“As soon as I get out of this infernal tangle, I’ll give you a cuff you won’t soon forget,” Longmore said. “Cousin, will you give him a firm thump or something to stifle him in the meantime?”
“I don’t think we should take him to the police,” she said. “I think we should take him with us.”
Longmore and the boy reacted simultaneously.
The boy: “Nooooo!”
Longmore: “Are you drunk?”
“No, you don’t,” the boy said. “I ain’t going nowhere with you. I got friends, and they’ll come any minute now. Then you’ll be sorry. And I think my chest’s got a rib broke from being bent like this.”
“Stifle it,” Longmore told the boy. He needed a clear head to find his way through Sophy’s rabbit warren of a mind. He couldn’t do that and translate the boy’s deranged version of English at the same time.
To Sophy he said, “What exactly do you propose to do with him?”
“He’s wonderfully quick,” she said. “He could be useful. For our mission.”
Occupied with horses and traffic, Longmore could give the urchin no more than a swift survey. He looked to be about ten or eleven years old, though it was hard to tell with children of the lowest classes. Some of them looked eons older than they were, while others, small from malnourishment, seemed younger. This boy was fair-haired under his shabby cap, and while his neck was none too clean, he wasn’t an inch thick with filth as so many of them were. His clothes were worn and ill-fitting but mended and only moderately grimy.
“I don’t see what use he’d be to anybody, unless someone was wanted to pick pockets,” he said.
“He could hold the horses,” she said.
“Could he, indeed?” he said. “You suggest I put my cattle in charge of a sneaking little thief?”
The boy went very still.
“Who better to keep a sharp eye out, to watch who comes and goes, to give the alarm if trouble comes?” she said.
The mad thing was, she had a point.
“You don’t know the brat from Adam,” he said. “For all we know, he’s a desperado wanted by the police, and due to be transported on Monday. He tried to steal my watch. And climbed up behind the carriage to do it! That wants brass, that does—or something gravely amiss in the attic—and if you think I’m leaving a prime pair of horseflesh in the grubby hands of Mad Dick Turpin here, I suggest you think again. And take something for that brain injury while you’re about it.”
“Oy!” the boy said indignantly. “I ain’t no horse thief.”
“Merely a pickpocket,” Longmore said, egging him on.
“What’s your name?” Sophy said.
“Ain’t got one,” the boy said. “Saves trouble, don’t it?”
“Then I shall call you Fenwick,” she said.
“What?”
“Fenwick,” she said. “If you don’t have a name, I’ll give you one, gratis.”
“Not that,” the boy said. “That’s a ’orrible name.”
“Better than nothing,” she said.
“I say, mister,” the boy appealed to Longmore. “Make her stop.”
Longmore couldn’t answer. He was working too hard on not laughing.
“That is not a mister,” she said. “That’s an actual lord whose pocket you tried to pick.”
“Yer lordship, make her stop. Make her stop breaking my arm, too. Which this is a monstrous female like nothing I ever seen before.”
Longmore glanced at Sophy. She was regarding the ghastly little foul-mouthed urchin, her expression speculative—or so it seemed. He couldn’t be sure. For one thing, he could spare only a glance. For another, the spectacles dimmed the brilliance of her eyes.
But he saw enough: the smile playing at the corner of her mouth, and the angle at which she held her head as she regarded the boy, like a bird eyeing a worm.
“Now you’re really in trouble, Fenwick,” he said. “She’s thinking.”
Sophy’s father had been a Noirot and her mother a DeLucey. Neither family could be bothered with charity, being too busy keeping one step ahead of the authorities.
Although Cousin Emma had taken in Sophy and her sisters and taught them a trade, they’d bounced back and forth for a time between parents and cousin. Their early life had not been sheltered. They’d learned how to survive on the streets. Among other skills, they’d learned to size up others quickly.
Sophy had seen and heard enough in a few minutes to understand that the lad was a rare find. With a very little training, this boy could be extremely useful. She was not going to let him be thrown into prison with ordinary criminals.
“We’re quite close to the Great Marlborough Street police office,” she said. “It would be no trouble to drop you there, Fenwick. Or, if you prefer, you could continue with us to our destination, and watch his lordship’s horses, and keep a sharp lookout.”
“And what would I be looking out for, I want to know,” the boy said.
“Trouble,” she said. “Do you think you can recognize it?”
“I haven’t the smallest doubt of his abilities in that regard,” Longmore said.
“If you do the job properly,” she went on, “I’ll see that you have a good dinner and a safe place to sleep.”
“Where, exactly, did you have in mind?” Longmore said.
“Don’t fret,” she said. “I wasn’t intending to foist him on you.”
“You certainly won’t foist him on yourself,” he said. “You don’t know a damned thing about him. He’s probably crawling with lice—”
“That’s slander, that is!” the boy cried.
“Sue me,” said Longmore.
“Don’t think I won’t,” the boy said. “There’s no more vermin on me than on you, yer majesty. I had a bath!”
“At your christening?” Longmore said. “But no, I forgot: You don’t have a name.”
“Fenwick’ll do,” the boy said. “She can call me Georgy Pudding Pie if she wants, if she gives me dinner and a bed like she says. But she won’t, will she?”
“Have you heard of the Milliners’ Society for the Education of Indigent Females?” Sophy said.
The boy narrowed his eyes at her. “Yeah,” he said in wary tones.
“You know someone there, it seems,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m closely acquainted with the women in charge,” she said. She could hardly be more closely acquainted: She and her sisters had founded the organization last year. “If you know of that place, you know we don’t make empty promises.”
They’d reached Bedford Square. “Look here, Fenwick,” she said. “There’s the shop his lordship and I mean to visit.” She nodded toward Dowdy’s. “Do you know the place?”
“They makes clothes for the nobs,” he said. “A girl I know used to work there, but they was all let go for no reason.”
Sophy hoped the girl had gone to the Milliners’ Society. She and her sisters had better look into what had happened to Dowdy’s discharged seamstresses.
But one thing at a time.
“While his lordship and I visit the shop, you’ll mind the horses as well as the business of everybody about you,” she said briskly. “Give a long, sharp whistle to let us know if we’re about to be interrupted. Do the job satisfactorily, and I’ll do as I promised. Have we a bargain, Fenwick?”
“No tricks?” the boy said.
“No tricks?” Longmore echoed. “The brass of the brat!”
“Do I look like the tricky sort to you?” Sophy said.
The boy gave her a long, searching look. He spent some time peering into the tinted lenses. “Yes,” he said. “Not to mention you got a grip like a manacle.”
She smiled. “There, I knew you were a sharp one. But no tricks.”
She released his arm. He made a great show of massaging it, and checking for broken bones. He muttered about “mad gentry morts” and “bruiser lordships.”
“Never mind the grumbling,” Longmore said
. “I don’t mean to spend all day shopping with a female. Either you’ll do it or you won’t. Make up your mind. I don’t have time to dawdle here, palavering about it, all day.”
“Be yourself,” Sophy told Longmore when he joined her on the pavement after a lengthy conversation with Fenwick—about the horses, she supposed, and what would happen to the boy if he failed his assignment.
“Myself?” he said. “Are you sure?”
“I need you to be you,” she said. “Lord Longmore, Lady Warford’s eldest son. The son of Dowdy’s favorite customer.” That was why she’d had to pursue and enlist him. She had to save her shop, and that meant going into enemy territory, to find out what Maison Noirot was up against. The easiest and most effective way was to use him as part of her disguise. “No pretending required. Simply be you.”
“I need to pretend you’re Gladys.”
“I’ll seem so like her, you won’t have to pretend. Leave everything to me.”
“And if they chuck you out?”
“Be yourself,” she said. “Laugh.”
“If you were you, yes,” he said. “But Gladys is another story.” He frowned. “This is going to be confusing.”
“Not at all,” she said. “All you have to do is be you. Don’t think about it. It doesn’t need thinking.”
She marched toward the door in the determined way certain gauche misses did.
He moved smoothly ahead and opened it for her.
In her mind she became Cousin Gladys—plain and awkward and sensitive to slights. She marched inside. Mouth set, she looked about her, making it plain that she wouldn’t be easy to please. At the same time, though, she was still Sophy Noirot, evaluating her surroundings with an expert eye, and more than a little surprised . . . and troubled . . . at what she discovered.
Though no one could match Maison Noirot’s flair, someone had tried. The walls had been freshly painted pale peach, the trim a creamy yellow, and someone had given thought to a variety of colorful accents. That someone had taken the trouble to arrange the fabrics artistically. Some hung on large rings near the display windows. Others lay on counters, looking as though they’d only a moment ago been unfolded for a customer. A book of fashion plates lay open on a table, inviting perusal. Comfortable chairs stood in small clusters about the room, giving it the snug air of a private parlor. Tables next to them held men’s as well as ladies’ magazines.
The showroom, while not as obsessively clean as Maison Noirot’s, was much neater and less dingy than it used to be.
The explanation, Sophy saw, stood behind the counter.
Dowdy had hired a Frenchwoman. She was pretty and elegant and graceful. Her fair hair was arranged becomingly under a splendid lace cap.
Her poise didn’t falter although her welcoming smile did, a little, as she took in Sophy/Gladys. The woman’s light brown gaze turned with obvious relief to Longmore.
Subtle as the rebuff was, it wouldn’t be too subtle for a sensitive soul, as Sophy imagined Gladys to be. The Frenchwoman shouldn’t have given any sign of dismay. She should have looked as delighted to see her as she would be to see Queen Adelaide.
Many specimens as unpromising as the faux Gladys came into dressmakers’ shops. How one served them made all the difference in the world. The Frenchwoman seemed to see Lady Gladys Fairfax as an ordeal to endure, rather than as an exciting challenge, as Sophy and her sisters would view her. Their faces would have lit up when she stepped through the door.
“Mrs. Downes?” Sophy said.
“I am Madame Ecrivier, mademoiselle,” the Frenchwoman said. “Madame Downes is occupied at the moment, but I—”
“Occupied!” Longmore said, startling Sophy as well as Ecrivier. “Where in blazes would she be occupied if not in her own shop? This is her shop, I presume? It had better be. I had the devil’s own time getting here. Accident on Oxford Street and everybody stopping to gawk and slowing travel in three directions.”
Sophy was too experienced in deceit to show her feelings. She didn’t gawk at him, except in her thoughts. He’d said he was confused, and she’d had a moment’s alarm, that subterfuge was beyond his intellectual abilities.
But whether by accident or not, he’d created a beautiful opening, and she knew how to play along.
“Did Lady Warford not tell Mrs. Downes to expect family members this week?” she said. “Her daughter, Lady Clara—my cousin, you know—is getting married. Surely my aunt must have informed you. I don’t see how she could have failed to do so. She told me she’d ordered a dress to wear to the wedding. She ordered it from this shop. On Monday, I believe.”
And she’d thrown a spectacular fit, according to Lady Clara, when she learned that the latter hadn’t gone to Dowdy’s.
“Oui, mademoiselle—milady. And most certainly—”
“Here’s my cousin, come to be fitted out for my sister’s wedding,” Longmore said. “The first wedding in the family, I might add. And where’s the proprietress? I say, this is a fine way to treat clients. Well, Gladys, we’d better be off. Who was that other milliner Clara mentioned? French name, wasn’t it? On St. James’s Street. If I’d known we’d get the cold shoulder here, I could have saved myself a bothersome journey.”
Madame Ecrivier was all but dancing with panic. “Oh, no, oh, no, milord. There is no coldness of the shoulder. Only a moment, if you please. I will send someone to inform Madame. A thousand apologies. Certainly Madame will attend the young lady. If you will pardon me for a moment, I will arrange this.”
The Frenchwoman glided away and vanished through the door behind the counter. Though she closed the door behind her, Sophy could hear her voice, high, communicating via the speaking pipe to somebody somewhere.
Longmore strode to the window and looked out. “The carriage is still there,” he said in a low voice. “Fenwick hasn’t sold the horses yet.”
When he lowered his voice, it became husky, and the sound made Sophy go still, like an animal catching the scent of danger. It took her a moment to shake off the feeling.
“Your cattle couldn’t be safer,” she said. “He’s thrilled.”
“It doesn’t show.”
“He’s learned to hide important feelings,” she said.
He gave a short laugh and left the window. He wandered the showroom. He fingered a length of muslin. He turned pages in the pattern book. He moved with careless grace, but his wasn’t the usual lazy ease of an idle aristocrat.
Her skin prickled with awareness. He was a man, merely a man, she told herself. Yet an aura of danger surrounded him, and it seemed as though a wolf prowled the room.
She detected footsteps and voices approaching the door to the shop’s back rooms.
“If I’d known this was the way London shopkeepers treat their best patrons, I should have had my dress made in Manchester,” she said more audibly. “To be kept waiting endlessly—when there isn’t another customer in the shop! I’m sure I should have something quite as elegant made at home as anything on offer here. And at a fraction of the price.”
Dowdy burst through the door. She was a painfully thin woman of medium height. An elaborate pelerine of embroidered cambric, extending over the wide à la Folle sleeves of her printed muslin dress, helped create the illusion of a fuller figure. Large, round dark curls framed her face under the lacy tulle cap.
The ensemble was handsome, one must give her that. It was a shame she didn’t dress her ladies as carefully as she dressed herself.
“My lady, my lord, my apologies,” she said breathlessly. “I never expected you so early in the day.”
“The shop opens at ten o’clock,” Longmore said. “Or so I was told.”
“The sign in the window says so,” Sophy said.
“You are quite right, miss—my lady.” Dowdy bustled out from behind the counter. “I was called away. A—erm—a little difficulty in the workroom. But we are all in order now. A dress for the nuptials of Lady Clara Fairfax, is it not? Would her ladyship care to peruse the pattern
book? We have all the latest styles from Paris, and a splendid selection of silks.”
Judging by the crumbs on the pelerine, she must have been enjoying a leisurely breakfast.
“My aunt says I’m to place myself in your hands,” Sophy said.
“And mind you do her up well,” Longmore said. “None of your fobbing off that putrid green you bought too much of on account of seeing it in the wrong light.”
Sophy strangled a laugh.
“My cousin may be a rustic,” he said, “but—”
“I! A rustic!”
“My dear girl, your idea of sophistication is attending a lecture on stuffed birds at the Manchester Museum.”
“England’s finest mills are in Manchester!” she cried.
“Certainly, your ladyship,” Dowdy said. “But I must say a word for our Spitalfields silks, you know. And as to that, I do believe we have exactly the thing for you. Madame Ecrivier, kindly show her ladyship the silk I mean.”
Ecrivier gave Sophy a swift survey, then glided away to a drawer. She withdrew a length of blue silk.
“Blue!” Sophy said. “But I never wear blue.”
“With the greatest respect, milady, perhaps it is time, yes?”
“What color is my aunt wearing?” Sophy said. “I can’t wear the same color, and I know she likes blue.”
Dowdy smiled. “I regret that we cannot divulge that information. Her ladyship—”
“Not divulge it!” Longmore said. “See here. I won’t have my cousin trifled with. And I don’t mean to hang about having my time wasted. You can deuced well show us what my mother is wearing to the wedding. By gad, do you think we’ll report it to the newspapers?”
He slanted one incinerating black glance at Sophy.
“Do you know, Cousin, I’m finding this shop exceedingly tiresome,” Sophy said. “Aunt assured me we’d receive every attention. But first we’re made to wait, and then they’re suddenly coy about my aunt’s dress, when it’s of the utmost importance that my own complement hers.”
“I do beg your ladyship’s pardon, but Lady Warford expressly forbade us to share the details,” Dowdy said. “She was concerned that copies might be made, in advance of the matrimonial occasion, which I am sorry to say has happened in the past. Other dressmakers, you see, send their girls into the shop to spy, and—”