Scandal Wears Satin (The Dressmakers 2)

“Oh, yes, I should like that above all things,” Clara said. She did not break into hysterical laughter or mention how many times her brother had said he’d rather have his eyes put out with hot pokers than join a mob shuffling about, gaping at paintings and making pompous, and inevitably wrong, comments about them.

She simply turned to Adderley and donned a sympathetic look and said, “But perhaps you’ll find it dull, Lord Adderley? If so, there’s no need to try your patience. My brother can easily escort two ladies. He can borrow Papa’s landau.”

“Milord does not enjoy to regard the paintings?” said Madame, looking up at Adderley, her mouth turning down in an adorable little pout.

“In the company of two such beautiful and charming ladies, I should enjoy looking at paving stones,” Adderley said.

Exclusive to Foxe’s Morning Spectacle

Friday 12 June

A Curious Coincidence? An intriguing piece of information has been brought to this correspondent’s attention. We recently learned that, mere days before the King’s Birthday Drawing Room on the 28th of May, a certain gentleman was denied further credit at a number of establishments where he has large accounts substantially in arrears. As we are all aware, many of our tailors, purveyors of furnishings, vintners, tobacconists, boot makers, &c, often find themselves obliged to wait months, sometimes years, for their patrons to attend to accounts. His late Majesty, it may be recollected, left debts amounting to many tens of thousands of pounds. To what extremity a merchant must be driven, to refuse one of his lordly patrons further credit, we can only speculate. We need not puzzle our minds quite so much, perhaps, regarding the close proximity between this turn of events and the one leading to the same lord’s hasty engagement, a consequence of his luring to her disgrace a certain lady. The lady concerned, as everybody knows, will bring to her marriage a dowry reported to be in the vicinity of one hundred thousand pounds.

That afternoon

It was the British Institution’s annual summer exhibition of old masters, featuring works from the collections of everybody who was anybody, from His Majesty on down through a selection of dukes, marquesses, earls, lords, ladies, and sirs. A privileged few had attended a private viewing on the previous Saturday. On Monday, the exhibition had opened to the public.

In spite of his aversion to pretentious mobs shuffling past fusty works of art, Lord Longmore might have found some entertainment in paintings of battle scenes and grisly deaths.

He wasn’t in the mood. Within a very short time of their arrival, Adderley and Madame had begun trailing behind Longmore and his sister. Now they’d moved out of hearing range though still within sight. Adderley stood quite close to Madame as they ostensibly discussed No. 53, Rocco Marconi’s “Woman Taken in Adultery.”

“You saw the Spectacle, I suppose,” Clara said, drawing him out of a darkly enjoyable fantasy whose highlight was the breaking of Adderley’s teeth.

“Like the rest of the world,” he said.

“Adderley was furious,” she said. “We had another scene when he came to collect me. He’s threatening to have Foxe arrested for scandalum magnatum. I feigned sympathy, but pointed out that the week before our wedding seemed not the ideal time to get involved in legal wrangles. I told him that Papa said they couldn’t hope to prosecute Foxe, since he named no names. Papa pointed out that if the previous king hadn’t been able to arrest every man who wrote scandal about him, a nobody like Adderley hadn’t a chance.”

“ ‘A nobody like Adderley,’ ” Longmore said. “You said that to his face.”

She turned an innocent gaze on him. “I was only repeating what Papa said.”

“How unfeeling of you,” he said.

“Yes. I daresay he’s telling his troubles to Madame.” Clara threw them a glance. “She looks very sympathetic, don’t you think?”

Madame was gazing up at Adderley, listening for all she was worth, one gloved hand resting over the center of her extremely tight bodice.

“She missed her calling,” Longmore said. “She belongs on the stage.”

“I’m amazed you can watch them with a straight face,” Clara said. “She’s so funny, is she not? So clever while seeming so thoroughly bubble-headed. I quite love her.”

“Which her do you mean?”

“Both,” Clara said. Her gaze came back to her brother. “You don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“I’m not supposed to,” he said. “The fellow’s poaching on my preserve. That’s the scene. I’m supposed to be sending suspicious looks their way.” This had turned out to be extremely easy. “Then, after running out of patience, I’m supposed to have a blazing great row with Madame.”

“Perfect,” she said. “She’ll run into his arms for comfort.”

That ought to be very funny. It wasn’t.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s the plan.”

He started toward them.

Chapter Fourteen

British Institution. As pilgrims approach a hallowed shrine in adoration mingled with fear and trembling so do we ever regard the summer exhibition of the works of the old masters at the British Institution . . . Here are 176 pictures . . . and there is hardly one amongst them the possession of which might not be coveted as a gem.

—The Court Journal, Saturday 13 June 1835

Though one would have thought it impossible for Adderley to look more conceited, he managed it. He wore a provoking smirk while he took his time about drawing away from Madame, into whose ear he’d been whispering.

“Lord Lun-mour, Lady Clara,” said Madame with a too-innocent smile. “We are too slow for you, I think.”

“No hurry,” Longmore said. “The paintings will be here for some time. We merely grew curious as to what you find so fascinating about this one.”

“Eh bien, it gives me a memory of another thing, and so I tell Lord Add’lee a little anecdote.” She blushed.

She actually blushed.

Longmore knew she possessed astounding acting skill. She’d demonstrated time and again. He knew she could weep on command. She could even let her eyes fill with tears that didn’t fall. He’d never heard of anybody who could blush on command.

“I should like to hear it,” h

e said.

Adderley glanced at Clara. “I’m afraid it isn’t suitable for an unwed lady’s ears,” he said.

“But it’s perfectly suitable for a bridegroom-to-be?” Clara said, eyebrows aloft, eyes chilly. It was a look their mother had perfected.

“I pray, ma chère—my dear lady—you will take no offense,” said Madame. “It is only a naughty little joke. Lord Add’lee will tell it to you after you marry.”

Clara turned her icy gaze to the painting. “It’s interesting, is it not, what a vile crime adultery is when a woman commits it. But with men, it’s practically a badge of honor. I daresay this is a fine painting, but it is not to my taste.”

She walked away, spine stiff, chin aloft.

After a moment’s hesitation, Adderley went after her.

“I should have a care, madame, if I were you,” Longmore said. “Some might misinterpret your—erm—friendliness.”

“A care must I have?” she said. “You English. So stiff in the neck. I flirt a little. What is the harm? It is a privilege of the married woman.”

“In the circumstances, it might be misunderstood as more than flirtation.”

She waved a hand. “English ways are so strange. Here, everyone attends to the unmarried girls. They flirt and dance, and all the men chase them. In France, these mademoiselles sit tranquil with their chaperons. They must be quiet and modest, like nuns. It is the married ladies who have the flirtation and the affaire, but very discreet.”

“You’re not in France anymore, madame.”

“You do not approve of me, milord? You find my manners not amiable?”

“On the contrary, I find your manners rather too amiable,” he said.

“But what does this mean? In what regard am I too amiable? To converse with your friend?”

“With my sister’s betrothed,” Longmore said.