Regency Rogues and Rakes: Silk is for Seduction / Scandal Wears Satin / Vixen in Velvet / Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed / A Rake's Midnight Kiss / What a Duke Dares

“Considering the women are here still only because of your sister,” Clevedon said. “They engaged to make a dress for Clara for this evening, and they seem to believe that nothing—acts of God or man, plague, pestilence, flood, famine, or fire—excuses them from keeping their promise. It is very curious. They seem to view a promise to make a dress in the same uncompromising light you and I would view a debt of honor.”

“The dress be damned,” Longmore said. “Have you been eating opium? Drinking absinthe? Contracted a fever? The clap, perchance? I understand it goes to the brain. That dressmaker—”

“Which one do you mean?” Clevedon said. “There are three of them.”

“Don’t play with me,” Longmore snapped. “By God, you’re enough to try the patience of all the saints and martyrs combined. You’ll drive me to call you out. I will not let you make a fool of my sister. You will not—”

He broke off because the door flew open and Miss Sophia hurried into the room. “Your grace, I wonder—”

She stopped short, apparently noticing Longmore belatedly. Or maybe she’d noticed the instant she came through the door, if not before. Clevedon suspected that both sisters were as well supplied with guile as Noirot. For all he knew, Miss Sophia had interrupted on purpose. They’d probably heard Longmore at the other end of the house.

In any case, he would have been hard for her to miss, not only because he was as tall as Clevedon but also because he was standing in her way.

But maybe she’d mistaken him for Clevedon. People did sometimes, from the back or from a distance. They were both large dark-haired men, though Longmore dressed more carelessly.

Whatever the reason, she appeared surprised and stopped short. “I do beg your pardon,” she said. “How rude of me to burst in.”

“Not at all,” Clevedon said. “I told you not to stand on ceremony with me. We haven’t time for ceremony. This is only my friend—or perhaps former friend—Lord Longmore. Longmore, though you don’t deserve it, I’ll allow you to meet Miss Noirot, one of our esteemed dressmakers.”

Longmore, meanwhile, who’d spun around at her abrupt entrance, had not taken his eyes off her. For a moment he appeared dumbstruck. Then he bowed. “Miss Noirot.”

“My lord.” She curtseyed.

And, oh, it was one of those curtsies, not precisely like Noirot’s, but something equally impressive in its own way.

Longmore’s black eyes widened.

“What is it, then?” Clevedon said.

Sophia’s blue gaze, suspiciously innocent, came back to him. “It’s about the notice we’re putting in the papers, your grace. I write these all the time, and you would think it’d give me no trouble at all, but I continue to struggle, in spite of having quiet.”

She’d heard, Clevedon thought. She’d heard Longmore raging, and she’d stepped in. She was the one who’d written the account for the papers of the famous gown Noirot had worn. She was the one in charge of turning difficulties and scandal to the shop’s advantage.

“It’s the shock,” Clevedon said, playing along. “You can’t expect to recover overnight, especially when everything is in a turmoil.”

“To be sure, I can’t judge my own prose,” she said. “Will you give me your opinion?” She shot a glance at Longmore. “If his lordship would pardon the intrusion.”

Longmore stalked away and flung himself onto the sofa.

“‘Mrs. Noirot begs leave to inform her friends and the public in general,’” she read, “‘that she intends re-opening her showrooms very shortly, with a new and elegant assortment of millinery and dresses, in the first style of fashion, on reasonable terms—’”

“Leave out ‘reasonable terms,’” Clevedon cut in. “Economies matter to the middling classes. If you want the custom of my friends’ ladies, it’s better to be unreasonable. If it isn’t expensive, they won’t value it.”

She nodded. “There, you see? Marcelline would have caught that—but I daren’t interrupt her. If Lady Clara’s dress isn’t finished on time, my sister will be devastated.”

Clevedon saw Longmore shoot the dressmaker a darkling look from under his thick black eyebrows. “If my mother lets her wear the dress,” he muttered.

Blue eyes wide, Sophia turned fully toward him. “Not let her wear the dress? You can’t be serious. My sister is killing herself to finish that dress.”

“My dear girl—” Longmore began.

“Our shop burned down,” Sophia said. “My sister’s little girl—my niece—the only niece I have—nearly died in that fire. His grace saved her life—he risked his own—he ran into a burning building.” Her voice was climbing. “He took us in—he’s lent us money to buy supplies—we are all running ourselves ragged to fulfill our obligations to our customers—and you say—you say your mother won’t let Lady Clara wear our dr-dress.” Her voice shook. Tears shimmered in her blue eyes.

Longmore leapt up from the sofa. “I say,” he said. “There’s no need to take on.”

Sophia drew herself up. “If her ladyship your mother says a word against that dress—against my sister—after what she’s endured—I promise you, I shall personally, with my own bare hands, strangle her, marchioness or no.”

She threw down the advertisement she’d written and stalked out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

Longmore picked up the piece of paper, opened the door, and went after her.

Clevedon waited until their footsteps had faded. Then he clapped his hands. “Well done, Miss Noirot,” he said. “Well done.”

Smiling, he quietly closed the door, and returned to perusing La Belle Assemblée.

Clevedon had taken the magazine to the writing table. He was making notes when the door opened, only far enough for a bonneted head to make its appearance.

“I’m going,” Noirot said. The bonnet withdrew, and she started to close the door.

He rose and started to the door. “Wait.”

She stuck her head in again. “I haven’t time to wait,” she said. “I only wanted you to know the dress is done.” She spoke coolly enough, yet he detected the note of triumph in her voice.

He reached the door, and opened it fully.

She had what appeared to be a shrouded body in her arms.

That must be the dress, tucked in among layers of tissue paper, and wrapped, like a mummy, in muslin.

“You’re not carrying it yourself,” he said. “Where’s a footman?” He saw one loitering against the corridor wall. “There. You, Thomas.”

“No.” She waved Thomas back to his post in the corridor. “I promised to deliver it personally, and it will not leave my hands.”

He glanced down at the corpse. “May I see it?” he said.

“Certainly not. I haven’t time to unwrap it and wrap it up again. You’ll see it tonight, and be astonished, like everybody else. At Almack’s.”

Almack’s. A weight settled upon him. Another Wednesday night with the same people who gathered there every Wednesday night during the Season. The same conversations, enlivened by the latest scandal. That would be him, most likely, tonight. They’d be whispering about him behind their fans, behind their cards. Lady Warford would have plenty to say, and would imagine she expressed herself with the greatest subtlety while she dropped indignant hints as large and unmistakable as elephant dung.

He remembered what Longmore had said about his mother not allowing Clara to wear the dress. “I’d better come with you,” he said. “Longmore was here—”

“I know,” she said. “Sophy dealt with him. And I’ll deal with Lady Warford, if that becomes necessary. I doubt it will. When Lady Clara sees herself in this dress—but never mind, I haven’t time to boast, and you’d be bored, in any event.”

“No, I wouldn’t be bored,” he said. He’d been reading La Belle Assemblée. He had ideas. “I’ve been—”

“It’s half-past six,” she said. “I’ve still got to get to Warford House.”

“Take the curricle,” he said.