Vixen in Velvet (8 page)

“You’re in a devil of a hurry to return,” Swanton said.

Lisburne laughed. “Perhaps I am. I’m supposed to be such a cosmopolitan fellow, yet I let a redheaded French milliner get the better of me. Perhaps I want to slink away in shame.”

“That I beg leave to doubt,” Swanton said. “I believe you’re so far from wishing to leave that you’re even now puzzling over how she did it, so that you can plan how to prevail at your next encounter.”

Lisburne looked at him.

“She’s the only woman you’ve taken any particular notice of since we came to London,” Swanton said. “And I know you. As well, that is, as anybody can know you.”

“As though there were anything of great moment to know,” Lisburne said. But Swanton was a poet. He imagined everybody had hidden depths. If Lisburne did have them, he wasn’t interested in exploring them, and he certainly wouldn’t encourage anybody else to do so. “What about you? Do you feel compelled to stay?”

“I feel I must,” Swanton said.

“Do you? I’d as soon be stalked by wolves as by a lot of gently bred maidens.”

“They’ll grow sick of me soon enough,” Swanton said. “In the meantime, I should be a coward to run away when I can do so much good. It would be unworthy of your father’s memory, in any event.”

“Yes, yes, stab me with my father, do,” Lisburne said.

“I know it isn’t fair, but it’s the only way I know to win an argument with you,” Swanton said.

“Very well,” Lisburne said. “We stay until they turn on you. Then we pray we can get away in time.”

He glanced at the piles of correspondence he’d flung onto one of the library’s sofas a short time earlier. “Meanwhile, does your secretary need a secretary? The heaps of letters have only grown higher since yesterday.” Remembering what Swanton had said moments ago, he added, “Begging letters, you said. One of the perils of rank and wealth. Everybody puts his hand out, and somebody has to decide who’s deserving and who isn’t.”

“That’s the least of it,” Swanton said. “Today alone I received two claims for child support and one extortionate note threatening a breach of promise suit.”

To anybody who knew Swanton, the claims were absurd. Yet they oughtn’t to be taken lightly.

Fame aroused envy and greed and, generally, the worst instincts of some people. Too many would be willing to believe ill of him.

“Show me the letters,” Lisburne said.

Evening of Tuesday 14 July

H
ad Lisburne not been so deeply engrossed in his cousin’s unpleasant correspondence, he might have got wind of the other matter sooner. Or maybe not.

Though he’d been to White’s often enough, he hadn’t looked into the betting book in days. Why bother? So many of the wagers were witless, arising from boredom. How long a fly would crawl about the window before it died or flew away, for instance.

Lisburne, for the present at least, wasn’t bored. Watching women moon about Swanton had been tiresome, and even the possible dangers of the situation hadn’t made life exciting. But then Miss Leonie Noirot had entered the picture, and London had become far more interesting.

Since she was everything but boring, Lisburne wasn’t shocked to find her at the heart of the latest gossip.

He and Swanton had attended the Countess of Jersey’s assembly, where the ladies made the usual fuss about the poet. While the younger women were fluttering about Swanton, Lisburne drifted toward the card room. As he was about to enter, Lady Alda Morris detained him, in order to whisper something behind her fan.

Maison Noirot

Wednesday 15 July

L
ady Gladys stood before the dressing glass, her face pink.

Four women—Leonie, Marcelline, Lady Clara, and Jeffreys—watched and waited.

Today, for the first time, Lady Gladys wore the corset Leonie had designed especially for her.

Unlike the one they’d hastily adapted last week to replace the monstrosity she’d brought from home, this one employed all of Leonie’s knowledge of mathematics, physiology, and physics. Until this moment, she hadn’t been allowed to enjoy her accomplishment, because Lady Gladys had refused to come out and show herself in the corset. She said she would not cavort about in her undergarments to be gawked at.

That, however, was before she’d seen the gold evening dress.

When they’d first shown it to her, she’d made a face and said the color would make her look as though she had a liver disease. But by Lady Gladys’s standards, the protest was feeble. A moment later she said she might as well try it on. Then she’d insisted on Jeffreys—the allegedly consumptive speaker of vile French—attending her in the dressing room.

Ladies were nothing if not capricious, but this lady had apparently devoted her young life to making everybody about her want to throttle her.

“Well,” she said at last.

One word, but Leonie caught the little bubble of pleasure in it. Lady Gladys had a beautiful voice, as expressive as an opera singer’s.

“I never thought I could wear this color,” she said.

“So you made abundantly clear,” Lady Clara said. “I thought we should have to stupefy you with drink to get you to try on anything today.”

“That isn’t true. I didn’t make a fuss about
trying on
the corset. I only didn’t want to prance about in my underwear while everybody stared at me.”

She smoothed the front of the dress though Jeffreys, naturally, had made sure every seam lay precisely in place.

“The corset is comfortable,” Lady Gladys said. “I’m not sure what you did, but . . .” She trailed off, studying herself. “You did something,” she said.

Leonie had done a great deal. She’d designed the stays to support her ladyship’s generous embonpoint. The corset’s shape smoothed her waist in a way that made it seem smaller, though the compression was minimal.

Her figure remained much fuller and less shapely than the fashionable ideal. But fashionable ideals were only that. What was important was making a lady look as beautiful as it was possible for her to look. And the gold satin was as much a surprise to Leonie as it was to Lady Gladys.

As usual, Marcelline had imagined the dress entirely in her head. This time, though, she’d relied solely on Leonie’s detailed description of their new client.

Yet from her sickbed, and in spite of near-constant nausea, Marcelline had designed a miracle of a dress. Gold satin trimmed in black blond lace. Simple yet dramatic. The pointed waist created the illusion of a narrower waistline, and the black languets that fastened it in front enhanced the effect.

Pointed waists had supposedly fallen out of fashion, but Marcelline never concerned herself with what she considered petty fluctuations of taste.

This dress would bring pointed waists straight back into style, Leonie calculated. The black lace mantilla, attached to the tops of the sleeves, not only added drama but drew the eye upward, toward Lady Gladys’s ample bosom. It was, perhaps, not quite the thing for an unwed young lady, but Lady Gladys would look ridiculous in the types of dresses that suited the average maiden.

She brought her hand up to the edge of the bodice. “It’s very low-cut,” she said.

“But of course, my dear,” Marcelline said. “You have a beautiful bosom. We want to draw the eye to it.”

“I’ll feel naked,” Lady Gladys said.

“What’s wrong with that?” Lady Clara said. “You’ll feel naked and still look perfectly respectable.”

“Hardly
perfectly
respectable,” said her cousin.

“It’s all right to look tempting,” Lady Clara said.

“Will you stop it!” Lady Gladys snapped, her vehemence startling everybody. “Stop being
kind.
I can’t tell you how provoking it is. No, wait, yes I can. You’ve only to crook a finger to have any man you want. You have no idea what it’s like to be—to be—
not
to be beautiful and sweet-natured!”

“I’m not sweet at all,” Lady Clara said. “People only think that because of my looks.”

“That’s the point! You can say anything!”

“No, I can’t,” Lady Clara said sharply. “I can’t be myself. There’s Mama, looming over me all the time. You don’t know how
suffocating
it is.”

“Oh, yes, all those men crowding about you, clamoring for a smile.”

“They only see the outside. They don’t know who I am, or care particularly. You know me—or you ought to know. And you know I’m on your side and always have been, in spite of how difficult you make it.”

Lady Gladys went scarlet and her eyes filled. “I don’t know how to behave!” she cried. “I don’t know how to do
anything
! You complain because your mother is always at you. But at least you have one. You’ve had women about to teach you how to be
womanly
. Look at me! My father’s a soldier, and I might as well have been raised in an army camp. He treats me like a regiment. He gives orders and then off he goes, to smash some Foe of England.” She flung away and stormed back to the dressing room. “Jeffreys! Get this thing off me!”

With a panicked look at Leonie, Jeffreys trotted after her.

Lady Clara stomped to a chair and flung herself onto it.

Marcelline looked at Leonie.

Leonie lifted her shoulders and mouthed,
I have no idea.

“What on earth is the matter?” Marcelline said to Lady Clara.

“I don’t know,” Lady Clara said.

“I can tell you what’s the matter,” Lady Gladys said from behind the curtain. “I’m not going to Almack’s tonight, no matter how they cajole. I told them I wouldn’t do that sort of thing ever again, yet Clara won’t stop plaguing me about it. And now you’ve given her this curst dress for ammunition!”

“You look very well in it, but you’re too obstinate to admit it!” Lady Clara cried.

“I don’t care if I look well. They should never have made it, because I’ll have no occasion to wear it. I don’t want it! I wish I’d never come to London!”

Lady Clara sighed, braced her forehead with one hand, and stared at the floor.

From behind the dressing room curtain came a choked sob.

Other than that, the consulting rooms were silent, apparently peaceful.

That was when Mary Parmenter came in, all flustered, to report that Lord Lisburne and Lord Swanton had arrived. They had business with Miss Noirot, they said. Should Mary ask them to wait in the showroom or in the office?

“We’re busy,” Leonie said. “You may tell them to make an appointment.”

She heard a gasp from behind the curtain. Then, “You can’t make Lord Swanton
wait
,” Lady Gladys called out shakily. “You’re not busy with me anymore. You might as well see what the gentlemen want.”

“Tell them to make an appointment,” Leonie told Parmenter.

Then she sent the others away and walked behind the curtain.

L
eonie found Lady Gladys sitting on the edge of the dressmaking platform, head in her hands.

“I’m not talking to you,” her ladyship muttered. “You’re like a human thumbscrew.”

“One of the secrets of our success is knowing our ladies’ minds,” Leonie said. “We squeeze it out of you one way or another. You might as well tell me and save us both energy we can employ more happily elsewhere.”

“Happy!”

Leonie dropped onto the platform beside her.

Lady Gladys lifted her head. “You only pretend to be my friend. You only want me to order more clothes.”

“I haven’t got to pretending to be your friend yet,” Leonie said. “But I do want you to order more clothes. Why else be in business?”

“It hasn’t occurred to you that I might put you out of business? All of London knows you’ve taken me in hand. They’re already betting on the outcome.”

In truth, of all the matters that might be making Lady Gladys irrational, this hadn’t been the first to cross Leonie’s mind—probably because of the large mental distraction known as the Marquess of Lisburne.

Still, the betting didn’t surprise Leonie. Members of the ton, men and women alike, gambled, mainly because they were bored and idle. And whether they made bets or not, the women would be deeply interested in the results of Lady Gladys’s visits to the shop.

Leonie knew this. It was, in fact, part of what had propelled her toward Lady Gladys. Once Maison Noirot succeeded in showing her ladyship at her best, all the fashionable world would be pounding on Maison Noirot’s doors.

But her ladyship did have to cooperate.

“Aristocrats wager about everything,” Leonie said briskly. “Naturally, you find it galling—”

“Especially when Lady Bartham’s irritating daughter takes great pains to explain the terms,” Lady Gladys said. “As will not surprise you, the phrase ‘silk purse from sow’s ear’ came up more than once.”

Lady Bartham was a close friend and venomous social rival of Lady Clara’s mother, Lady Warford. Leonie didn’t understand why anybody would make friends—or having made them in ignorance, continue—with an adder. She was aware that one of Lady Bartham’s daughters, Lady Alda, was equally toxic.

“Some people are either so ignorant, self-centered, or deeply unhappy that hurting others makes them feel good,” Leonie said. “It’s perverse, but there it is. The best way to fight back is to find a reason to laugh or to feel pleased. It will confuse and upset them. A good revenge, I think.”

Lady Gladys scowled at her. “Tell me what’s amusing. Tell me what I ought to feel pleased about.”

“Why should she go to so much trouble to insult and hurt you unless she’s trying to undermine your self-confidence? Maybe she’s afraid you’ll turn into competition.”

Lady Gladys gave Leonie a you-need-medical-help look.

“Only imagine,” Leonie said, “if you had patted her hand reassuringly and said, ‘Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry to worry you, but I promise to try not to steal any of your beaux, if I can help it.’ Then you could laugh. You have such a pretty laugh. And she would go away a good deal more upset than you.”

“A pretty laugh?” Lady Gladys said. She turned away to stare at a French fashion print on the opposite wall.

“A beautiful voice altogether.” Leonie rose. “Please stop wishing to look like your cousin. It makes you blind to your own assets. You’ll never look like Lady Clara. But she’ll never have your voice.”