Vixen in Velvet

  “I see you’re as stumped as I am,” Swanton said. “I suppose the word is meant to be bouffant, but I’m at sea as to where this bouffant is on the sleeve and how it’s doubled—vertically or horizontally—and how this is accomplished.”

  “I’ll ask Madame when I speak to her,” Lisburne said. “If she’ll speak to me.”

  “Did you not part on good terms last night?”

  Before Lisburne’s weary brain could compose a discreet reply, Swanton fell back in his chair and smote his forehead precisely in the way a poet ought to do. “But how stupid of me! How could you part on good terms, after what’s happened? And there was I, looking like the most thoroughgoing idiot when she asked me about the child. Did you see her expression when she asked me if I was claiming amnesia? By gad, a man ought at least have an inkling as to whether he’s fathered a child! I was too agitated to examine the little girl—but had she the look of me, do you think?”

  “From the little I could see, she had the look of you and thousands of other Englishmen,” Lisburne said.

  He threw food on his plate without heeding what it was, and returned to his place and sat down. He ate because food was necessary to sustain a man, and he needed sustenance because he had a great deal to do today. He couldn’t afford to be romantically languishing, caring nothing for such banal matters as food. He wasn’t a poet. Let Swanton keep his head in the clouds. Lisburne was the one with his feet on the ground.

  They ate in silence, Swanton poring over the Spectacle as though he were an antiquarian perusing a scroll newly dug from the ashes of Pompeii.

  By the time they finished breakfast, Lisburne had decided what to do. One decision was to tell Swanton as little as possible. Another was to pay a visit to Maison Noirot, though he wasn’t sure what he’d do or say when he got there.

  He made the mistake of mentioning the projected Maison Noirot visit to Swanton. Then he had to spend an irritating amount of time convincing his poetic cousin of the likelihood of disastrous results, should he come along.

  “But Lady Gladys might be there,” Swanton said.

  “If you want to see her so badly, go to Warford House,” Lisburne said. “It’s absurd to hope for a chance encounter at Maison Noirot. How often do you imagine women visit their dressmakers? Even the vainest don’t make it a daily exercise.”

  “The family isn’t at home on Tuesdays,” Swanton said.

  Lisburne stared at him.

  Swanton’s ears and neck became tinged with red. “I overheard somebody say something about calling there today, and somebody else said the family doesn’t receive visitors on Tuesdays,” he said. “Not that they’d receive me, in any event. You can’t suppose I’d want to show my face to Lady Warford the day after I’ve been exposed as a debaucher of innocent young women and a getter of bastards whom I deny and abandon.”

  “Then I recommend you loiter in Hyde Park during the promenade hours,” Lisburne said. “When Gladys drives by, run out into the road, pretending to be in some sort of poetic agony. But do give her time to stop the carriage, unless you’d like to be trampled and die with a stain, possibly undeserved, on your escutcheon.”

  Swanton gave him a piercing look. “You’re strangely whimsical today.”

  “I’m obliged to exercise my imagination,” Lisburne said, “since yours seems to have deserted you at Vauxhall. I can’t believe I need to tell a man of five and twenty how to further his acquaintance with a girl. I can’t believe you resort to skulking about pleasure gardens eavesdropping. I don’t understand why you can’t approach her in a straightforward manner.”

  He left the room and went upstairs, where a greatly relieved Polcaire put his unsentimental and not-at-all-in-love master into proper attire.

  Maison Noirot

  Later that afternoon

  We’ll have to send for Sophy,” Marcelline was saying. “The piece in the Spectacle was so clever. I know how much you dislike that sort of thing. Yet you did a fine job, and I’m sure it smoothed matters quite a bit. Unfortunately, ‘quite a bit’ is insufficient. Clevedon and I have talked until we’re blue in the face, and neither of us knows how to do it as it needs to be done. We need Sophy.”

  “The fact is, no one knows how Sophy does it,” the Duke of Clevedon said.

  The three stood in the showroom, which was empty of customers. A paucity of clients wasn’t unusual at this time of day, when the ladies were at home, dressing for the promenade or resting before dressing for the evening. However, the ladies had kept away all day. Even Lady Clara had sent a note apologizing for not coming to show her support—but her mama had not thought it advisable for her to visit the shop quite yet. Lady Gladys, according to the note, had made a brilliant argument in favor of the shop, but as everybody knew, it was nigh impossible to get round Clara’s mama once she’d made up her mind. Only Sophy could do that, and Sophy wasn’t here.

  “We can’t bring her back,” Leonie said. “It’s too soon. People will recognize her, especially now, when we’ll all be under extra scrutiny.”

  “That nitwit Swanton,” Clevedon said. “I should like to tear his head straight off his neck. I’m not the only one. Don’t delude yourself, Leonie. When Longmore gets wind of this—which he’s bound to do in a matter of days, if not hours—he’ll race back to London to break Swanton into pieces. And Lisburne as well, for not keeping his flighty cousin under proper restraint.”

  “I don’t understand why people expect Lord Lisburne to control his cousin,” Leonie said. “Lord Swanton is a grown man. And I daresay he was man enough five years ago, in Paris.”

  Fortunately or unfortunately, she’d had direct experience of what Swanton might or might not have done with the woman in black. Though her hair was red, her coloring wasn’t a typical redhead’s. Leonie lacked freckles and the tendency to easy blushing. Yet she felt hot, and she was aware of a tingling in a place below her waist that didn’t normally tingle.

  “It’s no good playing propriety with us, chéri,” Marcelline said to her husband. “We all know what you were doing in Paris, only six months ago. Englishmen go there to debauch.”

  “That isn’t the point,” Clevedon said. “The point is, everybody knows Swanton is a dreamer. He needs minding. Lisburne, of all others, knows this.”

  “I do not see why Lord Lisburne’s life must always revolve around Lord Swanton’s,” Leonie said. “It’s one thing to look after a younger, weaker cousin when they’re boys at school. But Swanton is quite old enough to look after himself. Or if this is beyond him, he ought to hire a bodyguard.”

  Marcelline looked at her.

  Later, Leonie mouthed.

  She always told Marcelline everything. But she hadn’t had time to share the momentous news. Marcelline had come with Clevedon. While Leonie liked and respected him, she was not about to confide in her sister while Clevedon was present. Not only present but furious with Lord Lisburne and his impractical cousin.

  “This would not be a problem,” Clevedon said, “if the three of you weren’t directly involved with the shop at present. If you were ordinary dressmakers, no one would blink. But you’re not ordinary dressmakers anymore—”

  “We never were,” said his wife. “Ordinary, indeed! I cannot believe you said that.”

  “You’re a duchess,” he said. “Sophy’s a countess. No one cares what dressmakers do. Everybody minds what duchesses and countesses do. Great Zeus, Marcelline, you were presented to the Queen! Can you not understand the implications? You may care nothing for Society—”

  “What nonsense. I care everything for it. Society is my clientele.”

  “Those people form your social acquaintance,” he said. “It’s too ludicrous, your hosting a dinner for ladies you must wait on the next day in the shop.”

  Leonie had no doubt this quarrel had been going on for some time. Initially, Clevedon had let Marcelline go her way without
interference, because he appreciated her passion for her work. He understood that she was an artist, and her work was part of who she was. Too, he couldn’t see how to stop her. That would demand extreme measures, like violence or confinement, and he wasn’t that kind of man.

  But now she was pregnant, and the pregnancy had made her ill, and he worried.

  The plain fact was, he was right, in all the essentials. Logic told Leonie that the present state of affairs couldn’t continue and oughtn’t to. A duchess had responsibilities, and the social responsibilities mattered. Great hostesses wielded political as well as social power. Marcelline had the potential to be a great hostess. She had all the DeLucey and Noirot charm. She was clever. She could do more good as a duchess than as a dressmaker.

  But she would be wretched if she couldn’t design clothes. She was an artist. She needed her art.

  Logic had not yet shown Leonie how to resolve the conflict.

  “Most certainly we need to talk about that,” she said. “But at present it would be more productive to deal with the immediate problem. Why don’t we adjourn to my office? It’s no use hanging about here, waiting for nobody to come in.”

  The shop bell tinkled. All three heads turned toward the door.

  Lord Lisburne sauntered in.

  Lisburne.”

  “Clevedon.”

  An exchange of cool nods.

  Lisburne’s heart might be going faster than it needed to, but that had more to do with anticipation regarding Leonie than with any fear of Clevedon. Lisburne wasn’t afraid of any man, even this one, who was as large and strong as he was, and who seemed larger still, because he was almost visibly swelling with anger.

  Lisburne made himself larger, too.

  “Come to buy some dresses?” Clevedon said. “Because nobody else has.”

  Lisburne looked at Leonie, who did not seem overjoyed to see him.

  “Not one customer, all day,” she said.

  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.

  Stop 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 anyon
e’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.”