In the Brief Eternal Silence (21 page)

The Duchess replied, “I think you do know
what is going on in his head, on this matter at least. And that in
itself is rather significant, Miss Murdock, for I have never known
him to confide in another.” Seeing that her words were making her
protégée uncomfortable, she added, “But be that as it may, I shall
not pry, for I am certain St. James will tell me what he wishes me
to know when he wishes me to know it.”

With relief (which she would not have felt if
she had but known the duchess better), Miss Murdock agreed, “I am
sure that is so, ma'am, and as I have no doubt that this is all a
bust at any rate, it would not do for you to become enmeshed in it
only to have it all come to naught in the end.”

“Tut. We shall see child. Now, if you have
finished your breakfast, then I will call for the coach to be
brought around so that we may begin getting you into something a
little more the thing, my dear.”

“Yes, ma'am. I only beg that you keep the
expense modest and that we only buy one or two things so that once
this is all over I may repay you.”

“Do not think of it, Miss Murdock. You should
have a new wardrobe for no other reason than putting up with my
grandson's shameful conduct. I dare say, you have earned it, and I
mean that in the most respectable way.”

So Miss Murdock found herself only a short
time later in the unmerciful hands of the owner of the Mystique
Boutique. The equally unmerciful Duchess sat in a padded chair in
the private salon directing all that went on with an iron will.
“No, no, Dora, those colors are not at all what I had in mind.
Apple green, I should think, and powder blue, and dare I say
buttermilk yellow? Yes. I think buttermilk yellow would be just the
thing. A ball gown from it, I believe.”

Dora turned her stout figure with shocking
quickness to the Duchess, the violet material she held in her hands
drooping. “But, milady, those colors will make her seem even darker
than she already is, I assure you. And she is already much too
dark. I despair that even a thousand cucumbers will induce her skin
to become the shade she was born with.”

But the Duchess only nodded in approval.
“Exactly, Dora! We can not make her into something she is not, so
change the rules, I say. Make them compete on her turf. She has no
remarkable features to speak of so we will make that dark
complexion her calling card.”

Dora opened her eyes very wide. “I see,” she
said and paused, her face taking on a calculating expression as she
turned back to Miss Murdock, who was standing on a low stool in
only her chemise and feeling very uncomfortable with her lack of
clothing and the ruthless way the two older women were assessing
her. “Yes,” Dora was now saying. “The very thing. I can not believe
I did not see it.” She turned to an assistant. “You heard the
Duchess, what are you waiting for? Take these and come back with
what milady suggested and may I also suggest,” she asked the
Duchess, her face questioning, “a red velvet for her riding
habit?”

The Duchess chuckled. “Oh, very daring, and
she shall carry it off splendidly. Now you have the idea,
Dora.”

“Indeed, I do, milady.”

“Pardon me, ma'am,” Miss Murdock interrupted
as Dora's assistant scurried out of the room. “I thought we had
agreed to keep the purchases modest.”

“Nonsense!” the Duchess replied. “I don't
remember agreeing to any such thing. Besides, it is St. James'
money I am spending, so whatever do I care? Do you hear that,
Dora?” she turned to her old friend and dressmaker. “The bills go
to my grandson.”

If Dora showed any surprise at this news, she
made no indication of it, merely made a note on her pad. Then she
was busy sketching, appraising Miss Murdock as she did so. “I have
some very good ideas already, milady,” she said, tearing off a top
sheet and starting on a new sketch on the next one. Miss Murdock
could see that at the top of each page with its, to her anyway,
bewildering lines, was her name, neatly written, and the Duchess's
address and then in large letters: Bill to Duke of St. James.

That single line of letters seemed to wrap
about her rib cage and nearly suffocate her. The implications were
damning.

The assistant came back in, a flurry of
fluttering cloths as she carried an assortment of bolts of
differing colors. She was quite red in the face from her efforts,
but stood patiently as Dora selected each in turn, holding it up to
Miss Murdock's form for effect, draping it this way and that. The
entire time, she and the Duchess kept up a steady chatter, much of
it gossip as well as critiquing.

As Miss Murdock could see that the Duchess
was enjoying herself, she kept her doubts to herself over the
selections made and the expense being incurred. Mayhaps she was
caught up just the tiniest bit in the excitement of it, for she had
never imagined how pleasing it could be to see so very many colors
and materials and all of them being draped across her. Surely it
could not harm anything to allow such a vast selection to be
presented when she would narrow it down to only one or two?

“And of course all new under garments, and
the proper accessories, which I will trust to you, Dora,” the
Duchess was still talking several hours later, “as I can see you
know exactly what I want at this point.”

“You can trust me, milady,” Dora reassured,
jotting still further notes into her pad.

“And I would like the first of these to be
delivered tomorrow morning. I can not have this child wearing those
clothes she brought another moment longer if I can help it.”

“Oh, milady, that will be very expensive!”
Dora warned. “It will mean taking girls from other projects and
bringing in extra ones and sewing, sewing, sewing. . . .”

To which the Duchess cackled. “Good! I hope
St. James has the apoplexy when he gets the bill. It should be
quite entertaining.”

“Ma'am,” Miss Murdock moaned. “It is too
much. I have told you it is too much. Walking dresses, afternoon
dresses, riding habits, ball gowns, tea gowns, morning dresses, and
all the slippers and bows and hats and gloves, not to mention the
unmentionables!”

“Hush, child. Why we've only just begun.
There will be several more shopping trips before we have you
precisely the way I want you. But nevermind,” she added as she saw
the frightened look on Miss Murdock's face, “for we will save that
for another day. I am quite exhausted, I admit, but in a totally
pleasant way, so do not look at me like that. I think when we go
home, I shall take a little nap, and then this evening, we shall
see what we can do with your hair. That bun, quite simply, has to
go.”

“Oh, dear,” Miss Murdock said, feeling
utterly out of control. “Not my hair also.”

“Indeed, yes, Miss Murdock,” the Duchess
replied in a voice that brooked no argument. “It may not be of any
compelling color, but there is quite a bit of it, and thick also.
We shall contrive something more attractive to you than all that,
that primness.”

“Oh, certainly, Miss,” Dora added. “And may I
also suggest,” and her voice lowered to a conspiratory whisper as
she leaned to the Duchess, “that you put just the faintest,
faintest spot of rouge on either cheek, milady? I know it is quite
unacceptable, but everyone is doing it. Discreetly, of course, but
still, there it is.”

“Yes,” the Dowager murmured back, making the
two seem like secret agents on some horribly important mission for
the crown. “I had already thought the same, and I admit, only to
you, Dora, mind you, that I have, on occasion, indulged myself.”
And she nodded. “Yes. Even at my age.”

Dora giggled. “Oh, I would have never
guessed, milady. I always said you were very sly.” She went on, her
whisper becoming even more furtive. “And milady, I do not mean to
pry, but the fact that St. James is to be billed for her coming
out, does that mean that there will be congratulations in
order?”

The Dowager smiled rather thinly. “Of course,
I can not say, Dora, not even to you, after all these years. But it
is the first lass he has ever taken a respectable interest in, and
so I intend to build most strongly upon that.”

Dora fanned herself in her excitement. “Oh,
ma'am, I am so happy for you, and to think that I will have my part
in this!” She turned to look at the object of their conversation,
who was fidgeting at this further delay in her being able to be
dressed. “I would never have thought your grandson to have such. .
. unusual taste,” she added in an undertone. Then she brightened.
“But she really does have potential. There's more there than first
meets the eye, so perhaps St. James is wiser than most men after
all. Here, Miss Murdock! Do not dare put that dress back on that
you wore in here. Isabelle!” she called again for an overworked
assistant. “Take that garment from Miss there and burn it. Get
something from in the back for her. I think the Bevington girl
returned several things yesterday that she decided were not what
she wished after all that should fit. That will have to do for you,
Miss Murdock, until we have whipped up some of your own.”

Miss Murdock sighed, dispirited, as the
ruthless assistant snatched her worn dress from her hands. “Yes, I
see. Thank you, Mrs. Dimple.”

“Thank you, Dora. It is so much nicer to see
immediately that we are making progress. And of course, this girl
has not worn this clothing anywhere?”

“No, no!” Dora exclaimed, horrified.
“Whatever do you think I am, milady, after all these years! No, I
assure you, she received them just the day before yesterday, and
yesterday she returned them, saying the cut wasn't quite right.”
Dora sniffed, offended at just the memory of this comment. “As if
my measurements or design have ever been off! More likely she has
been indulging herself a little overmuch in the week since her last
fitting, I say. But of course, you could never convince young Miss
of that!”

“Of course not, Dora. I merely wanted to be
sure that there would be no one chance to see Miss Murdock and
recognize the dress, and as I know the Bevingtons live in the
opposite direction from which we will be going, I find it doubtful
that we should run into her. But of course if we do, I shall tell
her that Miss Murdock has owned her dress for three whole months.
That will really set her off to think that you had given her
something from last season's fashions!”

“Oh, you would not do that, milady!” Dora
cried. “Why it would ruin me!”

“Better you than Miss Murdock,” the Duchess
replied, totally unmoved. “But if it makes you feel better, I shall
tell her we got it from that inferior shop from down the
street.”

“That is nearly as bad,” Dora argued. “For if
it were thought that you were patronizing it, then everyone else
would be flying off down there, and I would still be ruined.”

“Tsk,” the duchess replied. “I am sure it is
all a non-issue, for Miss Murdock will be only wearing it this day
and we are only going straight home.”

Miss Murdock, during all this long
discussion, had been busy putting on the new dress with the help of
the assistant, a red and white striped concoction that, if it did
not fit her like a glove, fit her with adequate elegance and as the
two ladies at last turned to her almost in unison, they stopped
their mild bickering and stared at her in silence.

Miss Murdock, anxious at the expressions on
their faces, asked, “What? Oh, do not say that it looks that bad!
It cannot be worse than what I came in. Can it?” she asked.

Dora said with quiet near rapture, “Oh, Miss,
you look so. . . so bright,” and she dabbed at her eyes.

Miss Murdock stared in question at the
Duchess, for if she did not quite disbelieve the shop's owner (for
she seemed to be easily moved by her own creations) she still
needed reassurance from that crusty old lady.

The Duchess studied her from her faded eyes
and at last gave a single, deep, satisfied nod. “Yes, Miss Murdock.
Without that baggy brown dress making you seem so very dowdy, I
find that you are very bright indeed. You look warm and healthy and
bursting with energy, and the color positively makes you bloom. Why
I do not think we shall even need rouge on your cheeks for they are
quite highly colored already. Who would have thought it, Dora?”

“Who would have, indeed? Milady, I must take
my hat off to your grandson, for obviously he has seen it all from
the beginning.”

Miss Murdock, released from her somewhat
stunned trance at those words, broke into a prolonged fit of the
giggles that had the shop owner and the Dowager looking at her
quite dismayed, but she could only lean against the work table and
laugh until she was gasping. It might suit these two older ladies'
romantic fancies to think that St. James had somehow deduced that
she were not so very plain after all, and she had not the heart to
tell them differently, but she certainly knew differently and that
is what she found so very funny.

Chapter Ten

Dante Larrimer, Duke of St. James, stared at
the parchment he

held in his hands. He had not opened it yet,
so it was not the contents that held his intent attention. It was
his grandmother's seal upon the back of it, indicating it was from
her, but the handwriting of the address upon the front of it was
not her own. Had her arthritis become so bad of late that she was
now dictating her missives?

He was frowning when he opened it, wondering
at this development in his grandmother's health, but the letter
itself added to his puzzlement for it was quite clearly his
grandmother's own handwriting, as he had always known it. He began
reading.

Well, Dante, was the missive's abrupt
beginning, I have had the whole of the tale from Miss Murdock last
night, and as usual, you have been behaving abominably! I have no
need to tell you, I hope, that your actions have been inexcusable!
You can not go about such activities as you have partaken over the
past forty-eight hours and not do the girl's reputation irreparable
harm. I will expect you after dinner tonight so that we can discuss
this, but you should already know what solution I am recommending,
and I expect you to do what is right by the girl with no attempt to
shuffle off your responsibilities. In this matter, at least, you
shall behave as your station demands you. 9 o'clock sharp!