Don't Tempt Me (Fallen Women 2)

Harrison’s expression did not change, though his posture became a degree stiffer.

“The morning room,” he told the footman. “See that refreshments arrive promptly.” He bowed to her and wafted out of the room.

Neither woman spoke until they were comfortably seated in the morning room and the footman had run away.

“Oh, miss, I never,” Jarvis whispered. “What he said and what you said. His library musty.”

“It is not his library but the duke’s,” said Zoe. “He will do well to remember that. He should remember his place, always, and treat all of his master’s guests with the greatest respect. This much I know.”

“Yes, miss. He needed a setdown and you gave him one. But…well.”

“Do not be afraid of him,” Zoe said. “He is simply a bully. There is usually at least one in a household, though that one is not always at the top. You must never let such persons cow you, whether they are men or women. You do not answer to anyone but me. Remember this.”

“Yes, miss,” Jarvis said, looking about her doubtfully.

“There is no need to be frightened,” Zoe said. “I do not believe he will try to poison us.”

Jarvis’s eyes widened. “Good gracious, miss!”

“It is most unlikely,” Zoe assured her. “In the harem, they were always plotting to murder Yusri Pasha’s third wife, so disagreeable she was. But they were too busy quarreling with one another to organize a proper plot.”

“Oh, my goodness, miss!”

Zoe brushed off the maid’s alarm with a wave of her hand. “When my sisters were teaching me about running a great household, it seemed like the most tiresome of a number of boring duties. In a house like this, though, it could be most interesting.”

The Duke of Marchmont did not notice anything out of the way among his staff. He scarcely noticed his staff except when, as at the present moment, they were annoying him.

A full quarter hour after he’d left Zoe in Harrison’s care, the duke stood in his dressing room in his pantaloons and shirtsleeves, watching his valet take up and reject yet another coat and waistcoat.

“Hoare, we shall not drive in Hyde Park at the fashionable hour,” said His Grace. “No one will be taking any notice of me but the lady—and that will not last long. The fashion plates and fabric swatches will soon absorb all her attention.”

“Yes, Your Grace, but the lady—what is she wearing?”

“Ye gods, you don’t mean for us to match?”

“Certainly not, sir. But it is necessary to achieve the correct tone.”

Marchmont silently cursed Beau Brummell. Valets used to be sensible fellows before the Beau came along and turned dress into a religion. “Carriage dress,” he said impatiently. “Pale yellow with green trim. A year out of date, she informed me.”

The valet regarded him with a panic-stricken expression.

Marchmont did not know or care what had thrown the man into a panic. He only wished he had not hired the most high-strung valet in London.

They would be at this all afternoon and into the evening if the master didn’t take matters in hand.

“That coat,” he snapped, pointing. “That and the green waistcoat.”

The valet’s eyes widened. “The green, sir?”

“The green,” Marchmont said firmly. “It will amuse Miss Lexham.”

“Oh, dear. Yes, Your Grace.”

“When the lady is bored, appalling things happen. We must strive for a little inconsistency, perhaps a hint of originality. We do not wish to be thought dull, do we?”

“Good heavens, Your Grace. Certainly not.”

And at last, Hoare began to bustle.

Six

The duke made Jarvis ride with Filby the groom in the seat behind the carriage.

Neither servant was happy with the arrangement. This was perfectly plain to Zoe.

But she knew it was not Marchmont’s business to make servants happy. It was their job to make him happy, and judging by the set of his jaw, they were making a hash of it.

The groom, plainly, was mortified to be seen sharing his seat with a female. Jarvis, equally plainly, was terrified of the curricle and her high perch thereupon. But there was no room for her inside the carriage. It was built to hold the driver and a companion.

Zoe was not sure what the proper procedure was for a maid in such cases. She only understood that Jarvis must accompany her to the dressmaker’s, and this was the simplest way to do it.

In any event, it was Marchmont’s curricle, he was the master, and everyone else must like it or lump it.

If he did not want to keep his restive horses waiting, then everyone had better move quickly—or be moved quickly, as Zoe discovered.

His way of helping her into the high vehicle was to wrap his gloved hands round her waist, lift her straight up off the pavement, and toss her onto the seat.

She was still tingling from the contact when his big body settled next to hers. He muttered something about “damned finical servants.” Then, more clearly, he addressed the horses: “Walk on, my lads.”

Though they seemed as eager to be gone as he was, the beautifully matched horses set out slowly from St. James’s Square and proceeded calmly through the narrower and more crowded streets.

This sedate pace did not last for long, though.

The driver, Zoe was aware, was as restive as the horses. She had been taught to be keenly sensitive to a man’s moods. She was acutely aware of tension. The impatience or restlessness or whatever it was throbbed along the side of her body nearest his.

At last they reached a broader thoroughfare. The horses began to move, faster and faster. Zoe heard Jarvis shriek each time their pace increased. Yet they moved so steadily, stepping beautifully in time. They were big, powerful, high-couraged animals, yet Marchmont controlled them absolutely, without seeming to do anything. The lightest flick of the whip—and that not touching them—the slightest motion of his hands on the reins, were the only outward signs.

The wind ruffled the fair hair under his sleek hat. Other than that, he seemed almost still on the outside, all the power fiercely contained within him—something the animals, surely, sensed a

nd responded to.

The buildings and lampposts sped by, giving way to greenery, then buildings again. She held onto the side of the carriage as they passed riders, coaches, wagons, and carts and while the world went by in a blur, as though it were a dream.

It was like flying.

It was wonderful.

She laughed. She was a bird, flying, free. He glanced at her, and when he turned away he was smiling a little.

Then, by degrees, they began to turn into narrower streets again, and the pace slowed. After a time she recognized Bond Street, where Jarvis had found the ancient hackney.

Zoe had expected him to return to St. James’s Street, where Mrs. Bell’s Magazin des Modes stood. Mrs. Bell was very fashionable. She featured prominently in La Belle Assemblée.

But he turned into an unfamiliar street.

“Grafton Street,” he said, though she had only glanced inquiringly at him and he had not appeared to be looking anywhere but at the way ahead. “We start at Madame Vérelet’s.”

She was about to ask him who Madame Vérelet was when another vehicle barreled round a curve ahead, straight at them.

Marchmont saw it coming: an antiquated coach and four, overburdened with baggage and traveling far too fast for this busy street. It had shaved the corner of Hay Hill to half an inch, but then the vehicle went wide.

The duke easily stopped his pair in time, but the bloody fool on the coach box drove straight on at them. At the last instant, he pulled the horses hard to the left. He missed the curricle, but the weight on top of the coach shifted, overbalancing it. The coachman fell off his box. One of the wheelers shrieked at the same time the duke heard the crack of splintering wood. After that, it was difficult to sort anything out, amid the din and confusion. Horses plunged and screamed, people ran into and out of shops, shouting and shrieking and getting in the way.

Marchmont leapt down from the curricle, leaving his team to Filby, who was on the pavement as quickly as he.

The duke started toward the overturned coach. It had fallen on top of some of the luggage and lay precariously on a great trunk.