Vixen in Velvet (23 page)

He’d supposed it would be bad. He hadn’t guessed it would be this bad.

“Have you any idea what my wife and her sisters have been through in the last few months, while you and Swanton idled abroad?” Clevedon said. “While your cousin was in Venice, murdering the English language—”

“I shouldn’t call it murder,” Lisburne said. “Flesh wounds, no more. You give him too much credit. And it was in Florence, not Venice, that he composed his latest batch of verse. In a pretty house overlooking the Arno.”

“You’d be well advised not to provoke a man whose wife is in the family way,” Clevedon said, growing bigger yet. “Her Grace is ill enough without the intolerable anxiety of losing everything she and her sisters have worked for. All because Swanton is—what? Too delicate to remember whether or not he seduced a young Englishwoman in Paris? Too busy dallying with the muse to respond to requests for help from his child’s mother? By gad, Lisburne,
you
know what’s owing in these cases, even if his mind is in the clouds. How the devil could you let it come to this?”

“Clevedon, do try to be rational,” Leonie said. “Swanton isn’t a child. Why do you blame Lisburne for his cousin’s errors?”

“As easily as I should blame Longmore if one of his brothers behaved so stupidly,” Clevedon said. “These two have been the same as brothers since they were children. And Lisburne has sufficient intelligence to defend himself without your leaping to his aid. I know all the women swoon over him, and think he can do no wrong, but you at least I should have thought had more sense than to be taken in by a pretty face.”

“I never knew you to be so pompously wrongheaded,” Leonie said. “Marcelline’s only pregnant, not in the last stages of a galloping consumption. And if she weren’t so nauseated at the moment—”

“I’m bored, not nauseated,” the duchess said.

“Is my face pretty?” Lisburne said. “I’m glad to know somebody thinks so, even if it’s only Clevedon.”

“Don’t be provoking,” Leonie said.

“But my dear—”

“Your
dear
?” Clevedon said. “Your dear
what
?” His green gaze went from Lisburne to Leonie. She colored a very little. “Damn you to hell, Lisburne! You’ve debauched my sister!”

He lunged at Lisburne, who pushed back. In the next instant they were at each other’s throats. They fell over a chair and crashed to the floor, bent on murder.

S
top it!”

“Not in the shop!”

“Get up! Stop it!”

The men heard nothing. They went on trying to throttle each other, first one then the other gaining the advantage.

The seamstresses heard, though.

At the sounds of battle, they rushed into the showroom, along with Selina Jeffreys, who tried in vain to herd them back to the workroom.

They arrived as the men scrambled to their feet and started throwing punches in earnest.

They were well matched, and excellent boxers, and Leonie liked a good fight as well as the next bloodthirsty woman. But not in the shop. They knocked over a hat stand, then a mannequin. The girls screamed and one of them fainted.

Leonie grabbed a vase of flowers, and flung the contents at the men. “Stop it! Now!” she shouted. She threw the vase itself at Lisburne’s back. He didn’t seem to feel it, but when it landed with a loud crash on the floor and shattered to pieces, he paused.

She rushed at him and grabbed the back of his coat and pulled him away. Marcelline pulled her husband back, too.

Both men wrenched free and started for each other again.

“Enough!” Marcelline cried. “I’m going to be sick!”

That stopped Clevedon in his tracks. Then Lisburne had to subside, too.

“Out,” Leonie told the seamstresses. They ran out again. It took Jeffreys a moment to get the fainter on her feet and drag her away, but they soon followed the others. The door closed behind them.

Leonie regarded Lisburne and her brother-in-law the same way she’d regarded her quarreling seamstresses not many days earlier. “This is ridiculous,” she said.

“Brawling,” Marcelline said. “In the
shop
. Clevedon, you’re impossible.”

He did not look abashed. He still looked as though he wanted to murder Lisburne. Which, in a way, was rather sweet.

When Clevedon had married Marcelline, he’d taken on the whole family. Her sisters were his sisters. Her daughter was his daughter. Yes, it was aristocratically possessive of him, and it could be annoying at times to have an older brother when one had got along perfectly well without one for all one’s life. Still, it wasn’t disagreeable to know that somebody other than one’s sisters cared about one’s well-being—and one’s virtue, when it came to that. Not that any Noirots ever cared about the last article themselves.

“I refuse to beg his pardon,” Clevedon said. “Unless I’ve wronged him, which I greatly doubt. He ever was a seducer of the first order.”

“What I do you may criticize and mock all you like,” Lisburne said. “But you seem not to notice that you call Miss Noirot’s behavior into question as well.”

“Were you both defending my honor, then?” Leonie said. “How thrilling! I’ve not the least objection to a brawl, in any case. Marcelline is more squeamish, especially now, but I love the sight of men pummeling each other. You’re welcome to continue the fisticuffs in the court behind the shop or—better yet—in St. James’s Street. It will give London something new to talk about. If Sophy were here, I’m sure she’d encourage it.”

Lisburne smiled at her then, and the world seemed to open and brighten. Her life was in dire straits, yet his affectionate smile was like sunbeams breaking through a gloom she hadn’t realized was there.

“As always, you go straight to the heart of the matter,” Lisburne said. “We’ve a scandal to undo, and I’ll be happy to pound Clevedon into oblivion if you think that will help.”

“If anyone’s going to be pounded, it’s you,” Clevedon said. “And I’ll be honored to undertake the task.”

“No, you will not,” Marcelline said. “I’ve had enough fighting for one day, and the seamstresses will spread the news quickly enough. Diversionary tactics are all very well, but that’s Sophy’s specialty, and she isn’t here.”

“And I have a plan,” Leonie said.

“Of course you do,” said Lisburne, still smiling.

If one wanted to believe a man was besotted, he wore precisely the look one would use for evidence. But it was a look any Noirot or DeLucey would have mastered, and Leonie knew better than to trust such flimsy evidence, merely because it fit her fantasies.

True, last night she’d believed her fantasies. To a point. But he’d made sandwiches for her! And now she was much more clearheaded. And not tipsy, certainly.

“We can discuss it in the consulting room,” she said.

It would be difficult to return to that room with Lisburne, remembering what had happened there. But the chances of being overheard were smaller there than in her office on the ground floor. In any case, Clevedon and Marcelline would be with them. And so the meeting wouldn’t be . . . fraught. Not that Leonie would allow herself to display any signs of confusion or awkwardness. She’d grown up in Paris, after all. She was a Noirot. And a DeLucey.

She used the speaking pipe to summon Mary Parmenter to look after the showroom. The shop would remain open during the usual hours, even though Leonie expected no customers. Closing early would look like surrender. In any event, thieves were as likely to turn up today as any day. They didn’t care whether a shop was under a cloud.

But this, and a quick stop at her office took time, and when Leonie reached the consulting room, her sister and brother-in-law weren’t there.

I
did not murder them and hide the bodies,” Lisburne said when Leonie came in, holding a sheet of paper. “Her Grace was ill. I saw her turn white, then a curious shade of green. She darted into a little room at the back of the passage. Clevedon went with her. When they came out, he said he was taking her home. They went out the back way. We’re to meet with them at Clevedon House.”

“Meet them?” Leonie looked about the consulting room, exasperation clear in every feature.

That, he realized was unusual. She was always so guarded. Except in lovemaking.

“I can’t leave the shop!” she said. “Not today, of all days. It will look as though we’ve abandoned it.”

“Never mind that your customers have abandoned you,” he said.

“He doesn’t understand,” she said. “He tries. He understands to a point, but he never had to work for a living. He doesn’t—” She shook her head. “He lives his life as a duke, that’s all, and he assumes we’ll live as a duke’s family. Did he hurt you much?”

“A glancing blow, no more,” Lisburne said. He caught himself before he tested the sore place on his jaw where His Grace had made contact—and where he might have done substantial damage had Lisburne been an instant slower to dodge. “We’re too evenly matched, and we hadn’t time to assess each other’s weak points. Still, I noted a slight redness at the top of Clevedon’s right cheekbone. With any luck, it’ll turn into a black eye. But speaking of injuries”—he pointed to the place in his jaw—“I detect some throbbing, after all. Perhaps you could kiss it and make it better.”

Leonie moved away. “Not during business hours.”

He glanced at the chaise longue and away and suppressed a sigh.

“Well, then, business,” he said. “I’d just as soon not have to argue with Clevedon over every detail of what’s to be done. He can be intolerably overbearing. Ducal, as you said. If you’ll tell me your plan, I promise to listen attentively and be as good as gold.”

If he stood too close, he’d catch her scent. Then he wouldn’t be as good as gold.

He moved away to the looking glass and examined himself. Nothing horribly out of order. Everything buttoned and tied properly. His boots gleamed. His hair was a trifle disordered and his neckcloth wasn’t right, thanks to the contretemps with Clevedon. But he discerned no signs of
careless desolation
.

He heard a little giggle, quickly smothered. He turned.

Her expression was sober, but he knew she was amused to see him playing Narcissus—he who always left it to his valet to fuss over his appearance.

She looked down at her piece of paper.

“Have you made two columns?” he said. “Drawn with a ruler?”

“Yes, of course,” she said. “For one thing, I had to weigh the pros and cons of summoning Sophy. The cons outnumber the pros. I won’t bore you with them. She’d find a way to turn the furor to our advantage, I don’t doubt. But we have strong reasons against her returning quite yet. And so I believe the best way for all of us to recover is find out the truth. Shall I explain my reasons?”

He wondered why Sophy, who seemed so important to the shop, needed to stay away. He’d heard stories about her and Longmore, but nothing, apart from a bridal trip, that explained an enforced absence.

He knew it was no good asking. Leonie could be amazingly direct and open. If she wasn’t, she wasn’t, and that was the end of it.

“I want the truth about Swanton’s mystery woman, too,” he said. “But my reasons are obvious. I’d like to hear yours.”

“They’re simple enough,” she said. “If we discover that Lord Swanton is in the wrong, he’ll make amends. This is good for us. Since Maison Noirot and the Milliners’ Society are now associated with him, we’ll be associated with doing the right thing. People love confessions and redemption.”

“They like hangings, too.”

“I hope it won’t come to that, even if we discover a fraud,” she said. “But first we have to find out which it is.”

He hadn’t the least doubt she’d enumerated possible courses of action for every possible outcome.

“I’ll be happy to beat the truth out of Theaker and Meffat,” he said. “While I don’t require help, I believe Clevedon would be overjoyed to assist. That would present a good way of—er—mending our fences. I don’t like to be at odds with him.”

He hated it. He especially hated knowing he’d deserved Clevedon’s attack.

“He’s tetchier these days because of Marcelline,” she said. “But I should prefer to reserve beating for a last resort. I’d rather find the woman.”

“Except for Theaker and Meffat, nobody knows who she is,” he said. “She might be anywhere. We don’t know her name. I didn’t even get a good look at her.”

“I got the number of the hackney,” she said.

He blinked once, surprised. Then he saw how stupid he was to be surprised. She was logical and orderly and good with numbers. She’d had the presence of mind—or the recklessness—or both—to follow Theaker and the woman, while Lisburne and Swanton had dithered, chasing their own tails.

“Do you know how many hackneys ply the London streets?” he said. “Over a thousand. They might be anywhere at any time of the day. Or night.”

“Fenwick knows most of the hackney coachmen,” she said. “I’m sure I mentioned this.”

He remembered then. Her sister Sophy had found Fenwick on the streets. The boy liked horses, and made friends with grooms and hackney coachmen. Leonie had told him this. Last night.

Before the
very nice
interlude.

“We still don’t know much about Fenwick,” she said. “He’s a clam about his past. But we do know he’s well acquainted with London’s less elegant population. I sent him out to track down our woman in black.”

“You sent the boy who wears the gorgeous livery, who speaks his own peculiar version of English,” he said. Lisburne’s mind wasn’t working as well as it ought. It drifted to the chaise longue. It wandered upstairs, to the sitting room. He remembered undressing her. The delicious forever it had taken. The touching gesture of modesty when she’d held the corset over her beautiful breasts . . . the complete lack of modesty and self-consciousness afterward.

“The people he’ll be talking to understand him well enough,” she said. “This won’t be the first time he’s helped us find a missing person. We must hope he does it quickly. Almack’s last assembly is tomorrow night. People will remain in Town after that, but by the end of the month, they’ll be scattering.”

“Ten days,” he said.

“We can’t afford ten days with no customers,” she said. She paused and moved away, to pick up a bit of ribbon from a chair. Since she’d had no customers today, it must be debris from last night.