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

He’d arrived as late as he decently could. This didn’t improve matters, because Clara had little time for him, there wasn’t another interesting female in the place this night, and he was tired of playing cards with the same people. She’d saved only one dance for him. She hadn’t been sure he’d turn up at all, she said, and the other gentlemen were so pressing.

They certainly did press about her, a greater throng of them than usual. That, he supposed, was as she deserved. She looked very well in the dress Noirot and her women had slaved over. More important, he saw on the London ladies’ faces the same expressions he’d noticed on their Parisian counterparts. He wished Noirot could see those faces.

The time dragged on until at last he could claim his one dance. As he led her out, he told Clara she was the most beautiful girl in the place.

“The dress makes more of a difference than I could have guessed,” she said. “I couldn’t believe Madame Noirot was able to complete it so quickly, after all that had happened.”

“She was determined,” he said.

She glanced up at him and swiftly away and said, “Your dressmaker is a proud creature, I think.”

Proud. Obstinate. Passionate.

“She’s your dressmaker, my dear, not mine,” he said.

“Everyone says she’s yours. She lives in your house, with her family. Have you adopted her?”

“I didn’t know what else to do with them on short notice,” he said.

There was a pause in the conversation as they began to dance. Then Clara said, “I read once, that if one saves someone’s life, the person saved belongs to the rescuer.”

“I beg you won’t start that ridiculous hero talk, too,” he said. “It isn’t as though a man has a choice. If your mother had been trapped in that burning shop, I should have hardly stood by, looking on. Longmore would have done exactly what I did, no matter what he says.”

“Oh, he had something to say,” Clara said. “When he returned to Warford House after visiting you today, he told Mama not to make a fuss over a lot of dictatorial milliners. He said it was just like you to house the provoking creatures. He said they were ridiculous. Their shop had burned down, their child had nearly burnt to death, they had nothing but the clothes on their backs and some rubbishy ledgers, yet all they could think about was making my dress.”

“They’re dictatorial,” he said. “You saw for yourself.”

He’d seen, too: Noirot, as imperious as a queen, ordering Clara about.

So sure of herself. So obstinate. So passionate.

“I daresay everyone is shocked at me for having anything to do with her,” Clara said.

“Everyone is easily shocked,” he said.

“But I wanted the dress,” she said. “In spite of what Harry said, Mama didn’t want to let Mrs. Noirot in the house. But I made a dreadful fuss, and she gave in. I’m a vain creature, it seems.”

“What nonsense,” he said. “It’s long past time you stopped hiding your light under a bushel. Sometimes I wonder whether your mother—”

He broke off, dismayed at what he’d been about to say, and shocked that he’d only thought of it now: that her vain, proud mother had deliberately dressed her daughter like a dowd. She’d done it in hopes of keeping the other men off, because she was saving Clara for Clevedon.

She’d been saving Clara for a man who loved her but didn’t want to be here, didn’t want this life, and ached for something else, though he wasn’t sure what the something else was.

No, he knew what it was.

But it was no use knowing because it was the one thing his power, position, and money couldn’t buy.

“What were you about to observe regarding my mother?” Clara said.

“She’s protective,” he lied. “More than you like, I don’t doubt. But you got what you wanted in the end.”

He didn’t notice the searching gaze Clara sent up at him. His own attention was wandering to the ladies’ dresses floating about them. Nearly all wore the latter stages of court mourning: every shade of white, some black, soft shapes against the stark angles of black and white and grey of the men’s attire.

The air was warm, and thick with scent, recalling another time and place. But this wasn’t like Paris, and the difference wasn’t merely the monochromatic colors.

It was the monochromatic mood.

There was no magic.

In Paris, there had been a kind of magic or perhaps unreality: the absurdity of that ball where Noirot didn’t belong, yet made herself belong, where she was the sun, and everyone else became little planets and moons, orbiting about her.

Magic, indeed. What folly! What a fool he was! The most beautiful girl in London was in his arms. Every man in the place envied him.

Yes, he was a fool. The girl he’d always loved was in his arms, and every other man in the ballroom wanted to be in his shoes.

And all he wanted was to get away.

Library of Clevedon House

Friday 1 May

“We have to get away,” Marcelline told Clevedon.

She’d seen nothing of him since Wednesday night. She had no idea when he’d come home from Almack’s. His private apartments were on the garden front in the main part of the house—the equivalent of streets away.

Now it was ten o’clock on Friday morning. The seamstresses had arrived an hour ago and settled down to work on the most urgent orders. Normally, while they worked, Marcelline and one of her sisters would be in the showroom, attending to customers.

But they had no showroom. And after Lady Clara’s triumphant appearance at Almack’s, Marcelline could expect customers, a great many. If Maison Noirot didn’t quickly seize the opportunity, the ton—not noted for being able to keep its mind on any one thing for any length of time—would forget about Lady Clara’s mouth-watering dress.

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.”