She’d told him so.

Hadn’t she?

“That’s romantic,” Clevedon said. “Mrs. Michaels is fond of novels, I know.”

“I daresay that is the case,” Halliday said. “In any event, they were not what one would be led to expect. Mrs. Michaels was greatly shocked when I informed her we had milliners to wait upon. But she told me that she was entirely taken aback when she met them. They did not strike her as milliners at all.”

Servants were more sensitive to rank than their employers. They could smell trade at fifty paces. They could detect an imposter a minute after he opened his mouth.

Yet his servants, keenly aware of their position in the employment of a duke, had believed the Noirots were gentlewomen.

Well, it only showed how clever those women were. Charming. Enticing. Three versions of Eve, luring men to . . .

Gad, what the devil was wrong with him? It was reading all the damned magazines, with their serialized sentimental tales.

“You saw them at work,” Clevedon said. “They know their trade.”

“That is undoubtedly why Mrs. Michaels imagined they were women of rank who’d fallen on hard times,” Halliday said. “I must confess that at first I thought it was one of your jokes. I beg you will forgive me, sir, but it did cross my mind that these were some cousins from abroad, and you were testing us. Only for an instant, sir. Naturally, it was obvious there had been a fire, and it was no joke.”

The footman Thomas appeared in the doorway. “I beg your pardon, your grace, but Lord Longmore is here to see you, and—”