Her ladyship would have other dresses from Maison Noirot, but the impact would not be quite the same as the first time.
This wasn’t the only reason for getting out, but it was the most practical and mercenary one.
Marcelline had been preparing to write him a note when Halliday reported that his grace was in the library, and had asked to see Mrs. Noirot when convenient.
She’d hurried in and found him bent over a table piled with papers and magazines.
She hadn’t waited to find out what he wanted to talk to her about.
“We can’t stay here,” she said. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful—you know I’m grateful—but this is very disruptive—of my business, my employees, my family. Lucie in particular. The maids. The footmen. She’s starting to think that’s normal. She’s much more difficult to manage than you’d suppose, and I’ll need weeks to undo the damage that’s been done in a few days by all the pampering and catering to her every . . .”
She trailed off as he lifted his head from his study of the paper in front of him and turned that green gaze on her. Her gaze slid away from those extraordinary eyes and drifted downward over his long, straight nose and paused at his mouth, the sensuous mouth that should have been a woman’s and was so purely male.
The room grew too hot. Her mind skittered from one thought to another, trying to avoid the one subject she couldn’t afford to dwell on. But the dark longing beat in her heart and sent heat lower, and she took a step back.
“And then there’s that,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “There is that.”
“Yes,” she said, and added quickly, “I’ve got Lady Clara, and I should like to keep her. The longer I stay here, the less her mother will love me. I’m not sure how long she can stand up to her mother.”
I’m not sure how much longer I can keep away from you.
He looked away and gave a little sigh.
She wanted to touch him. She wanted to lay the palm of her hand against his cheek. She wanted to step into his arms and lay her head on his chest and listen to his heart beat. She wanted to feel the warmth of his body and its strength. She wanted him inside her. She wanted him.
Last night she’d lain awake, imagining: a light footstep in the darkness . . . the sound of the door closing . . . the sound of his breath in and out . . . the motion of the mattress as his weight settled onto it . . . silk whispering as he shrugged off his dressing gown . . . his voice so low . . . his mouth against her ear . . . and then his hands on her, drawing up her gown . . . his hand between her legs . . .
Stop it stop it stop it.
“I’ve spoken to my sisters, and they agree that we can’t stay,” she went on. “Leonie and I are going out to find a place to move to.”
“That won’t be necessary,” he said.
“It’s crucial,” she said. “We must seize the moment. You don’t understand.”
“I understand perfectly,” he said. He pushed toward her across the desk the paper he’d been looking at. “Varley has found you a shop. Shall we go see it?”
One of Clevedon’s many properties, the building stood on St. James’s Street near the corner of Bennet Street. Clevedon told the dressmakers that the previous tenants (a husband and wife) had fallen into dire financial difficulties within months of opening the place. They’d absconded in the dead of night mere days ago, owing three months’ back rent. They must have borrowed or stolen a cart, because they’d taken away most of the shop’s contents and fixtures.
This was a complete lie.
The truth was, Varney had bribed them to move and sweetened the offer by allowing them to take with them everything that wasn’t nailed down.
“What a strange coincidence that this should fall vacant at precisely this time,” Miss Leonie said while Varley unlocked the door.
“It’s about time we had a strange coincidence in our favor,” Miss Sophia said.
While the others filed into the shop, Noirot lingered on the pavement. Clevedon saw her assessing gaze move up over the building, then down and about her to consider the neighborhood. It was certainly prestigious, even though some of the street’s establishments were less than savory. Alongside gentlemen’s clubs like White’s, Boodle’s, and Brooks’s and some of London’s most esteemed shops—Hoby the bootmaker, Lock’s the hatters, and Berry Brothers the wine merchants—stood gaming hells and brothels. These, however, tended to be tucked into narrow passages and courts.
“Well?” he said. “Do you approve?”
Her dark gaze shifted to his face then quickly away. “It was in my plans,” she said. “From Fleet Street to St. James’s. I knew it would happen, but not quite so soon.”
With a small, enigmatic smile, she went in. He followed her.
At their entrance, Miss Leonie looked up from her conversation with Varley. “I knew it was too good to be true,” she told Noirot. “It’s beyond our means. We haven’t enough business to cover the everyday expenses, let alone the outlay required to make this usable. We should need two lifetimes to repay his grace.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Clevedon began.
“Don’t be absurd,” Noirot said at the same time. “The address alone will increase our business prodigiously. We’ll have a proper space in which to work and display our work. We can hire another half dozen seamstresses, and increase our production accordingly. I have so many ideas, and not enough room and people to execute them.”
“My love, we need customers,” Miss Leonie said. “We should need to double our clientele—”
“Sophy, you must put something in the paper immediately,” Noirot cut in impatiently. “ ‘Mrs. Noirot begs leave to inform her friends and the public in general that she intends opening showrooms on Wednesday, the 6th instant at her new location, No. 56 St. James’s Street. With a collection of new and elegant millinery and dresses, which will be found to excel, in point of taste and elegance, collections found in any other house in London. Amongst which are sundry articles for ladies’ dress not to be found elsewhere.’ etc. etc.” She waved her hand. “You know what it must be. But more.”
“More, indeed,” Clevedon said. “You must invent a corset, if you haven’t already done so, and be sure to mention it.”
The three women turned to look at him.
“I’ve been reading the fashion periodicals,” he said. “There seems to be something irresistible about a new, unique style of corset.”
It was the subtlest change in expression. If he hadn’t spent so much time with them or paid such close attention to Noirot, he wouldn’t have recognized the slight movement of their eyes, a hint of rapid calculations going on inside their conniving skulls.
“He’s right,” Noirot said. “I’ll invent a corset. But for now, Sophy, for advertising purposes, you’ll invent a name for it. Something exotic. Remember Mrs. Bell’s ‘Circassian’ corset. But Italian. They want Italian corsets.”
“You ought to change the date of opening, too,” Clevedon said. “You can’t afford to lose another day. Make it tomorrow. You won’t have time to paint it exactly as you like, but it was painted only a short time ago for our absconders. With everything cleaned and polished, and with new fixtures, it will look brand-new.”
The younger sisters burst out at the same time:
“We can’t possibly do this!”
“How on earth can we have everything ready in less than twenty-four hours?”
Noirot put up her hand. The sisters subsided. “We’ll need to borrow most of your servants to do it,” she told Clevedon. “And carriages again. We’ll need materials, yes, beyond what we purchased for the emergency.”
“I understand,” he said.
“We can’t do it without your help,” she said.
“I’d planned on helping,” he said. “It’s a small enough sacrifice to have the lot of you out of Clevedon
House forthwith.”
That would quiet Lady Warford. And the other cats. For himself, he cared nothing about talk or scandal. But he knew he was making matters very difficult for Clara. He couldn’t do as he pleased without causing her embarrassment at the very least.
In any event, he lacked the moral fortitude to resist temptation. The longer Noirot lived under his roof, the greater the likelihood he’d behave in his usual way.
“A small sacrifice,” Miss Sophia said with a laugh. “Oh, it’s good to be a duke.”
“It’s good to know a duke,” Miss Leonie said. “This place may give Marcelline’s genius scope, but it’s going to be deuced expensive to furnish, never mind the materials.”
Noirot was already beginning a circuit of what he supposed would be the showroom. “The drawers and counters will do,” she said, “but everything must be cleaned and polished within an inch of its life. All else must be purchased. Working our way down from the ceiling—chandeliers, wall sconces, mirrors . . .”
Clevedon took out his little pocket notebook and started making notes.
They had no trouble dividing responsibilities. Marcelline and her sisters had been at this long enough to know who did what best.
Sophia returned to Clevedon House to compose her deathless prose and supervise the seamstresses. Leonie remained at the shop to accept deliveries and supervise the servants and workmen who, they were told, Halliday had already begun organizing, and would be arriving shortly.
Clevedon was to take Marcelline shopping.
She saw no alternative. She needed him. She’d simply have to suppress her lust and longings and other inconvenient feelings and be stoical. She’d had plenty of practice with that.
“If we’re to get this done by the end of the day, you must come with me,” she told him at the end of her inventory of the place. “I’ve no time to waste while a clerk dithers or tries to sell me something I don’t want. I haven’t time for dickering about prices. I need prompt, preferably obsequious attention. Entering with the Duke of Clevedon is a sure way to get that and more.”
“I assumed I’d come with you,” he said. “Did you not notice how diligently I took notes?”
She had noticed and wondered at it. She held her tongue, though, until they were in his carriage. And then it wasn’t the notebook she asked about.
“I thought you loathed shopping with women above all things,” she said, remembering what he’d said to Lady Clara.
“That was before,” he said. “Now you’ve made it interesting, curse you.”
“Interesting?”
“All the bustling about,” he said. “All the drama. All that naked ambition coupled with passionate belief in the rightness of your vision. All that . . . purpose. It amuses me to catch the occasional stray bit of purpose by trailing in your wake.”
“What nonsense!” she said. “I found a way to make a living that doesn’t require me to drudge endlessly for someone else—and one that offers an avenue for advancement as well. If I weren’t obliged to work, I shouldn’t. I should be happy to have no purpose but to enjoy myself and occasionally bestow some generosity upon lesser mortals.”
“You’re the one talking nonsense,” he said. “You live for what you do. You live and breathe your work. It isn’t employment. It’s your vocation.”
“I look forward to the day when I can live in idleness,” she said. “That’s my goal.”
“The day will never come,” he said. “No matter what heights you achieve, you won’t be able to stop doing what you do. You can’t see yourself. I can. I saw you throw down Clara’s dress and kick it aside. It wasn’t merely unsatisfactory. In your view, it was criminal. You tore those clothes from her hands as though they’d do her grievous bodily harm. You made that dress overnight because it was a matter of life and death to you. It would have killed you if she’d gone to Almack’s wearing one of her old dresses.”
She looked out of the carriage window. “Talk of drama,” she said. “ ‘Life and death’ . . . ‘killed’ me.” She was uncomfortable. She’d never thought of herself in that way. She was stubborn, hardheaded, practical, mercenary. Everything she did was for gain, for ambition. Yet now he’d said it, she realized he wasn’t wrong. And she had to wonder at his noticing such a thing. She’d thought he noticed mainly what weakness or unguarded moment of emotion could get her on her back or against a wall . . . or onto a worktable.
“Oh, very well,” she said. “It wouldn’t have killed me—but it might have made me a little sick.”
He laughed.
The carriage stopped. They climbed out, the conversation ended, and the shopping commenced.
It was one of the most hectic days Clevedon had spent in his life—with the exception of the day he’d raced across France after her.
They went quickly from one shop to the next: linen drapers and furniture warehouses, shops specializing in lighting and shops specializing in mirrors.
He and Noirot received all the prompt, obsequious attention she’d wanted and more. The shop owners themselves came out to wait upon his grace, the Duke of Clevedon. They were prepared to move heaven and earth to get him precisely what he needed and to have it delivered that very day. If they hesitated, he had only to say to Noirot, “We had better try the next shop—Colter’s, is it?” As soon as a competitor’s name was mentioned, what had been impossible a moment ago became “the easiest thing in the world, your grace.”
Once the shopping began, there was no more personal conversation. Noirot hadn’t time to debate about what to purchase or wait to be shown the latest this or that. When she entered a shop, she had to know exactly what she wanted. And so, in those short intervals while they were traveling in the privacy of his carriage, the talk was purely practical, all about furnishings and what size was best, and what colors set off what.
He should have been bored witless. He should have been frantic to get away, to his club, to a card game, to a bottle or two or three with Longmore.
The Duke of Clevedon was so far from bored that he never noticed the time passing. At some point, they’d stopped to eat from a basket his cook had prepared for them. He couldn’t say when that was, an hour ago or five.
Then they left a warehouse, and when they reached the pavement she said, “Mon dieu, it’s done. I think. I hope. That’s everything, isn’t it?”
He took out his pocket notebook, and it was only when he had to squint at it that he realized evening had fallen. He’d stepped out of the shop and joined the flow of activity on the street without noticing that it had grown dark. He’d been too intent on his own plans and calculations. While she was occupied with choosing articles for her shop, he hadn’t been idle.
Now he looked about him at the gaslit streets. The shops would soon be closing, but the streets were busy, the pavements crowded with people passing to and fro, some pausing to look in the shop windows, others going inside—no doubt to the despair of shopkeepers eager for their dinners and the quiet of their hearths. Before long workers would spill from the various establishments, some hurrying home, others to their favorite chop houses and public houses.
What was the last place he’d wanted to hurry to? he wondered. When had he been eager for his own hearthside?
“If we’ve forgotten anything, it’s minor,” he said.
“We’ll see soon enough,” she said.
He told his coachman to take them back to the shop on St. James’s Street.
After what seemed an eternity of crawling through London’s streets at a snail’s pace, Marcelline climbed down from the carriage and faced a darkened, empty shop.
“I can’t believe they’re all gone,” she said. She heard her voice wobble. She couldn’t remember when last she’d felt so deeply disappointed. “I thought—I thought—”
“We were more efficient than we guessed,” he said. “I’ll wager anything they’ve
gone home—to Clevedon House, I mean—for a well-earned dinner and rest. As we shall do—as soon as we’ve had a look round.” He took out a key and brandished it. “I am the landlord, you know.”
Enough light entered from the street to allow them to make their way into the shop without tripping over furniture. After a moment, Clevedon got a gas lamp lit, then another.
Marcelline stood in the middle of the showroom, her hands clasped tightly against her stomach, against the butterflies quivering there—eagerness mixed with anxiety at once. She turned, slowly, taking it in: the gleaming woodwork, the elegant chandeliers, the artfully draped curtains, the furniture arranged as though in a drawing room.
“Does it pass the test?” Clevedon said. “Satisfactory?”
“More than that,” she said. “My taste is impeccable, I know—”
“Really, Noirot, you must strive to overcome this excessive humility.”
“—but to see it in its proper setting . . .” She paused. “Well, I shall need to rearrange the furniture tomorrow morning. Leonie is very good with numbers and legal gibberish, and her eye for artistic detail is better than most, but she can be a little conventional in her arrangements. The showroom is most important, because that’s what our patrons see. The first impression must be of elegance and comfort and the little something else that sets me apart from others.”
“The little touches,” he said.
“Nothing too obvious,” she said.
“The French would say je ne sais quoi,” he said. “And so would I, because while I know it’s there, I can’t for the life of me say what it is.”
She let herself look at him, but only for an instant. “You’ve come a long way from Paris,” she said. “Then you claimed not to notice such things.”
“I’ve tried not to notice,” he said. “But everywhere I look, there it is. There you are. I’ll be glad to be rid of you. When a man sinks to reading fashion journals—no, it’s worse than that. When a man finds himself plumbing their depths, seeking arcane knowledge of no use to him whatsoever . . . Oh, it’s your corrupting influence. I shall be so glad to see the back of you Noirots, and return to my life.”