Scandal Wears Satin (29 page)

He trailed off, aware of the feeling, the strange feeling, of being stabbed and of being happy and wretched at the same time.

He looked at her for a long time.

Her hands were folded. She had ink on her fingers again. But not on her face this time. She watched him so intently, her eyes piercing, trying to bore into his thick, so very thick skull, trying to understand what he scarcely understood himself.

“Just because I don’t say . . .”

He walked back to the bedroom.

She followed him.

He collected his garments from the floor and everywhere else they’d landed, flung them in the general vicinity of one of the room’s three chairs, and started to dress. In a growing, increasingly taut silence.

Finally, “It’s a sham,” she said. “You’re not used to pretending, and it’s troubling you and making you . . . disoriented.”

He pulled on his shirt, unbuttoned his trousers, and stuffed the shirt inside.

“The trick is to believe it while you do it,” she said, “but to step back into yourself as soon as you’re off stage.”

He pulled on his waistcoat and buttoned it. He sat and put on his stockings and shoes.

“He’s playing into our hands,” she said.

He stood, took his neckcloth off the back of the chair, and threw it round his neck. He knotted it quickly, in a fashion that would give his valet a seizure.

“Adderley’s the pigeon,” she said. “He’s the dupe. He’s the mark. It isn’t
real
.”

He twisted himself into his coat. “Yes, it is,” he said.

“No, it—”

“Yes, it is,” he said. “You and I: That’s real. I love you.”

He heard her quick, sharp inhalation.

“That’s my trouble, imbecile me,” he said. “I love you.”

She stood very still, for once—for once—too shocked to pretend she wasn’t, too shocked for the tell-nothing face. Her blue eyes were enormous, a great, endless surprise.

He bent and kissed her, full on the lips. “I’m going now,” he said. “This is much too shocking. I need to—drink, I believe. Or fight. Something. I love you. That’s what it is. That’s what’s happened. Yes.”

He turned away and shook his head. Then he laughed and went out.

S
ophy stared at the door he’d gone out of.

“That didn’t happen,” she whispered. “I imagined it.”

Her gaze traveled the room, now bereft of all signs of him.

He couldn’t have done it. He was the last man on earth who’d make a declaration.

But her mouth still tingled from the passion of that last kiss, and she remembered the wry look of his mouth and the odd note in his laughter in the instant before he turned away.

She ran out, through the door, and into the next room and the next . . .

And stopped short when she reached the door to the corridor.

What was she doing?

She couldn’t run out into the corridor in her nightdress. And to accomplish what, exactly?

As it was . . .

But no. She’d taken care. It was not entirely shocking, she knew, for a widowed foreigner to entertain a gentleman until the early morning hours. Most of the ton was only now returning home after their entertainments, and her apartments, like those of a foreign ambassador, were designed to entertain guests. Those who heard of Longmore’s early morning departure from here might speculate, but they wouldn’t have a story, unless she gave them one in the
Spectacle
. The servants were well paid not to gossip about Madame, in any language.

If she ran out in her nightclothes into the corridor after his lordship, others would see—and that would most definitely be a story.

She returned to her sitting room.

“Wouldn’t make a whit of difference in any event,” she muttered. What would she get if she ran after him? More cryptic remarks, no doubt.

She sat at the writing table and stared at the pen she’d set down only a short time ago.

Her heart was still pounding. The words he’d uttered were not too cryptic for it. Her heart understood
I love you
well enough.

“It seems I love you, too, Harry, imbecile me,” she whispered. “Much good will it do us.”

She sat for a time, contemplating the hopelessness of the situation, even while a part of her mind hunted and hunted for a scheme, as was its nature to do. But no scheme existed that would make everything come out right.

She couldn’t be his mistress: It was bad for the shop.

As to marriage . . .

That was laughable. Even if he were mad and reckless enough to ask, she couldn’t accept. Society still seethed over Marcelline’s conquest of Clevedon. Another misalliance would finish Maison Noirot forever. And Lady Warford would be leading the annihilation army.

At least Marcelline had had the good sense to fall in love with an orphan.

Sophy contemplated the Fairfaxes, all of them allied against her. Even Lady Clara. After all, it was one thing to be fond of one’s dressmaker or one’s maid. It was quite another proposition to accept that person as a sister.

And then, there was the thorny matter of her antecedents.

No, it was ridiculous and hopeless, and really, she hadn’t time to mope and dream mad schemes. She already had one scheme in hand, and that wasn’t mad at all. But she’d need all her wits to carry it out.

Chapter Sixteen

The Marquess of Hertford has invited a large party of the fashionable world, on Monday next, to his first fête during the season, at his mansion in the Regent’s Park . . . We understand upwards of five hundred invitations have been issued.

—
The Court Journal
, Saturday 13 June 1835

Exclusive to
Foxe’s Morning Spectacle

Monday 15 June

In light of the recent incident at the British Institution’s annual summer exhibition, we can only shake our heads in wonder at a certain gentleman’s persistence in folly. This lord has won—whether by fair means or foul, we leave to our readers’ judgment—the hand of London’s premier belle, a diamond of the first water: a title which even our most hardened misogynists cannot begrudge her. A lady of rank, incomparable beauty, and grace, she ought, we should have thought, to arouse feelings of purest devotion in any masculine heart not hardened into adamantine obduracy by years of self-indulgence and callous disregard of obligations. True, the gentleman’s depredations upon the once prosperous family estate left to him by a loving father have reduced his dependents to beggary. True, London has not in many years seen so shameful a case of financial recklessness and disregard, even of the unwritten code which permits a gentleman to ignore the clamor of his creditors yet requires him to pay promptly all debts of honor to his friends. Indeed, to find a case comparable in egregiousness, we must look back to the date in 1816 when Beau Brummell fled these shores in the dead of night, leaving his friends responsible for some thirty thousand pounds in a mutually raised loan, in addition to sums owed to divers parties who were
not
his friends.

At present, we hardly know what to think. We can only present to our readers a singular incident: On Sunday night, the gentleman in question was observed in a quiet alcove of the Brunswick Hotel. Admittedly, it is nothing out of the ordinary to discover groups of gentlemen enjoying the hotel’s fine food and drink. Yet no other gentleman joined his lordship. His only companion at table was a young French widow last seen on the arm of his affianced bride’s brother.

Maison Noirot

Tuesday afternoon

“N
o, no!” Marcelline cried. “What are you thinking, Sophy? It’s essential that Lady Clara wear the white. And you must wear the blue.”

“I thought you made the plum expressly for this party,” Sophy said.

Marcelline waved her hands near her head, dismissing the plum dress and her plans for it. “That was before I saw the two dresses together, and you and Lady Clara standing together. No, no, it will never do. It’s out of the question. The contrast is too strong.”

A trio of mannequins wore the dresses at the moment. They were part of a set, twelve in all, and represented an extravagance Leonie hadn’t enthusiastically endorsed. But the mannequins made a splendid show, and impressed the customers. Dowdy’s had only two antiquated specimens.

“Of course there’s a contrast,” Sophy said. “I’m a dashing young widow. Lady Clara is an unwed young lady.”

“I know that,” Marcelline said impatiently. “But if Lady Clara wears the white and you wear the plum, the difference will seem too extreme, and you’ll seem fast by comparison. Dashing is all very well. It’s exciting. But
fast
is a judgment. And you’re not the one we want judged.” She turned to Lady Clara’s brother. “I appeal to you, Lord Longmore.”

He retreated a step. “Ah, no, thank you. When it comes to ladies’ clothes, I’m like Mad Dick. He refuses to get near their hooks and buttons and such, and I refuse to enter disputes about style.”

He, Lady Clara, Marcelline, and Sophy stood in the private consulting room on the first floor, away from the hubbub on the ground floor—a much greater hubbub than they’d anticipated for the Season’s remaining ten days.

The ton liked to end the Season with a series of lavish events, rather like the concluding explosions of a fireworks display, and hosts competed to make the biggest explosion. Likewise, the women’s competition for envy-arousing dress was as grim and fierce as preparations for war.

On Thursday, Lady Bartham would hold her annual ball. Her intent, as always, was to cast into the shade, if not the void, all other end-of-Season events, including the Marquess of Hertford’s fête in Regent’s Park yesterday, the Duke and Duchess of St. Albans’s ball and supper this evening, and the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland’s
fête champetre
at Sion House on Friday.

Outdoing everyone else was the obvious reason Lady Bartham had invited not only the principals of the exciting Adderley scandal, but a couple who had appeared on precious few guest lists: the Duke and Duchess of Clevedon.

When the Great World learned that both Lady Clara Fairfax and her rumored rival for Lord Adderley’s affections, Madame de Veirrion, patronized Maison Noirot, half a dozen of the female members of that world abandoned their own dressmakers and made posthaste for No. 56 St. James’s Street. Doubtless they hoped to get a glimpse of the two women, preferably trying to scratch each other’s eyes out—not to mention a closer look at the glamorous new Duchess of Clevedon.

But these were lesser motives. The greater was to outdo everyone else, including the Parisian sensation, Madame de Veirrion. It seemed that having a dress made at Maison Noirot was the only way to achieve this aim—even if it meant getting put on the Marchioness of Warford’s enemies list.

Since a delighted Leonie gave Sophy full credit for the influx of desirable customers, she’d been more affectionate and less tiresome about accounts than usual. Today, she was taking advantage of Sophy’s being on duty at Maison Noirot by visiting the linen drapers. Leonie’s eye for fabric was as sharp and discerning as her eye for numbers.

Still, Marcelline was the acknowledged design genius. Had Leonie been present, she would have told Sophy, “But of course you’ll wear the blue. Didn’t Marcelline say you must?”

Lady Clara, who’d moved to study the dresses, now added her opinion. “You’ll be divine in the blue,” she said. “It’s the perfect shade for your eyes. And it will set off the diamonds splendidly.”

“Diamonds?” Longmore said.

“Of course,” Lady Clara said. “Madame must be dripping diamonds, to whet a certain gentleman’s appetite.”

His dark gaze swung to Sophy. She had not seen him since early Monday morning. This was the first time he’d actually looked at her since he’d arrived with his sister. She thought the glint in his eyes was humor.

Perhaps he wasn’t in love after all. Perhaps he’d had the ailment for a moment, then recovered, much in the way he’d recover from a morning after too much carousing.

A man in love ought to seem at least a little troubled, perhaps pale and ill. He ought to feel
love’s pangs
, as Lord Adderley so tritely put it.

But maybe it was trite of her to expect a man like Longmore to fret over a minor thing like being in love. He wasn’t high-strung. One couldn’t accuse him of excessive sentiment. He wasn’t emotional. He wasn’t sensitive.

And she rather loved that about him.

And so many other things about him.

Never mind never mind never mind.

She concentrated on
now
, and getting through this encounter with her poise and dignity intact.

“It’s not a time for Madame to be subtle,” she said.

“Oh, no one’s subtle at Lady Bartham’s ball,” Lady Clara said, oblivious to currents between her brother and one of her dressmakers. “Women empty their jewel boxes on themselves.”

“But not you, Lady Clara,” Marcelline said. “You’ll wear very simple jewelry. Your beauty requires no adornment in any event, and neither does the ball dress. A great dress should not require mounds of jewelry to make it great. But most important, we want to emphasize your purity and innocence.”

“And we want to pretend that I have any purity and innocence,” Sophy said. “That is to say, that Madame has any.”

Longmore moved to the mannequins and examined the blue dress. “What is it you object to?” he said. “This blue will enhance the color of your eyes—your celestial eyes—or was it your lips—or your soul that the Puff Adder proclaimed celestial?”

“
I’m
celestial,” she said. “My entire being.”

“Did Lord Adderley say that, really?” Lady Clara said.

“He put it in writing,” Longmore said. “Has Madame not told you?”

“When would Madame tell her?” Sophy said. “Lady Clara and Madame are not on warm terms these days, remember?”

“I’m losing track of who is whom and what they’re about,” he said. “Too much subtlety and hidden meanings for my little brain box. Too much subterfuge.”

It was second nature to her, Sophy thought. Or perhaps first nature.

With a fine show of good humor she told Lady Clara about the love letter. She saw the lady glance at her brother—looking for a reaction?—but he didn’t notice. He was walking back and forth in front of the mannequins, hands folded behind his back. He put Sophy in mind of a general inspecting his troops.

In a way, that was what he was doing. Two of those dresses were part of Sophy’s and Lady Clara’s arsenal.

“I’m so glad I didn’t know about it,” Lady Clara said when Sophy had, with suitable pathos, conveyed Lord Adderley’s closing plea. “I should never have been able to keep my composure yesterday when he called.” Her smile was thin. “He was furious about the piece in the
Spectacle
. Once again he threatened to sue them. He ranted about slander. I sat with my hands folded and waited for him to finish carrying on. I thought Mama would explode, but she only sat very upright and stiff and disapproving. He must have caught on that he was using the wrong tactic, because after a while of getting no sympathy he quieted. Then he assured me the incident was perfectly innocent.”

“I’m sorry I missed that performance,” Longmore said while closely inspecting the blue dress. “I had to put in an appearance at the Marquess of Hertford’s fête.”

He’d gone to that party after he’d told her he loved her, Sophy thought. After he’d told her he loved her and then looked as though it was a joke or a puzzle . . . and laughed . . . and left.

Marcelline joined him. “Is something troubling you about Sophy’s—” She broke off, frowning, and moved to the white dress she’d made for Lady Clara. “Sophy, do you think these sleeves ought to . . .” She looked at the dress, then at Lady Clara. She narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips in that way she did when her artist’s eye discerned something amiss that nobody else could see.

“The sleeves,” she said. “They’re not quite . . . Lady Clara, I must trouble you to try on the dress.”

“Oh, yes, of course. That’s why I came. And wasn’t it good of Harry to take me, when he could have gone to Ascot? The races begin today, you know, and he hasn’t missed an opening day since he came back from the Continent.”

Marcelline only smiled and led her ladyship into the dressing room. The door wasn’t closed, and Lady Clara’s light, musical voice was perfectly audible. “It was too bad he missed Lord Adderley’s performance,” she said. “That might have made up for Ascot. I think Harry would have laughed himself sick. Mama, naturally, doesn’t see the humor in it. She was plainly outraged, but she held herself in check. For which I give her credit. It’s very hard to sit quietly while one’s intelligence is insulted.”

Longmore drew near to Sophy. “I should like to see you dripping diamonds . . . and nothing else,” he said in the very low voice that melted her spine and her brain simultaneously. More audibly, he answered his sister, “I was curious how the snake would account for himself.”

“Oh, he blamed you,” Clara said, her voice slightly muffled. Sophy could hear fabric rustling and Marcelline muttering something.

“I?” Longmore said. He leaned in and licked Sophy’s earlobe.

Her fingers curled into her palms. She really ought to step away, but it was too delicious. Too naughty.

“He claimed you’d hurt Madame’s feelings,” Clara was saying. “He said he was simply trying to cheer her. I said I thought that dining
intime
with a lady at a hotel seemed an odd way to go about it. Why did he not suggest she take a brisk walk in the open air? Why did he not suggest she visit Astley’s Amphitheater or the zoo or watch a comedy at the theater?”

Longmore was kissing the little bit of Sophy’s throat accessible above the ruche of her chemisette. It was extremely difficult to concentrate on Lady Clara. Yet Sophy was too weak-willed to step away. “That’s . . . good,” she said. “You didn’t forgive him too easily.”

“Not at all,” Lady Clara said. “I know he was annoyed with me. He expected me to smile and accept whatever he said. He thinks that he can do whatever he pleases, merely because he holds the power to restore my good name—the good name he fouled. On purpose.”