Rushed to the Altar (19 page)

Nan gave Clarissa one shrewd all-encompassing stare, then with a quick nod at Jasper said, “As you wish, my lord,” and went upstairs, brushing past Clarissa.

Clarissa kept her body half-turned to the stairs as she pulled at her gloves. “I need to take off my cloak, my lord. I’ll come down in a minute.”

“What on earth do you have under your cloak?” he asked as she took a step onto the bottom stair. “That bump?”

“It’s just some extra padding to keep out the cold,” she replied, improvising desperately, hearing how utterly unconvincing it was. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute . . .” And she fled up the stairs.

She’d attained the relative safety of her own chamber and had just managed to haul out the cushion and toss it onto the daybed when the door opened again without ceremony, and the earl came in, a puzzled frown in his dark gaze.

She turned her back hurriedly, unclasping her cloak, surreptitiously smoothing down her rucked-up skirts at the same time. Only then did she turn back to face him. “So, my lord?” She realized she sounded defensive as well as challenging.

“So, Mistress Clarissa?” He raised an eyebrow, a humorous quirk to his mouth. “What was so important that you forgot our arrangement?”

“Nothing that need concern you, sir.” Belatedly she remembered the kerchief and the severity of her hairstyle beneath. She untied the kerchief and went to the mirror, unpinning the tight knot of coiled braids. She ran her fingers through the loosened plaits, untangling them, then scooped the thick hair up into a full, looser knot on her nape, pinning it roughly. Tendrils of hair drifted softly around her face once more.

Jasper watched her with a mixture of amusement and puzzlement. Why the devil had she set out to make herself look as unattractive as was possible for someone so naturally beautiful?

Satisfied that her appearance was now in order, Clarissa began to recover her composure. Her anger at Nan’s chastisement had been fueled by her anguish over Francis. But a cooler head prevailed. She had to maintain this charade for her brother’s sake. In two more days, she would descend upon that filthy hovel with all the power she could muster, emboldened by the silent and unwitting power of the Earl of Blackwater. And Francis would be safe.

“Maybe it need not concern me, but I would still like to know.” His tone was equable but his gaze was sharp. “I find it difficult to believe that between midnight last night and dawn this morning something so important arose that you completely forgot my coachman was coming for you at ten o’clock.”

“Well, it did,” she said flatly. “And I am sorry for it, but my reasons are my own. I apologize for any inconvenience caused to your coachman, but I owe no one an explanation.” She faced him across the chamber, challenging him to question her further.

He nodded slowly, his arms folded, a question still in his eyes as he regarded her. His silence unnerved Clarissa and she fought the urge to fill it with a rush of contrived explanations. After what seemed like a very long time, he let his arms fall to his sides and shrugged. “Well, let us go now. My curricle is outside and I don’t wish to keep my horses standing too long in the cold.”

He picked up her cloak from the chair where she’d dropped it. “What kind of padding did you use to keep the cold at bay? It seems a strange solution to a cold wind.”

Clarissa cursed her improvisation. “Just a shawl around my waist,” she said vaguely. “Are you suggesting we visit the milliner now?”

“Yes, in fact I believe I’m doing rather more than suggesting it.” He set the cloak around her shoulders, turned her to face him, and fastened the clasp at her throat. “I feel a certain desire to assert myself for once . . . unless, of
course, you have some further pressing business that absolutely cannot wait for a couple of hours . . . ?” A mobile eyebrow flickered.

Clarissa shook her head, her gaze for an instant riveted on his mouth. She hadn’t noticed the fullness of his bottom lip before, or the most attractive curve at the corners. He must spend a lot of time smiling, she thought distractedly. And then he kissed her and she had no further thoughts, lost once again in the pure sensation of his mouth on hers, firm yet pliable, the scent of his skin, the feel of his hand cupping her cheek. And when at last he raised his head she felt bereft, wanting only to pull his face down to hers again.

He smiled into her upturned face and lightly traced the shape of her mouth with his thumb. “This wooing business is quite appealing, I find.” He turned her to the door as he spoke, his arm around her shoulders as he ushered her out.

His groom was walking the horses down the street as they emerged, and brought the curricle up at a smart trot as soon as he saw them. Jasper handed Clarissa up and swung himself onto the seat beside her. “Let go their heads, Tom.”

The groom released the horses and jumped up behind as they plunged forward. Clarissa considered herself a more than adequate whip, having been taught by her father, who was as skilled with the reins as he was on the hunting field, so she watched Jasper’s hands with considerable interest. As he feathered a tight corner in
the path of an oncoming phaeton she acknowledged she was in the hands of a master and settled back to enjoy the ride.

Jasper didn’t take his eyes off the road ahead as he said with a slight laugh in his voice, “I’m glad to see you’ve relaxed. I had the impression my reputation as a whip was on the line just then.”

Clarissa decided it would be too dangerous to respond. He must already be wondering about a prostitute who presumed to cast a critically appraising eye over his driving skills. She waited anxiously for him to press further, but to her relief he said nothing more, although that flickering smile, which she now knew denoted a degree of internal reflection, continued to play over his mouth, and she had a feeling she’d been granted only a temporary reprieve.

He drew rein outside an elegant bow-windowed establishment on Mount Street. It had a discreet sign above the door,
MODISTE MADAME HORTENSE
. He tossed the reins to his groom and swung down, reaching a hand up to assist Clarissa to the road. She stepped down beside him, looking curiously up and down the street. So far her experience of the city consisted of the ribald street amusements of Covent Garden, the more businesslike areas around Ludgate Hill and St. Paul’s, and, as of this morning, the sweat and grime of wharfside Wapping. The streets they had traversed on this drive were lined with graceful houses with gleaming windows and white honed, iron-railed steps leading up to wide
entrances adorned with glowing brass doorknobs and knockers. Mount Street was no different.

“Walk ’em, Tom, we’ll be an hour or so.”

“Right y’are, m’lord.” Tom jumped onto the driver’s bench and clicked his tongue. The horses moved off at a sedate pace.

Jasper escorted Clarissa up the steps to the front door and pulled the chain of a bell to the right of the door. The door was opened instantly by a maid who curtsied and stepped aside to let them enter a square hall. “Is Madame Hortense expecting you, sir?”

“She was expecting Mistress Ordway earlier,” Jasper told her, drawing off his driving gloves and laying them with his driving whip on a bench beside the front door. “Be good enough to offer Mistress Ordway’s apologies for our late arrival. If Madame Hortense is unable to accommodate us now, I will, of course, understand.”

The maid hurried away and Clarissa gazed around the hall, deciding to ignore what was clearly an implicit rebuke. Jasper was probably entitled to something since he was the one who’d made the appointment, and it was hardly just that their tardiness be laid at his door.

The maid returned almost before she’d left, curtsying again. “Madame Hortense is delighted you were able to keep the appointment, my lord. She is ready for the young lady immediately.”

Jasper nodded. “Thank you.” He crooked a finger at Clarissa, who was looking over her shoulder at him as
she stood in front of a painting on the far wall. “Shall we go in? Or should we delay a little longer?”

She glared at him, but saw that he was laughing, and shook her head in exasperation as she came over to him. She wanted to ask what he found amusing, but she didn’t want to open up the discussion about where she’d been that morning, or what she’d been doing, so bit her tongue and allowed him to ease her ahead of him through a set of double doors into a large salon.

If this was a shop, it was unlike any Clarissa was accustomed to. She found herself in an elegantly appointed drawing room, and the woman who came to greet her was a vision of fashionable elegance in a
contouche
gown of lavender silk, ornamented with dark green velvet bows. Her hair was unpowdered and molded smoothly into the shape of her head, with a few curls clustered on her brow. Beneath the powder and paint, Clarissa reckoned she must be in her late forties, but there was nothing matronly about her appearance.

“My lord, you are welcome.” Madame Hortense curtsied and the earl bowed with a flourish, his hat at his chest.

“Hortense, delightful as always. You look charmingly.”

“Another woman might simper and say you flatter,” the lady said with a smile. “I, as you should know, my lord, am impervious to flattery. And I believe you speak the truth anyway.”

Clarissa warmed instantly to the woman. She caught the swift exchange of knowing smiles between Jasper
and Hortense and wondered if at some point they had had a liaison.

“So, Hortense, I need you to dress Mistress Ordway.” Jasper gestured to Clarissa. “Her present attire is too countrified for the town.” As he spoke he divested Clarissa of her cloak.

Hortense looked her over. Her gaze was the disinterested assessment of a modiste with a client and Clarissa relaxed. Hortense was not concerned about Clarissa’s position vis-à-vis her previous lover, if they had indeed had an affair, but only how best to do her job.

The modiste walked slowly around her and then said, “She’s lovely, Jasper. She will be a pleasure to dress. I assume we’re talking society, the opera, the ballrooms of the Upper Ten Thousand, and all that goes with that?”

“Most definitely.”

“Carriage dress, walking dress, of course. Ball gowns, evening gowns.” She was ticking items off on her fingers. “Riding habit?”

Clarissa, who was beginning to feel like an insensate doll, spoke up. “Yes. Definitely.”

Jasper looked at her. “How well do you ride?”

She was about to tell him that her father had put her on her first pony almost before she could walk, and she had hunted some of the hardest country in Kent, before she caught herself and said only, “Well enough.”

“A sedate trot around the tan in Hyde Park?”

No, a gallop over any terrain you choose.
“I’m sure I could manage that.”

He nodded. “Then, yes, Hortense. Riding habit as well. I’ll find a well-mannered lady’s mount.” He caught Clarissa’s quickly smothered grimace and frowned.
If she did know how to ride, how had she learned? Or, more to the point, where?

Hortense rang a handbell on a small table and two young women in plain black gowns entered. “This is Bella and Amanda, Mistress Ordway. If you would go with them they will take the necessary measurements . . . My lord, will you take a glass of Madeira? Or would you prefer claret?”

“Claret, Hortense.” He moved with her to a sofa over by the fireplace and Clarissa followed the two young women out of the room.

They took her into a small, cheerful parlor where a fire burned brightly. “If you’d undress to your chemise, Mistress Ordway?” Bella produced a tape measure.

Clarissa did so, standing in chemise and stockinged feet as the two apprentices took careful measurements. It was a painstaking process, and one quite new to her. The milliner in her village at home did good enough work, but the measurements were nowhere near as accurate or as extensive as those Bella and Amanda were taking. For some reason the circumferences of ankle, wrist, and throat were as important as the usual measurements.

“If you’d care to put this robe on, Mistress Ordway.” Amanda held out a silk chamber robe. “We’ll return to the salon, where Madame Hortense will show you designs
and materials.” Bella set a pair of embroidered slippers at Clarissa’s feet.

Clarissa acquiesced, undeniably fascinated by this process. She had squashed all reservations about allowing a man to pay for her clothes on the grounds that they were necessary if she was to play the part she had agreed to play for him. She had no intention of keeping them when it was all over, but it was a charade, a stage play, no more than that. The only time she didn’t feel as if she were living in some dream world was when she was in search of her little brother. And then, in its dreadful reality, she inhabited a nightmare world.

Jasper and Hortense were standing side by side, apparently examining bolts of rich materials that had somehow appeared on a long table beneath the window where the daylight fell full on them. There was an intimate connection between them that only a blind person would miss, Clarissa thought as she and her two helpmeets came back into the room. The easy way they stood so close together, their bent heads almost touching, shouted a deep and comfortable familiarity. She wondered abruptly if they were still involved in a liaison. It was not a thought that she liked in the least. But what business was it of hers? She was simply playing her part in a charade. Jasper was experienced in the ways of the world; it was inevitable that he had had lovers and highly likely that he still did.

Hortense turned to examine Clarissa with the same clarity as before. Jasper took his glass of claret to a deep
armchair by the fire and sat down, watching the proceedings with interest.

Hortense pursed her lips, nodding to herself. “Now, my dear, I think, because you are so slight of frame, that we should for the most part use lighter fabrics. We can deal with the cold with woolen undergarments, or petticoats of a heavier cloth. A light-colored velvet might do for the riding habit, and for a walking dress, but we want nothing to disguise your figure, and everything must complement your wonderful hair . . . such an unusual, vibrant color.” She glanced across at Jasper. “Do you agree, Lord Blackwater?”