Scandal Wears Satin (16 page)

“Well, then, Clevedon ought to take her sometime while the rest of you are blowing up your competition,” Longmore said. “Today we haven’t time for a tour. I’ll take you at another time. There are some fine paintings and statues, and the gardens are agreeably odd. But for now, the only sight for us is Lady Durwich.”

“I understand,” she said.

“Don’t play any parts,” he said. “For this you have to be yourself.”

“A dressmaker?” she said.

“Lady Durwich is a thousand years old,” he said. “I doubt there’s anything left on earth that can shock her. Still, I’m an old-fashioned fellow—”

“Backward, I’d say.”

“And a little shy—”

“That’s the first thing I noticed about you,” she said. “Your shyness. When you burst into the Duke of Clevedon’s house ranting about—”

“Quite shy, in fact about introducing you to my grandmother’s friend as my
chère amie
—most especially when you’re not.” A fraction of a pause. “Yet.”

“And never will be, but I can pretend so beautifully you’ll believe it’s true,” she said.

“The point is, I can’t deal with her and an imaginary female at the same time.”

She considered. “You’re right,” she said.

Not very long thereafter, a manservant ushered them into Lady Durwich’s drawing room.

The dear old thing had acquired a few more wrinkles and shrunk somewhat, but she was remarkably well preserved, considering she was in the region of ninety. She’d always been the plump, comfortable sort, not in the least high-strung—the antithesis of his mother—and today she was as well-groomed as always. Once upon a time, she and Grandmother Warford had formed, with the Dowager Countess of Hargate and some others, one of London’s most dashing sets.

“Longmore, I haven’t seen you this age,” she said, putting out her plump, beringed hand, which he gallantly kissed. “Your family has been unusually busy visiting lately. Clara yesterday. But that’s why you’ve come, of course. She told me she’d bolted, the silly chit. I told her to go straight home. What nonsense! ‘Doesn’t love him,’ she says. She should have thought of that before she went out to the terrace and allowed him to take liberties. Really, I was amazed. I always thought Clara had more sense—” Her sharp brown gaze fell on Sophy. “But who’s this?”

The old lady took up her quizzing glass and made a slow inventory of his companion, from the top of the ridiculous hat to the toes of her stunningly impractical silk half-boots. “Looks familiar—but not one of you, I know. No Fairfax, this one.”

“No, indeed, Lady Durwich. Please allow me to present Miss Noirot, a famous dressmaker.”

Sophy sank into an excessive curtsey, exactly like the one she’d treated Valentine to—ribbons and bows fluttering and flowers quivering.

“My, my, one seldom sees that anymore,” said Lady Durwich as Sophy rose. “A dressmaker, is it? What do you call that color, Miss Noirot?”

“
Cendre de rose
, my lady.”

“Pink ash?” he said.

Both women gave him the same what-a-moron look.

“Miss Noirot is Clara’s dressmaker,” Longmore said. “She’s deeply worried about Clara’s trousseau.”

“Stop talking rubbish,” said the old lady. “I know it’s difficult for you, but make an effort. I haven’t a great deal of time left to waste—ten or twenty years at most. Perhaps it would be better to let the young woman speak for herself.” She let the quizzing glass fall to her lap and bent a bright, expectant gaze upon Sophy.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, my lady, it occurred to me that Lord Longmore, for all his many fine qualities—”

“Oh, you’ve discovered some, have you?” he said.

“For all his many fine qualities,” Sophy went on, with a little toss of her head, which set the ribbons fluttering. “For instance, a prodigious uppercut, an air of command, and excellent tailoring. These are merely a few examples. In these and many other matters, one cannot fault his lordship. However, I believe it is not unreasonable to declare him less than overburdened with the gifts of tact and persuasion. I strongly suspect Lady Clara will need a good deal of persuasion.”

“You may well think so,” said Lady Durwich. “I began to believe she was all about in the attic.”

A maidservant entered then, with tea. A hiatus followed, while Lady Durwich performed as hostess. Though they had no time to lose, Longmore supposed that the lady didn’t often have guests—or young ones, at any rate. Though he was wild to get his information and be gone, he knew it would be churlish to hurry matters.

The trouble was, she found Sophy much more interesting than Clara’s difficulties. And no wonder, with Sophy pouring on the charm.

When Lady Durwich, making small talk over tea and sandwiches, asked if she’d toured the palace before, Sophy instantly reverted from sophisticated French milliner to excited English girl.

“Lord Longmore could barely get me to move along,” she said. “I kept stopping and gaping like the veriest child. How wonderful it must be for you, to live here. I hadn’t realized anybody did—that is, apart from the staff, you know.”

“Good heavens, where has the girl been?” said Lady Durwich. “You’d never heard of the grace and favor apartments?”

“Miss Noirot lived in Paris until quite recently,” Longmore said. “She’s rather French.”

“My parents were English,” Sophy said. “But yes, I spent the better part of my growing-up time in Paris. I’m a city bumpkin, you see.”

“Miss Noirot has told me this is the first time she’s ever been so far from London since she came,” Longmore said.

“And now that I’ve seen the countryside, I wonder at Lady Clara’s temerity, in driving out on her own,” Sophy said. “The roads are all well enough, but one must stop to eat, and deal with ostlers and such. One must pay the tolls at the gates, and be careful not to make a wrong turning. It isn’t at all like traveling about London. She must have felt desperate, indeed, to run away.”

“She always was a headstrong girl,” Lady Durwich said. “People think she isn’t.”

“The angelic beauty,” Longmore said. “Her beaus write the most idiotish poems about her. Don’t know her at all.”

“They underestimate her,” Sophy said. “Because she’s so beautiful, they think she can’t have any brains.”

“She’s a woman,” Longmore said. “What does she need brains for?”

“For dealing with men who haven’t any,” Sophy said. “It isn’t easy.” She reverted to Lady Durwich. “Perhaps, my lady, if you would tell me as much as you can recall of your conversation, we might find a clue to her intentions.”

This was going to take forever.

Longmore left his chair, and went to the window. Since the apartment comprised an extensive set of rooms on the ground floor, and this window looked north into the court through which they’d come, he hadn’t much of a view to distract him: a cobblestone walkway below and rose brick walls climbing another three stories and blocking the daylight.

Old ladies were garrulous and forgetful. They rarely told a tale in its proper order, instead taking detours here, there, and everywhere. In a few hours the light would be gone. Still, he and Sophy could travel by night, as long as the weather didn’t betray them again.

He listened as well as he could to the women’s conversation.

No easy job. His mind wanted to wander into twisted byways and nooks and crannies, like the ones in this, the oldest part of the palace.

He thought about his sister and what Sophy had said about her. That hadn’t been pleasant.

He thought about Sophy’s hair streaming down her back, and over her breasts, the long locks curling and turning gold as they dried . . . the outlines of her breasts under the thin muslin nightdress . . . the outlines of her thighs . . . the place between them, the triangle he knew would be dusted with gold.

That was much more agreeable.

Still, he felt stifled. The room was too cozy and warm. The apartments in Hampton Court were notoriously ramshackle, dark, and dank. Her ladyship had a fire going, against the damp. The accumulated bric-a-brac of decades filled the place. Behind him the women’s voices were low as they conversed like old friends.

He was of no use here, obviously. He might as well go out. While the females gossiped, he could question the officers. He could find Fenwick and get his report. He’d just decided to excuse himself, when Lady Durwich cried, “But there! I knew you looked familiar. Now I have it! Those eyes. Those are DeLucey eyes. I’d know them anywhere.”

S
ophy was aware of Longmore turning away from the window, his gaze sharpening.

She smiled politely at Lady Durwich. “Your ladyship is not the first to say so.”

“And small wonder,” said the old lady. “One doesn’t forget those eyes. It took me a moment, though, to recall the connection. But the previous Earl of Mandeville was a great friend of my husband’s, you know. And then there was Eugenia, the Dowager Lady Hargate. Her eldest son, Rathbourne, married a girl from the cadet branch—the wild set. Lady Rathbourne’s daughter was a great favorite of Eugenia’s. I saw the girl at Eugenia’s funeral. You recall meeting Lady Lisle, do you not, Longmore? Pretty red-haired girl. Are those not the DeLucey eyes?”

His expression changed very little but it was enough for Sophy. She noticed the slight widening of his dark eyes and the change in his stance: a degree more alert, like a wolf catching a scent.

“Ah, yes, the wild set of DeLuceys,” Sophy said, her voice amused. “I’ve been told that most of them lived abroad. It’s not entirely impossible that one of my ancestors was born on the wrong side of the blanket.”

From the time they’d arrived in London, she and her sisters had been aware of the risk they ran. Marcelline could get by easily, having taken after Papa. But Sophy and Leonie had inherited Mama’s DeLucey eyes, and those large, vividly blue eyes were, as even a lady near or in her ninth decade could see, all too distinctive.

The “wild set” of the DeLuceys—more commonly known in England as the Dreadful DeLuceys—were still, and with good reason, mistrusted at best, loathed at worst. Marcelline, Sophy, and Leonie were the last of the lot, so far as they knew. The cholera had killed everybody else.

“Most of us could say the same,” Lady Durwich said. But she took up her quizzing glass and scrutinized Sophy again. Sophy met the scrutiny calmly. She’d had years of practice playing cards—not to mention waiting on extremely trying customers.

“Not to cut short the fascinating gossip about olden times,” Longmore said, “but the day is wearing away, and we seem not to have discovered where Clara went after leaving here.”

“The impatience of youth,” Lady Durwich said. “That’s what I told Clara. She wouldn’t say what possessed her to wander out unchaperoned with Adderley, of all men. I suspect it was nothing to do with him at all.”

“How can it have nothing to do with Adderley, when he was the one who got half her clothes off?” Longmore said.

“Actually, he didn’t,” Sophy said. “He’d pushed her neckline down about an inch or so, and spoiled the delicate folds of the bodice.”

Knowing that arcane dressmaking detail would drive Longmore wild and take his mind off DeLuceys, she continued, “The corsage was quite low, you see, my lady, the drapery crossed on the front in narrow folds. We embroidered a wreath of moss roses, with buds, stems, and leaves, to go round the bottom of the skirt and up the front. She had a brooch—emeralds, to set off the embroidered foliage. We fastened it low—so.” She indicated the area between her breasts corresponding to the spot where Lady Clara’s brooch had been placed. “This allowed a pretty display of a bit of her chemisette, of a very fine blond—”

“Yes, yes, I daresay Lady Durwich read the infinity of dressmaking details in the
Spectacle
,” Longmore cut in. “As did we all.”

“I was merely pointing out that Lady Clara may have appeared to your brotherly eyes to be in a greater state of dishabille than was objectively the case,” Sophy said.

“What difference does it make, whether it was a little or a lot?” he said. “She was alone with him and he’d disarranged her dress and pretended to be gallant by trying to hide the fact when he knew it couldn’t be hidden.”

“Ah, but if he’d truly been gallant, he wouldn’t have needed to hide anything,” said Lady Dunwich. “If he truly cared for her, he wouldn’t have led her out to the terrace in the first place. Naturally I didn’t say so, not wanting to upset the child further. But she knew already. That was what threw her into such a tizzy, you see. She told me that wretched Bartham woman had said it to her face—or hinted it broadly enough. And Clara said it was bad enough to bear the humiliation—but to bear it for a man who despised her was intolerable. I tried to reason with her, but you know how she takes things to heart. Her grandmother might have persuaded her. She always knew the way. But I might as well have talked to the chimneypiece. I don’t see how this matter can be put right. She certainly doesn’t believe it can—and so I can only fear for her.”

Chapter Nine

HAMPTON COURT is a royal palace, thirteen miles from London, erected by Cardinal Wolsey, and presented by him to his royal master, Henry . . . The palace and grounds, which are well worth the attention of the stranger, are very accessible, on polite request to one of the officers of the establishment.

—
Cruchley’s Picture of London
, 1834

S
ome eternity later, Longmore was trying to lead Sophy out the way they’d come. She loitered, gawking up at windows and down narrow passages and staring at closed doors as though looking hard would let her see through them.

“You’d have stayed the night if I’d let you,” he said.

“I was only trying to learn as much as I could,” she said. “Persuading your sister to return to London isn’t going to be easy. I need to understand as much as possible.”

He hadn’t wanted to understand any more. Lady Durwich’s revelation, coming on top of Sophy’s speech about Clara, had left him seething. He’d had to get out of that cozy apartment or break something.

He no longer wished he’d killed Adderley. Death was too good for him. He needed to be beaten to a pulp, all his beauty smashed away forever. He needed to hurt for the rest of his days, for the way he’d hurt Clara.

“I was better out of it,” he said. “Women discussing
feelings.
Not my favorite thing. More useful to talk to the palace officers and servants. Clara seems not to have been very confiding, except with Lady Durwich. But Davis talked to a gardener about local inns, and he recommended the Bear at Esher. We need to be on our way.”

“I know,” she said.

“Well, then,” he said.

“I’m coming.”

“You’re dawdling,” he said.

“I’m thinking,” she said.

“You can’t walk and think at the same time?”

“Are you always so impatient?” she said. “But why do I ask?”

“We’ve lost hours,” he said.

“Not much more than your sister has,” she said. “She couldn’t travel in the storm. She spent the night at an inn. She has to rest her horse, you said.”

“She has a day’s start of us!” he said.

“I don’t think we should set out when you’re so upset,” she said.

“I’m not upset,” he said. “And even if I were, it wouldn’t affect my driving.”

“You’re
extremely
upset,” she said. “It’s what I said about Clara, isn’t it? And what Lady Durwich said. And now you want to kill somebody. Or hit somebody. And we can’t afford your picking fights, because if you’re arrested—”

“I’m not going to be arrested,” he said.

She moved to get in front of him, forcing him to stop. She grabbed his lapels. “Listen to me,” she said. “I’m going to take care of your sister’s problem.”

“You!” he said. “This can’t be fixed. I was deluded to think it could be. That blackguard ruined my sister deliberately. It wasn’t even lust, confound him. It was cold-blooded—”

“I’ll take care of him,” she said.

“You’re a female! A shopkeeper! What the devil do you think you can do?”

“You’ve no idea what I’m capable of,” she said.

“Lying, yes. Acting, yes. Spying, yes.”

“You are a spoiled, aristocratic blockhead,” she said. “You know nothing about me. You don’t know what I’ve lived through. You’re a child. An infant. A spoiled, temperamental overgrown baby who hits people when he can’t get his own way. You—
oof
!”

H
e’d wrapped his arm about her waist, pulled, and brought her up hard against his chest.

“A child, am I?” he said.

Sophy squirmed, but it was like struggling with a brick wall. He ducked his head under her hat brim and his mouth found hers, and by the time she remembered to draw back, it was too late, because he was kissing her. This time he was doing it more determinedly than before.

She could feel it all the way down to her toes.

She clenched her hands. She could do this. She could fight it. She could fight him. She made herself hit him. She beat on his chest, but it was pathetic, and even if she’d put more force into it, she doubted he’d feel it.

And then, his hard, cynical mouth was so warm on hers, and he was so big and warm and hard and . . . safe.

And she could smell him. She could smell his skin and his maleness, and it was like smoking opium. His big body and the smell and taste of him killed her willpower and her brain.

Everything gave way. Her body molded to his and her lips parted. The kiss turned dark and deep and dangerous, and everything went away except feelings. Sensations she couldn’t name swirled in her heart and made it pound and pound, then eddied lower, to the danger area, to make her hungry in a way she’d never been hungry before.

Her hands unclenched only to grasp his upper arms, to hold on because her knees were gone and she was fainting. She was conscious yet she was fainting, over and over.

He pushed her against the wall, his mouth still holding hers captive while his tongue taught her every kind of sin. She let go of him, and let herself go, letting the wall hold her up, her hands flat against the cool brick while everything else was so deliciously warm. He brought his hands up and rested them on the wall, too, on either side of her head, boxing her in, and she felt the tilt of his head change, tipping to one side as he taught her another hundred sins of kissing: the changing slant of his mouth, the press of his tongue.

She heard something but it was far away, not important.

Then it was louder.

Someone clearing his throat.

Her eyes flew open at the same moment Longmore lifted his mouth from hers and, barely raising his head, turned his gaze toward the sound.

“Beggin’ your lordship’s pardon,” a gravelly voice said.

Longmore lifted his head another few inches, but only to send a warning look toward the voice. “Can you not see I’m busy?”

“Yes, your lordship,” the voice said. “But—”

“Aaargh!” Sophy pushed at Longmore’s chest. “Curse you!” She pushed again. It was like pushing at the castle wall.

He looked down at her gloved hands, his dark eyes glinting and a corner of his mouth—his wicked, wicked mouth—turning up.

“Get off!” she said.

L
ongmore inhaled and exhaled slowly, then slowly backed away. It wasn’t nearly enough time for his arousal to subside, although that was the easier part. The difficult part was the thinking, because his head was pleasantly thick and warm, and he’d much rather remain in that state than return to the one he’d been in only moments ago.

Through narrowed eyes he regarded the author of his disturbance. Sophy was a very little disheveled, but it was enough. Her hat was askew and her lips were swollen and she regarded him with wide, dazed eyes.

She looked delicious.

“I was only saying farewell,” he said, his voice lower and huskier than normal.

“Is that what you call it?” she said.

“I’m leaving you here,” he said. “With her ladyship. You and she can talk about feelings to your hearts’ content.”

She yanked at the bow under her chin, and it came undone. She pulled the hat off and hit him with it. She hit him in the chest and on the arm and then on the chest again. Then she flounced away. The hat, dangling by the ribbons from her hand, bounced against her skirt as she walked, hips swaying.

“You’ll get lost in this place without me,” he called after her.

“I think not,” she said without turning around.

He shrugged and was straightening his own hat when he noticed the palace officer was still there. He stood stolidly expressionless a few feet away.

“You wanted something?” Longmore said.

The man glanced up toward a window. A dark shape was visible through the wavy glass.

“Lady Flinton’s a bit of a stickler, my lord,” the officer said apologetically. “Gets in a state about what she calls immoral goings-on. She told me to put a stop to it.”

Longmore tipped his hat to the figure in the window.

Then he went after Sophy.

She had, as he’d expected, taken a wrong turn. He found her in the Clock Court, slapping her hat against her skirt and staring up at the Astronomical Clock.

“You said you were going to stab me if I kissed you again,” he said.

Her blue gaze, no longer dazed but cool and sharp, came down from the clock to rest upon him. “I was looking for a weapon, but they all seem to be taken.”

“Shall I take you up to the Guard Chamber?” he said. “All sorts of pikes and spears and other stabbing sorts of things hanging on the walls.”

“Yes, by all means,” she said.

“Sadly, we haven’t time,” he said. “We have to find my sister.” He took her arm. This wasn’t as easy as one would think. The upper part was like a large cushion. He had to take hold of the lower part . . . near her wrist. He was tempted to clasp her hand but he suspected that would set him off again, and they’d wasted far too much time already.

Not a waste, really, but still . . .

He clasped her lower arm firmly and led her away. She came easily enough. Too bad. He wouldn’t mind another tussle.

But no, they needed to be on their way.

“I thought you were going to leave me here,” she said.

“You talked me out of it . . . a moment ago . . . when you were against the wall, under Lady Flinton’s window.”

“Oh, yes—and speaking of that—”

“Oh, good,” he said. “We’re going to
discuss
it now.”

“We certainly are,” she said. “I had all my clothes on this time, so don’t try to use any excuses about my being mostly naked.”

“I don’t need an excuse,” he said. “But it might be that you have too many clothes on.”

She gave him a look of pure exasperation. He was familiar with that look. People turned it on him all the time. Her version, though, was precious.

“The only part uncovered was your face,” he said. “And your mouth kept moving. And so I had to stop it.”

“Why has no woman stabbed you before now, I wonder?” she said.

“I have quick reflexes,” he said.

She looked away, up at the clock again. “If that’s what Lord Adderley did to Lady Clara, it’s no wonder she got into trouble,” she said. “It’s extremely unsporting of a man who possesses worlds of experience to take advantage of a young woman who has no experience whatsoever.”

That was the last answer he expected.

It stung, too. “I didn’t take advantage of you,” he said. “It was only kissing.”

“Only,” she said.

“I didn’t even touch your clothes, let alone try to take them off.” He’d put his hands on the wall—some part of his brain must have been thinking, to do that, to keep his hands off her. “Of course, taking them off does look like a two-hour job. At any rate, now that you’ve had some practice, and I was . . . productively occupied instructing you . . . that means it’ll be much harder for unsporting men to take advantage of you in future . . .”

Belatedly, what she’d said sank in. “What do you mean, it’s no wonder Clara got into trouble?”

“I’m not a sheltered lady,” she said. “I grew up in a shop in Paris. I run a business. I’m supposedly clever. She’s an innocent girl who’s always had others protecting her. If Adderley kissed her like that, she hadn’t a chance. It’s so
unfair
.”

Longmore wasn’t taking unfair advantage. She wasn’t a gently bred girl who’d been protected from the real world since childhood. She was a milliner—from Paris!—whose sister had turned the Duke of Clevedon into a dithering idiot. It couldn’t be unsporting to kiss her. Could it?

“Do you mean to hit me with that millinery extravaganza again?” he said. “Or should you like to make yourself presentable and put it back on before we return to the carriage?”

She hit him with it. He snatched it from her and walked quickly ahead.

He could hear the leather soles of her frivolous boots tapping on the cobblestones behind him and the rustling of her petticoats as she hurried after him. He didn’t look back.

He let her catch up with him near the main entrance.

Her face was flushed and she was panting. She put out her hand. “Give me my hat,” she said.

Ignoring her outstretched hand, he planted the hat backward on her head and took her arm to lead her out. She pulled away and hurried to the nearest window. It gave back a distorted image.

“You look like a gargoyle,” he said.

She stepped nearer to the window and stared for a moment.

Then her shoulders shook, and she giggled. Then she laughed fully, and the ribbons danced and the bows fluttered, and he thought he’d never heard anything so wonderful as that sound.

He felt as well as heard it. It seemed to dart deep inside him and touch a long-hidden place, and it was a sharp feeling, as though she had stabbed him to the heart.