A Season Beyond a Kiss (41 page)

“You have quite a devious mind, Mr. Ives,” Raelynn averred in a voice imbued with amusement. “I’ll have to take care to guard my purse strings lest I fall in the same enticing trap you lay for your customers.”

Farrell gave her a devious grin as he whisked a finger slyly beneath his mustache and waggled his eyebrows. “My dear Mrs. Birmingham, you just don’t know the half of it.” He leaned toward her as if to share a tantalizing secret. “You see, you’ll be the bait that lures the ladies into my trap, for you’ll soon be wearing some of my most stunning creations, as Mrs. Dalton does now.”

Raelynn hated to dash the man’s expectations, but she couldn’t allow him to go to such expense and bother when in a month’s time she’d likely be showing her pregnancy. A mischievous glow sparkled in her aqua eyes as she queried, “How are you at designing garments for expectant mothers, sir?”

Farrell’s bearded chin dropped significantly to convey his astonishment. Briefly his eyes flicked downward to what seemed to him a perfectly flat stomach before he remembered himself and, in some chagrin, cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Birmingham, I didn’t realize. Jeffrey didn’t inform me of your delicate condition.” He cocked a curious brow as he eyed her closely. “I assume you’ve told him.”

“He’s aware of my childbearing state,” Raelynn stated carefully and thought it only fair to give Farrell a chance to retract his offer. “Under the circumstances, do you still wish to hire me on? I’ll understand completely if you think your customers will be unduly shocked to find a woman in my condition working in your shop.”

Farrell grinned devilishly. “Women in
your
condition, Mrs. Birmingham, will need beautiful clothes to mask some of their bulk. It’s about time they had a source from which to procure such stylish garb, and I’m quite willing to supply them with gowns that will bring them out of hiding. If I can supply clothes for old spinsters and stout matrons, then I can only imagine how much more delightful it shall be to adorn a woman who has been truly appreciated by her husband.”

Raelynn blushed significantly even as her effervescent laughter spilled outward in amusement. “Mr. Ives, you’re positively perverse.”

Grinning knavishly, Farrell flicked his eyebrows once again. “To be sure, Mrs. Birmingham, to be sure.”

16

“Please, Elizabeth,” Raelynn begged, bestowing a gracious smile upon the woman, “I’d be ever so much more comfortable if you wouldn’t be so formal. Besides, if you continue calling me Mrs. Birmingham, it will arouse the customers’ curiosity. They’ll soon be gawking at me as if I’m an oddity in the shop.”

Elizabeth laughed as she reached out and clasped the other’s hand. “All right, Raelynn, you win. Of course, I should warn you that our casual address will likely cause Mr. Ives’s brows to quirk at a higher level, but then, that’s rather nice to see. Our employer looks diabolically handsome whenever he’s crossed.”

Both women broke into sudden giggles, drawing the couturier’s curious attention even from where he was standing down the length of the hall. As the pair eyed him, his eyebrow shot up to a lofty height, evoking more laughter. Growing increasingly suspicious, he paced forward almost warily, sending the pair fleeing in opposite directions, Raelynn to her desk and Elizabeth to the first cubicle where she promptly began checking the prior days’ progress of the seamstress who worked there. Farrell followed his winsome assistant as far as the open door and, tilting his head at a curious angle, peered intently at her ignoring back until Elizabeth finally deigned to glance back at him.

“Did you want something, Mr. Ives?”

Farrell was most appreciative of the enchanting vision she presented wearing one of his own creations, a fetching pink gown with a pleated collar that flared outward charmingly from beneath her finely boned jaw. The delicate hue favored her fair skin and rosy cheeks and, in like degrees, set off her lustrous dark hair, which today had been intricately woven into a heavy chignon at her nape. Confronted by the sudden realization of how her beauty affected him, Farrell had to jar his memory to even recall what had caused him to follow her. “Yes, well . . . ah . . . I was just wondering what you and Mrs. Birmingham found so amusing.”

“Oh, nothing really.” She wagged her head whimsically. “At least nothing you’d likely find entertaining. Just private observations, the sort women are wont to share in secret.”

“Secret?”

When his eyebrow jutted sharply upward again, Elizabeth found her composure seriously threatened. Little spurts of laughter seemed destined to escape, finally driving her to mumble a hurried excuse and brush past him in her haste to flee the room. As she disappeared through the back door leading out to the garden and the outdoor convenience concealed from view by a collection of topiary, Farrell gave up his quest to have his probing inquiries assuaged, at least by that winsome lady.

Turning about on polished black heels, he fixed his cerulean blue gaze purposefully upon his newest employee and raised a querying brow when she suddenly busied herself shuffling through her drawings. One glance in his direction sent her giggling toward the same door through which Elizabeth had recently escaped.

Farrell set his jaw thoughtfully askew. Something was definitely going on between those two. He could feature a pair of virgins dissolving into instant sniggers at sight of a man, but these ladies were hardly that. So what in the devil had set off their twittering?

Inquisitively Farrell went to scan his long frame in the nearest floor-length silvered glass. He couldn’t see that his cravat was askew or, more disastrously, that his trousers were too snug. In spite of the present fashion rage of slender trousers and closely fitting breeches, he had always been averse to defining his private parts by overly tight garb. Indeed, advertising one’s manly possessions had always seemed the depth of crassness to him. He had always considered subtlety in good taste.

Cocking an eyebrow, he searched for some other flaw as he gave his image another critical inspection, but he could draw no firm conclusion from his appearance. Perhaps their amusement had nothing to do with him at all. Mayhap they had just been exchanging humorous comments about men in general, and without cause he had let their amusement unsettle him. What male wouldn’t feel pecked apart when two hens started clucking together?

Musefully he lifted his bearded chin, wondering how best to cope with two ladies who seemed in complete accord about
heaven only knew what!
Ignoring them might be the answer, but then, he could hardly do that when he fully expected to garner valuable assistance from each. He might try chiding them for their undignified conduct, but that could backfire in his face. With their fine, beautiful noses lifted haughtily in the air, they’d resort to snubbing him, and then he’d be in more of a stew than he was now. Should he praise them as he did all those addlepated young fillies who thought they were the most fetching little things that this century had ever seen? He didn’t know about Raelynn, but Elizabeth would definitely think he had taken leave of his senses, when, in her case, it would probably be the blooming truth. Best to go on as if nothing had happened, he decided. At least, then, he’d be able to keep his skin intact.

  
  “H
AS
M
R
. I
VES EXPLAINED WHY
I’
M HERE
?” Raelynn asked Elizabeth hesitantly after they had returned from outdoors.

“He has informed me of your situation, but he hasn’t seen fit to talk to the other women about it. If that contents you, then I see no reason why they should know. You can be assured of Mr. Ives’s discretion and, of course, my own.”

“You’re very kind, Elizabeth.”

Gently smiling, the woman shook her head. “No, I’m merely a woman who has experienced some adversities of her own. Some night perhaps I’ll tell you about them, but for the time being, let’s have some tea. Then I’ll introduce you to the other employees. I know they’ll be curious, having seen you in here with Mr. Birmingham.”

The five remaining seamstresses were well versed in discretion, having worked for Farrell Ives for a couple of years or more. Outwardly they betrayed only the slightest evidence of surprise at finding Jeffrey Birmingham’s wife among the employees. In explaining the reasons for Raelynn’s presence, Elizabeth chose to lighten the mood by relating an amusing exchange which had actually taken place.

“Once Mr. Ives learned of Mrs. Birmingham’s enormous talent at designing lady’s fashions, he asked her husband if he could steal her away from him.” She laughed with the other women at the absurdity of such a notion and went on with her explanations. “In actuality, our business is flourishing, and Mr. Ives is hard-pressed to appease all of our clients. As you’re well aware, some of them expect his personal attention, which leaves him less time to create. Therefore, as the wife of his best friend, Mrs. Birmingham has been gracious enough to consent to help him, at least for a time. We’re fortunate to have such a talented employee with us for a time, do you not think?”

A combination of laughter and applause assured Raelynn that at least outwardly most of the seamstresses accepted the reasons that had supposedly brought her to the shop. Only one spoke obliquely of the real issue, a tall, older woman, with kindly gray eyes, who hesitated to speak, but finally seemed driven. “Such a terrible shame what happened ta poor Nell. I knew her widowed mother when Nell weren’t no bigger than a wee mite. After her ma died, Nell went ta live with an aunt, but the woman was so busy raising her own eight, she didn’t have much time ta spare for poor Nell. Whatever Nell’s failings, no one can say she weren’t a good mother ta her babe. He’s such a winning li’l soul, he is, an’ handsome as can be. I hope it won’t be long afore a nice family takes him in. ‘Twould be a bloomin’ shame for the li’l tadpole ta grow up without lovin’ parents.”

Scarcely had the woman spoken than she looked horrified at her own temerity and clasped a trembling hand over her gaping mouth. Having overheard her comments, the other seamstresses, aware of the gossip that had claimed Jeffrey Birmingham as the sire, seemed clearly anxious.

Raelynn managed a smile and was further motivated to set them at ease by conveying a willingness to discuss the matter of the boy’s welfare. “Presently Daniel is being tended by Mrs. Fergus, the wife of my husband’s overseer. She seems to have a great fondness for babies, and it’s obvious that he’s thriving from her attention. Until his father can be located or a good family decides to take him in, the babe will remain with her.” Raelynn’s gaze never wavered from her audience of seamstresses as she deliberately added, “She’ll give him the best of care which any orphan, who is found at Oakley and is thrust into similar circumstances, will receive. My husband has been very sympathetic to the child’s needs in spite of the talk we both have heard, but he refuses to cast an orphan out because of such malicious rumors. He’s too much of a gentleman for that.”

Feeling relieved that she had gotten through such declarations with some measure of dignity, Raelynn found her tensions easing. Though the five women seemed to accept her claims, one could only guess what they were really thinking. In spite of her own qualms she had managed to voice her confidence in her husband’s integrity, calmly refuting as merely rubbish such claims that he had impregnated Nell and had left the girl to whelp his bastard child in shame. She could only hope and pray that that was the truth.