Vixen In Velvet

“Well,” she said at last.

One word, but Leonie caught the little bubble of pleasure in it. Lady Gladys had a beautiful voice, as expressive as an opera singer’s.

“I never thought I could wear this color,” she said.

“So you made abundantly clear,” Lady Clara said. “I thought we should have to stupefy you with drink to get you to try on anything today.”

“That isn’t true. I didn’t make a fuss about trying on the corset. I only didn’t want to prance about in my underwear while everybody stared at me.”

She smoothed the front of the dress though Jeffreys, naturally, had made sure every seam lay precisely in place.

“The corset is comfortable,” Lady Gladys said. “I’m not sure what you did, but …” She trailed off, studying herself. “You did something,” she said.

Leonie had done a great deal. She’d designed the stays to support her ladyship’s generous embonpoint. The corset’s shape smoothed her waist in a way that made it seem smaller, though the compression was minimal.

Her figure remained much fuller and less shapely than the fashionable ideal. But fashionable ideals were only that. What was important was making a lady look as beautiful as it was possible for her to look. And the gold satin was as much a surprise to Leonie as it was to Lady Gladys.

As usual, Marcelline had imagined the dress entirely in her head. This time, though, she’d relied solely on Leonie’s detailed description of their new client.

Yet from her sickbed, and in spite of near-constant nausea, Marcelline had designed a miracle of a dress. Gold satin trimmed in black blond lace. Simple yet dramatic. The pointed waist created the illusion of a narrower waistline, and the black languets that fastened it in front enhanced the effect.

Pointed waists had supposedly fallen out of fashion, but Marcelline never concerned herself with what she considered petty fluctuations of taste.

This dress would bring pointed waists straight back into style, Leonie calculated. The black lace mantilla, attached to the tops of the sleeves, not only added drama but drew the eye upward, toward Lady Gladys’s ample bosom. It was, perhaps, not quite the thing for an unwed young lady, but Lady Gladys would look ridiculous in the types of dresses that suited the average maiden.

She brought her hand up to the edge of the bodice. “It’s very low-cut,” she said.

“But of course, my dear,” Marcelline said. “You have a beautiful bosom. We want to draw the eye to it.”

“I’ll feel naked,” Lady Gladys said.

“What’s wrong with that?” Lady Clara said. “You’ll feel naked and still look perfectly respectable.”

“Hardly perfectly respectable,” said her cousin.

“It’s all right to look tempting,” Lady Clara said.

“Will you stop it!” Lady Gladys snapped, her vehemence startling everybody. “Stop being kind. I can’t tell you how provoking it is. No, wait, yes I can. You’ve only to crook a finger to have any man you want. You have no idea what it’s like to be—to be—not to be beautiful and sweet-natured!”

“I’m not sweet at all,” Lady Clara said. “People only think that because of my looks.”

“That’s the point! You can say anything!”

“No, I can’t,” Lady Clara said sharply. “I can’t be myself. There’s Mama, looming over me all the time. You don’t know how suffocating it is.”

“Oh, yes, all those men crowding about you, clamoring for a smile.”

“They only see the outside. They don’t know who I am, or care particularly. You know me—or you ought to know. And you know I’m on your side and always have been, in spite of how difficult you make it.”

Lady Gladys went scarlet and her eyes filled. “I don’t know how to behave!” she cried. “I don’t know how to do anything! You complain because your mother is always at you. But at least you have one. You’ve had women about to teach you how to be womanly. Look at me! My father’s a soldier, and I might as well have been raised in an army camp. He treats me like a regiment. He gives orders and then off he goes, to smash some Foe of England.” She flung away and stormed back to the dressing room. “Jeffreys! Get this thing off me!”

With a panicked look at Leonie, Jeffreys trotted after her.

Lady Clara stomped to a chair and flung herself onto it.

Marcelline looked at Leonie.

Leonie lifted her shoulders and mouthed, I have no idea.

“What on earth is the matter?” Marcelline said to Lady Clara.

“I don’t know,” Lady Clara said.

“I can tell you what’s the matter,” Lady Gladys said from behind the curtain. “I’m not going to Almack’s tonight, no matter how they cajole. I told them I wouldn’t do that sort of thing ever again, yet Clara won’t stop plaguing me about it. And now you’ve given her this curst dress for ammunition!”

“You look very well in it, but you’re too obstinate to admit it!” Lady Clara cried.

“I don’t care if I look well. They should never have made it, because I’ll have no occasion to wear it. I don’t want it! I wish I’d never come to London!”

Lady Clara sighed, braced her forehead with one hand, and stared at the floor.

From behind the dressing room curtain came a choked sob.

Other than that, the consulting rooms were silent, apparently peaceful.

That was when Mary Parmenter came in, all flustered, to report that Lord Lisburne and Lord Swanton had arrived. They had business with Miss Noirot, they said. Should Mary ask them to wait in the showroom or in the office?

“We’re busy,” Leonie said. “You may tell them to make an appointment.”

She heard a gasp from behind the curtain. Then, “You can’t make Lord Swanton wait,” Lady Gladys called out shakily. “You’re not busy with me anymore. You might as well see what the gentlemen want.”

“Tell them to make an appointment,” Leonie told Parmenter.

Then she sent the others away and walked behind the curtain.

Leonie found Lady Gladys sitting on the edge of the dressmaking platform, head in her hands.

“I’m not talking to you,” her ladyship muttered. “You’re like a human thumbscrew.”

“One of the secrets of our success is knowing our ladies’ minds,” Leonie said. “We squeeze it out of you one way or another. You might as well tell me and save us both energy we can employ more happily elsewhere.”

“Happy!”

Leonie dropped onto the platform beside her.

Lady Gladys lifted her head. “You only pretend to be my friend. You only want me to order more clothes.”

“I haven’t got to pretending to be your friend yet,” Leonie said. “But I do want you to order more clothes. Why else be in business?”