Vixen in Velvet (24 page)

Last night. Last night.

He could close the door. No customers. Her employees worked on the floor below. He could take her behind the curtain . . .

“I may be forced to sell the Botticelli,” she said.

L
isburne’s face was a picture.

His mind had been elsewhere, Leonie knew, and she had a good idea where. Her mind wanted to go there, too. Her body, actually. Straight into his arms. More of what they’d done last night. She’d dreamed such beautiful, wicked dreams.

But this was full day, a dreadful day, and dreams were for the night, like lovemaking. Dreams, like lovemaking, were for escaping.

She couldn’t escape now. She had an immense, dangerous problem to solve. If she didn’t solve it, she’d lose everything that mattered, everything she and her sisters had worked and risked and struggled for. She’d lose all that Cousin Emma had given them, and it would be like seeing her die again.

Leonie had to keep her mind on business.

Lisburne was pleasure. No, to her he was a great deal more. She’d fallen in love and given herself gladly, and she’d do it again and again until he was done with her. Or until some miracle occurred and she was cured and was done with him.

But business came first, last, and always. She had a disaster to recover from, and not a minute to lose.

“The Botticelli,” he said.

“Our wager?” she said. “Lady Gladys? Beaux and proposals and invitations by the end of the month? Do you recollect?”

His green gaze narrowed. “I recollect. Two weeks with you. Your undivided attention. No
business
.”

“If matters continue as they are, I’ll have no business,” she said.

“How the devil do you propose to win, if the ladies won’t come to the shop?” he said. “Gladys resides with Lady Warford, you know, while her father the great general is abroad, getting soldiers killed somewhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re related by marriage. If you were Clara’s own sister, and had got yourself into a scandal, Lady Warford would send you away to live with the sheep on a desolate island off the coast of Scotland, and Clara would be forbidden to even write to you.”

“Lady Gladys must come to the shop,” she said. “We’ve two promenade dresses, a ball dress, and a dinner dress for her. And Joanie Barker has made a splendid hat. Sophy is a genius with millinery, and Joanie is her protégée.”

“Where the devil is Sophy, then, if she’s so indispensable?”

“Where she needs to stay,” Leonie said. She remembered what Clevedon had said about Longmore racing back to London to kill Swanton. It couldn’t happen within hours, though. They were in Scotland at present. “I’d better write to her, and send it express. I’ll tell her everything is in hand, and she’s not to come and complicate matters.”

She started toward the door. Lisburne caught her by the arm, an easy light grasp. But she felt the warmth and pressure everywhere, especially in the place where they’d come together last night.

“I haven’t the least expectation of losing my Botticelli,” he said. “But I want you to have a sporting chance. Do you want me to write to Longmore? Or talk to him, if that’s feasible.”

What could she do? She brought her hand up to his cheek. He turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand. “I want to help,” he said. “And I don’t want to sit about waiting for Fenwick to report. Shall I present myself to Longmore so that he can attempt to kill me?”

“You’re more useful alive and undamaged.” Leonie drew her hand away. “If I write, Sophy will listen, and she’ll manage him—or render him unconscious if necessary. I need you here in London.”

“That sounds so promising,” he said. “But I have a feeling you mean something other than what I’m thinking.”

“I need a spy,” she said.

“Does that mean I report to you, in disguise, in the dead of night?”

It was the low, insinuating voice. It was the hint of a smile. It was the way he drew nearer and the way his head bent and the way he seemed aware of nothing else in the world but her.

She could not have him come here again in the dead of night. She couldn’t risk it, not at present.

She was a businesswoman, first, last, and always.

But she was as well, like all her kind, a gambler.

“Don’t let anybody see you,” she said.

Chapter Thirteen

Almack’s
.—The ball on Wednesday evening closed a most brilliant season. Dancing commenced, a little after eleven o’clock, to Collinet’s fine band, with Musard’s quadrilles ‘Les Gondeliers Venetiens,’ which were followed by the waltzes ‘le Soufle du Zephir,’ and the favourite ‘Les Souvenirs de Vienne.’ In the course of the evening ‘Les Puritans, Rome,’ &c., were performed in admirable style. At four o’clock the ball terminated, when the band struck up ‘God save the King.’

—
Court Journal
, 25 July 1835

Almack’s

Early Thursday morning

T
hough by now he’d observed enough of the new Gladys to be past shock, Lisburne was nonetheless taken aback to see her dancing with Crawford. One of the Earl of Longmore’s hard-living cronies, and owning neither a sharp intellect nor much in the way of wit, Crawford was nonetheless popular with women, because he was one of London’s best dancers.

He was dancing with
Gladys
, of whom Lisburne recalled somebody writing, during her first Season, “she puts one painfully in mind of a dancing bear decked out in silks, lace, and a king’s ransom in jewelry.”

Crawford had engaged her for a quadrille, and he was smiling, and so was she, moving as easily through the figures as any other young woman. Lady Alda stood not far away, avidly watching, her head turning this way and that, and occasionally disappearing behind her fan when she whispered one of her barbed comments to whoever was at hand.

When the steps brought Crawford and Gladys together, Gladys said something and he smiled. Then he said something. She laughed, and a great many gazes turned that way, Lady Alda’s included. Lisburne noticed a number of puzzled looks and some appreciative ones. Lady Alda’s expression soured.

Gladys had a pretty laugh, surprisingly warm, Lisburne realized. Not a titter. Not trying for a tinkling sound. Not feigned in any way. It came from within, a happy sound, and it seemed to make its hearer happy.

A voice, he knew, could be a powerful tool.

He’d learned to use his to command servants, to be taken seriously by men twice and thrice his age, and of course to win over women. Certainly Gladys’s seemed to have captured Swanton’s imagination. But he was extreme in everything. Lisburne found it agreeable, no more.

Leonie’s voice was another story altogether. There was the brisk, businesslike tone he found so perversely arousing. But even more delicious was her private voice, the one not everybody heard. The low, suggestive chuckle wasn’t for public consumption. Neither was the way she’d look at him from the corner of her eye, a ghost of a smile curving her lips . . .

And he couldn’t let himself dwell on that, even though he hadn’t seen her since Tuesday afternoon.

As he’d done at Lady Eddingham’s ball last night, at various clubs this day, and at dinner at Lady Gorrell’s not many hours earlier, he was here to gather information. Clevedon was doing the same, but elsewhere. Lisburne hoped the duke was having better luck, in both senses, at Crockford’s and whatever other gaming establishment he meant to visit this night.

Lisburne had never acquired a taste for gambling. A game of cards now and again was good fun, but gaming hells held little allure.

Tonight he’d undertaken Almack’s duty instead. His job was to flirt and dance with the foremost gossips. Next on his list was a waltz with Lady Alda Morris.

He watched Crawford lead Gladys back to her place, where Lady Warford presided as chaperon. Thence Geddings returned Clara. Several men loitered in the vicinity. Crawford lingered, talking to Gladys. Flinton advanced to claim his dance with . . . Gladys. Someone else led out Clara. Herringstone.

It was hard to be certain, but Crawford, Flinton, and Geddings seemed to be in Gladys’s circle. Or at least dividing their time between her and Clara.

All Gladys needed was six beaux, three invitations to country houses, and one marriage proposal, and the Botticelli would have a new home after the exhibition.

But the odds were still in Lisburne’s favor. Gladys had only eight days to meet the wager’s conditions. Meanwhile, she seemed to be doing well enough socially, a success Lisburne didn’t begrudge her.

But he would very much begrudge losing his two weeks with Leonie. Her undivided attention . . .

. . . which wouldn’t be undivided if they couldn’t put the Vauxhall incident to rest before then.

And so he made himself fix his mind on Lady Alda, whose acidic look vanished when he came to lead her out.

“How sorry I’ll be to see the Season end,” she said when they’d begun dancing. “Lady Gladys has enlivened it so.”

“Has she, indeed?” he said. “I’ve seen her only in passing lately.” He paused. “Though, like everybody else, I’ve kept up with her doings and sayings, thanks to the
Spectacle.
”

“There’s no predicting what astonishing thing she’ll say,” Lady Alda said. “I know some say it’s pert and unladylike to express opinions so forcefully. But we may acquit her of the charge of being
too
eager to please, may we not? Some might say her dress is too mature for her, but I say a lady is wise to dress as suits her figure. Her dancing has improved, do you not think? She keeps time less awkwardly than she used to do, and I’m sure that if she continues to practice hard with a good dancing master, she’ll bend her arms with better grace. But Mr. Crawford always makes his partners look well. Lord Flinton, too, I see. It’s the mark of a good dancer, isn’t it?”

This monologue went on at intervals, as the steps brought them together.

A poem came to Lisburne’s mind—not one of Swanton’s, but one Swanton liked to quote. One of Mrs. Abdy’s comic creations. What was it? Something about a friend, and filled with similar backhanded compliments. Very likely Leonie would know the poem.

Lisburne remembered the way she’d acted out “The Second Son” at the Western Athenaeum. He tried to imagine what her rendition of the friendship poem would be like.

He became aware of Lady Alda’s expectant gaze, and realized she was waiting for him to say she was grace personified, no matter who partnered her. In another time and place he would have said the right words without thinking. At present, for some reason, he couldn’t put a sentence together, and the moment passed in an awkward silence.

“I’m so very glad on your account that the patronesses chose to overlook the dreadful scene at Vauxhall on Monday night,” she said.

She’d used the silence, evidently, to gather her breath for another blast of ill wind.

“This is the last Almack’s ball of the Season,” he said. “It’s hardly worth the effort to pitch out undesirables.”

She protested that he was not
undesirable
. She tittered. He knew flirtation was expected. He liked flirting. It was one of his favorite things.

Yet his mind went blank, and the best he could manage was a politely amused thanks.

They went on dancing, mute for a time, then, “I notice that Lord Swanton has chosen to absent himself,” she said. “It seems he declined to test the patronesses’ forbearance.”

“He’s not the only one,” Lisburne said. “I see no signs of Theaker. He was prominent in the Vauxhall performance, too.”

“I’ll admit I was amazed that his and Mr. Meffat’s Almack’s vouchers weren’t withdrawn.”

Lisburne raised his eyebrows.

“After their friend Lord Adderley’s ghastly business last month with the French widow,” she said. “Or whatever she was. I must say that something about her seemed not quite right.” She looked up at him. “But I forget. You were not in London then.”

“When was this?”

“A very short time before Lord Longmore married the dressmaker,” she said. “That is to say, Miss Noirot. I’ll admit that came as a shock. We’d all assumed something would come of the French widow. But she disappeared, and Lord Longmore recovered from his infatuation with astonishing speed. But I can’t think why my mind wandered to that shocking episode. I only meant to say that some expected Lord Adderley’s friends to be tainted by association. That seems to me not altogether fair. One ought not to judge a gentleman’s friends by
his
behavior.”

Lisburne didn’t ask whether she applied the same rule to women. He could guess the answer. In any case, it was the other topic that awoke his curiosity. She didn’t need much prodding to explain the “shocking episode.”

The story didn’t enlighten Lisburne much about Theaker and Meffat, and everything else she said only demonstrated her mastery of the oblique insult. On the other hand, the tale of the mysterious French lady was most interesting.

W
ednesday, while not the worst day in Maison Noirot’s history, would not qualify as one of Leonie’s favorites. Only a handful of customers had entered the shop and they didn’t come to buy anything. They fingered the hats and shawls, sneered at the mannequins, stage whispered insolent remarks, and stared the shopgirls out of countenance. Luckily, most of the girls, like Selina, had developed tough hides. Even so, tears were shed in the workroom. The girls feared for their futures.

Thursday proved marginally better. One of the shop’s first important clients, Mrs. Sharp, remained loyal because she felt she had an image to uphold as a leader of fashion, at least among her set. While this group did not include the cream of the beau monde, it did comprise some of London’s wealthiest families.

Her daughter Chloe had somehow snared one of London’s most elusive bachelors. Since she’d soon become a countess, nothing but the best would do for bride clothes. Not that anything less would do, in any event. After all, the eldest Sharp daughter had recently married a prince, and her dress and those of her attendants had been the talk of London. Several ladies’ magazines had described her wardrobe at length, thanks to Sophy.

“I told Mr. Sharp, it’s either Maison Noirot or Paris,” Mrs. Sharp said. “He drew the line at Paris, as I knew he would. He doesn’t realize, as I do, that even Victorine cannot produce work superior to yours.”

For all that she might disparage Paris’s foremost modiste, Mrs. Sharp was furtive about Maison Noirot. She brought her daughter early in the day, while most of the fashionable world was still abed, and she asked Leonie to be discreet. Her princely son-in-law’s family compensated for their lack of wealth with an excess of morality. Mrs. Sharp had no desire to hear her in-laws preach at her.

Keeping quiet about a large, costly order was not a good way to improve business prospects. Sophy would have been wild.

Meanwhile, Fenwick had been gone for most of the past two days. When he did turn up, shortly after Leonie closed the shop on Thursday night, his report was short: “Nuffin’ yet. Better try Covent Garden.”

He consumed two meat pies only at Leonie’s insistence. He did this while protesting that he’d be too stuffed to eat when he got to Jack’s Coffee House.

“You’re not to eat anything in that place,” Leonie said. “It’s filthy.”

The ancient coffee house in Covent Garden was as disgustingly unclean as it was disreputable. She’d rather he didn’t go there, but she knew he’d promise not to and do it anyway. She told herself he’d survived London for this long, a feat not many unwanted children achieved, and one couldn’t lock him up. She reminded herself that she’d survived the streets of Paris at much the same age.

“What do you expect to find there?” she said.

“Dunno,” he said. “Lodgings thereabouts? I know a cove as goes there. He might know fings.
Th
ings.”

“No word of the hackney driver, then,” she said. “Charlie Judd.”

Since they had the hackney coach’s number, discovering the driver’s name hadn’t been difficult. Finding him was another matter. A hackney coachman had to accept anybody who wanted to hire him, at any time, no matter how many hours he’d already worked, and he might drive a fare ten miles into the country.

The boy shook his head. “He’ll turn up, miss.”

But when? For all the confidence she’d shown Lisburne, Leonie had known the search might take a great deal of time. They hadn’t much left. In August, most of Fashionable Society left London for their country estates. July ended in eight days.

August was always a troublesome month financially. This year, it could be a fatal one, though Mrs. Sharp’s ambitions and Mr. Sharp’s money might allow the shop to scrape by.

Leonie was on her way to her office, to review expenses and decide where she might cut and which bills to pay first, when she heard the peremptory knock at the back door. Fenwick, who was on his way out, must have opened it, because she heard him talking, and a familiar voice answering.

Her heart sped up. She wanted to run to the door. She made herself pause in the corridor outside her office, don her politely amiable expression, and wait with what looked on the outside like absolute calm.

She watched Fenwick go out and Lisburne close and bolt the door after him.

Then he turned to her, and there was his perfectly sculpted face and the gold glimmering in his hair and in his green eyes, and the wicked mouth that had touched every inch of her skin, including the secret parts. Her heart turned over and over.

“I still don’t understand a word he says,” he said. “I barely recognized him. He’s grown remarkably grubby.”

“He can hardly prowl about the underworld in lavender and gold livery,” she said. “If he looks too pretty, somebody will steal him.”

“Tell me something,” he said. “When Sophy found him, was she pretending to be a French widow, or somebody else?”

Leonie was confused and happy and afraid all at the same time but she didn’t blink. Even deranged by love, she remained a Noirot and a DeLucey. She knew how to play cards.

“I find it best not to inquire too closely into Sophy’s doings,” she said. “I hope you have some useful news for us.”

He hadn’t come in the dead of night, as he’d promised. She hadn’t seen him since Tuesday afternoon. Not that she’d expected to. Naturally he’d make promises he wouldn’t keep. A man who looked and sounded and made love the way he did could play by his own rules.

“Lady Alda believes there was something ‘not quite right’ about Longmore’s French widow,” he said. “After great efforts of cogitation—not easy while Lady Alda is shooting poison darts everywhere, in between trying to captivate and bewitch the unwary—a situation requiring a man to keep his wits about him.” He frowned. “A task I find strangely difficult lately. I wonder why that is. Where was I?”