Candice Hern (15 page)

“Truly? Well, I don’t see why they couldn’t work here. It would only be a few days a month. And we seldom use the dining room for dining anymore. We could certainly turn it into a workshop.” She smiled at Flora. “Why not?”

“How many do you need?”

“Perhaps a half dozen?”

“Consider it done.”

“Oh, Flora, you are a wonder. If we get these drawings to Keech right away, he could probably have the engravings printed next week. Do you think the girls could be here on Thursday?”

“I’ll have them here with bells on.”

“Miss Parrish be in the garden out back. Shall I take you to her?”

“Thank you, Lucy, but I can find my own way.”
Tony nodded toward the coalscuttle in her hand and the dirty cloth draped over her arm. “Looks like you’re busy enough.”

She gave him a saucy look, bobbed a shallow curtsey, then disappeared down the stairs to the lower level. Tony stepped into the entry and was placing his hat on the hall table when he became aware of voices coming from the dining room. Female voices.

“They ain’t supposed ter be red, ye stupid cow.”

“She said they was pink.”

He cocked an ear to listen while he tugged off his gloves.

“Yeah, but ’oo’d want prissy pink slippers when they could ’ave red ones?”

“Better make ’em pink, Sadie.”

“Wot color was this ribbon supposed ter be?”

“I made mine yeller.”

“T’ink I’ll make mine green.”

“Yer sure them slippers can’t be red?”

“Make ’em pink if yer wanna get paid.”

“We could put red stripes on ’em.”

“Cor, red-striped slippers. That’d be summink. Wot I wouldn’t give fer a pair o’ them.”

“Yer can’t give wot yer don’t ’ave, Madge, an’ I figger as how y’ain’t got much o’ nuffink to give wot ain’t already been took.”

Cackles of coarse laughter filled the air. Tony peeked in the doorway of the dining room. He was brought up short by the sight of six scruffy women
who looked for all the world like they had just stepped out of the back alleys of Covent Garden.

Their clothing was faded, patched, and worn, with pitiful little scraps of tattered lace or ribbon added here and there in an attempt at adornment, or to disguise frayed edges of sleeves or necklines. Two of them wore corsets over their bodices. One wore a cloth bonnet with crushed feathers on the side.

“Yer want striped slippers, Madge? Git yerself some toff from up west an’ work a pair orff ’im.”

“Ha! Don’ I wish.”

“Now wot yer be wantin’ wiv slippers, anyway? Wouldn’t last a week on the streets.”

“’Ere now, wot’s this?”

He’d been spotted.

“Cor lumme, Madge, would yer look at this? It’s yer West End toff in the flesh. Look at all them fancy sparklers danglin’ at ’is waist.”

“Ooh, ain’t ’e a pretty one.”

“A sight prettier’n yerself, Sadie.”

“Wun’t mind smokin’ dat pipe.”

“I’d share me mutton wid ’at one any day.”

“C’mon in, dearie. We in’t gorn to bite.”

Tony wasn’t so sure about that. “Perhaps later, ladies,” he said. “Good day.”

A burst of shrill laughter was followed by a buzz of excited chatter as Tony hurried down the hall to the garden entrance beyond the study.

What the devil was going on here? He felt like
he’d wandered into a madhouse. Or a cheap brothel. What were six old bawds doing in Edwina’s dining room?

He stopped at the open door to the garden. He’d never been in the back rooms of the house, and so had never had a view of the garden. It was tiny, hardly bigger than a snuff box, but just as decorative. A strict formality had been forced onto the small space. The sides were defined by tall, clipped yew hedges that acted as walls. The back was enclosed by a stone wall shared with the neighboring houses, and was here covered with espaliered pear trees in full fruit. Gravel paths split the garden into quadrants, with a central octagon in which a small statue of Diana held court above a lush mound of periwinkle. Geometrical patterns of low, ruthlessly clipped box enclosed beds of herbs and late-summer roses in each quadrant. It was orderly, rigid, and neat as a pin.

Edwina was bent over one of the far sections, pulling weeds and flinging them into a basket at her feet. Tony watched her, unobserved, from the garden door. She wore a green apron over a white muslin dress and a broad gypsy hat of chip straw. She looked charmingly rustic, and he savored a moment of private scrutiny.

The sun was bright and the sky clear, a good enough reason to send anyone outdoors. A slight breeze moved the muslin of her skirts and lifted the apron ties at her back. She straightened, one gloved
hand on her hip, spied another offending weed, and bent to remove it. She reached for it, couldn’t get to it, and stretched farther, bending low from the waist and thrusting her nicely rounded bottom into the air. Bracing herself with one foot slightly behind the other, she tugged. The plant was stubborn and she tugged harder, stretching the fabric of her dress taut across her shoulders. The weed gave up its roots at last, sending her bobbling backward slightly. She straightened, tossed the weed into the basket, lifted a hand to her hat, and searched the ground for another weed. She found one, and the routine was repeated.

Tony had been struck by her beauty from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her. There were times—when the light fell on her in a certain way, or she tilted her head at a certain angle, or she looked up quickly with an unguarded expression—when she still had the ability to leave him breathless. She faced away from him, but even so, he experienced a pang of pure desire as he anticipated seeing her face when she turned: the pale skin set off by the elegant arch of black brow above large, deep-set eyes, extraordinarily dramatic in their inky blackness, the full lips so deep a pink they looked painted.

He loved to look at her, didn’t think he could ever tire of it.

But at the moment, more than her beauty was on his mind. He was about to have a moment
alone with her—one of the few since that remarkable afternoon of seductive games and passionate kisses. He continued to invite her for drives in the park, though he’d been accepted just once. Not only had he wanted those opportunities to have her to himself for a short time, but also just to get her out of the damned house. As far as he could tell, she seldom left Golden Square.

Part of his new campaign to teach her to be free was to get her out of the house. It would do her no good to learn to fly if she never left her cage. He wanted to take her out in the evening, to the theater or the opera or a grand Society ball. Anything. He had considered another wager, but she was becoming wary of those tactics. Besides, he wanted her to go with him of her own accord, not because she’d lost a wager. And so he kept his eyes open for an appropriate invitation, one she would not be likely to refuse.

In the meantime, he had this private moment.

The sound of his boot heels on the gravel alerted her to his presence, so he could not sneak up behind her and steal a kiss. She smiled to see him, though, and that gave him confidence.

He walked right up to her, dipped his head under the brim of her hat, and kissed her on the mouth. He kept it simple and quick, but it was still very sweet.

The delight shining in her eyes was even sweeter.

“You, sir, are a rogue.”

“So they tell me. But you looked too pretty to resist in the midst of your pretty little garden. I did not know you were a gardener, my dear.”

“I find it rather soothing to work among the plants and flowers. And I like to be outdoors. I come out here to read sometimes when the weather permits.” She nodded toward the low stone benches placed at the end of each gravel path.

“It’s a lovely garden.”

“Do you think so?” She looked about her and shrugged. “I realize it is not in the current taste. But the space seemed too small for the rather wild, natural style that is so popular. It needed more tamed plantings.”

“And you are keeping them tame, I see.” He indicated the basket at her feet.

“I fear I am rather ruthless when it comes to weeds. I will not allow their disorderly presence to spoil the harmony of it all.”

“Speaking of disorderly, what the devil is that group of old tarts doing in your dining room?”

Edwina laughed. “They are rather…vivid, are they not? That, sir, is your new staff of colorists. They are providing the hand coloring for our new prints.”

“Do I detect the work of Flora in this?”

“Yes, she asked to hire them when I told her Imber could no longer handle it. The volume is too great, you see.”

“Is it indeed? So you are inching toward winning our wager, it seems.”

“More than inching. We are making great strides. We have just under three thousand subscribers now.”

Tony’s eyes widened in surprise. “Three thousand? Egad, I am in danger of losing the Minerva. I shall have to take steps. But tell me about these…colorists.”

“They are all women Flora once knew, long ago before she became more successful. Can you believe that she actually kept in touch with them over the years, looked out for them in a way? Most women in her position would never have looked back.”

“Flora is indeed a rare and extraordinary woman.”

Edwina studied him from beneath the brim of her hat. She knew, he realized. Flora must have told her. Well, she was bound to find out sooner or later. Theirs had been a rather public liaison, after all, so what did it matter if Edwina knew about it? Still, he could not help but wonder just exactly what Flora had said.

Tony had been very young, after all, when she had become his mistress. He had not been gauche and inexperienced, precisely, but he’d known little of refinement, subtlety, or finesse. Surely Flora would not have revealed what a clumsy lover he’d been at first.

“Yes, she is quite remarkable,” Edwina said. “And when she thought to provide a bit of respectable daytime employment for these women, how could I object? In fact, I am delighted to do what I can to help them stay off the streets. She did, though, make sure to bring on only those who had some skill in painting.”

“But not in following directions, I fear.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“From what I overheard, some of them may be taking liberties with the specified colors. Red slippers, for example.”

“Red slippers?” She chuckled softly. “Oh, dear. Perhaps I had better take a look. Come along, Anthony, and I will introduce you to the ‘Crimson Ladies.’”

Edwina removed her apron and gypsy hat and hung them on hooks in a small potting shed just off the entrance to the house. She shook out her muslin skirts and fluffed her hair a bit—for his benefit?—before leading him back into the house.

The chatter from the dining room met them the minute they entered the hall. But when they approached the open doorway, he saw that each woman was bent over a sheet of printed figures, carefully adding color as they talked.

“How are things progressing, ladies?” Edwina asked.

They all looked up at her words, though most eyes fell on Tony. He felt he was being mentally un
dressed from six different directions. It was most unsettling. He stepped behind Edwina.

“We be gettin’ a lot done, miss.” A dark-haired, buxom woman of indeterminate age seemed to be the spokeswoman for the group. “See ’ere.”

Edwina walked in and picked up several completed sheets from a large stack, each sheet with two engravings printed upon it. “Oh.”

Her voice, and her expression, registered uncertainty. Tony could see why. Not a single sheet appeared to be identical. The shawls and sashes and ribbons and slippers and bonnets and gloves were all neatly colored in a variety of bright, bold colors. Primrose yellow and fiery orange. Deep violet and bright apple green. And red. Lots of red. Tony had to suppress a grin.

Edwina gave a resigned shrug of her shoulders and smiled. “Well, they are beautifully painted, and certainly are colorful.”

“’Fraid we might’ve mixed up some o’ the colors,” the leader said, pushing back a lock of brown hair that had come loose from the untidy knot at her nape. “Couldn’t ’member wot yer said ’bout some, and none of us can read good ’nuff to make sense o’ that writin’ yer give us.”

“Oh, of course,” Edwina said, and looked chagrined. “Forgive me. I hadn’t thought about that. I believe what we should do next time is to have one set already colored, and you ladies can simply copy it.”

“That’d be good, but ’t’were more fun this way. Got to use our ’maginations, like.”

“Figgered them pale colors wouldn’t catch nobody’s eye,” a full-bosomed redhead offered. “Brightened ’em up a bit.”

“You certainly did,” Edwina said. “I think they are quite charming.” She shot a skeptical look at Anthony.

“I agree, Miss Parrish,” he said as he stepped into the room. “Bright colors are much to be preferred, I think.”

“Ladies, may I introduce to you Mr. Morehouse? He is the owner of the
Cabinet
.”

“Is ’e now?”

“This pretty man?”

“Well, don’t that beat all.”

Edwina smiled and gestured for him to come closer. He stayed where he was.

“This is Madge.” She indicated the dark-haired leader. “She has agreed to act as group supervisor, which frees up some of my time, for which I am most grateful.”

“Good afternoon, Madge.”

“Afternoon yerself, darlin’.” She eyed him up and down suggestively. “Long time since such an ’andsome devil paid me fer work.” She winked at him.

“Honest work, Madge,” he said.

“Ay, an’ I thank ye fer it, too. Gettin’ too old fer night work.”

“And this is Ginny,” Edwina said, indicating a slightly younger and prettier woman with a head full of frizzy brown hair that stuck out in all directions.

Ginny smiled and batted her lashes, then reached her hand down into her corset and adjusted her breasts, lifting them higher. “Hey there, ’andsome. I i’nt too old fer night work, if yer interested.”

Tony grinned and hoped to heaven his cheeks weren’t flaming red.

“This is Polly,” Edwina said, unable to keep the twinkle of amusement from her eyes. “She’s our face painter. She has such a way with faces we asked if she would do them all. Only see what a beautiful job she’s done.”