His heart was thudding. It was the dance, the furious dance, and talking, and trying to keep up with her, matching wits. Yet he was aware of an uneasiness inside, the same he’d felt with her before—because it was true, all true, and he hadn’t known the truth himself until she uttered it.
“You have a mighty high opinion of yourself,” he said.
“My dear duke, only look at the competition.”
“I would,” he said, “but you’re so aggravating, I can’t tear my gaze away.”
They were turning, turning, both breathless from dancing and talking at the same time. She was looking up at him, her dark eyes brilliant, her mouth—the mouth that had knocked him on his pins—hinting at laughter.
“Fascinating,” she said. “You mean fascinating.”
“You’ve certainly fascinated my friend Aronduille. He wonders where you learned to curtsey and dance and speak so well.”
There was the barest pause before she answered. “Like a lady, you mean? But I’m only aping my betters.”
“And where did you learn to ape them, I wonder?” he said. “Do you not work from dawn till dusk? Are dressmakers not apprenticed at an early age?”
“Nine years old,” she said. “How knowledgeable you are, suddenly, of my trade.”
“I asked my valet,” he said.
She laughed. “Your valet,” she said. “Oh, that’s rich. Literally.”
“But you have a maid,” he said. “A slight girl with fair hair.”
Instantly the laughter in her eyes vanished. “You noticed my maid?”
“At the promenade, yes.”
“You’re above-average observant.”
“Madame, I notice everything about you, purely in the interests of self-preservation.”
“Call me cynical, but I suspect there’s nothing pure about it,” she said.
The dance was drawing to a close. He was distantly aware of the music subsiding, but more immediately aware of her: the heat between them, physical and mental, and the turbulence she made.
“And yet you court me,” he said.
“Solely in the interests of commerce,” she said.
“Interesting,” he said. “I wonder at your methods for attracting business. You say you wish to dress my duchess—and you start by making off with my stickpin.”
“I won it fair and square,” she said.
The dance ended, but still he held her. “You tease and provoke and dare and infuriate me,” he said.
“Oh, that I do for fun,” she said.
“For fun,” he said. “You like to play with fire, madame.”
“As do you,” she said.
Tense seconds ticked by before he noticed that the music had fully stopped, and people were watching them while pretending not to. He let go of her, making a show of smoothing her lace—tidying her up, as one might a child. He smiled a patronizing little smile he knew would infuriate her, then bowed politely.
She made him an equally polite curtsey, then opened her fan and lifted it to her face, hiding all but her mocking dark eyes. “If you’d wanted a tame pet, your grace, you should have picked another woman.”
She slipped away into the crowd, the black lace and red bows fluttering about the shimmering pink-tinged gold of her gown.
Chapter Five
Masked balls are over for the season, but dress balls are as frequent as they were in the beginning of the winter. Some of the most novel dancing dresses are of gauze figured in a different colour from the ground, as jonquille and lilac, white and emerald green, or rose, écre and cherry-colour.
Costume of Paris by a Parisian correspondent,
The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée, 1835
Marcelline swiftly made her way out of the ballroom and into the corridor. She started toward the stairway.
“I picked you?” came a familiar, low voice from close behind her.
Startled, she spun around—and collided with Clevedon. She stumbled, and he caught hold of her shoulders and righted her.
“Delicious exit line,” he said. “But we’re not quite done.”
“Oh, I think we are,” she said. “I’ve looked my fill tonight. My card will be in the hands of at least one reporter by tomorrow, along with a detailed description of my dress. Several ladies will be writing to their friends and family in London about my shop. And you and I have caused more talk than is altogether desirable. At the moment, I’m not absolutely certain I can turn the talk to account. Your grasping me in this primitive fashion doesn’t improve matters. May I point out as well that you’re wrinkling my lace.”
He released her, and for one demented instant, she missed the warmth and the pressure of his hands.
“I did not pick you,” he said. “You came to the theater and flaunted yourself and did your damndest to rivet my attention.”
“If you think that was my damndest, you’re sadly inexperienced,” she said.
He studied her face for a moment, his green eyes glittering.
If he took hold of her again and shook her until her teeth rattled, she wouldn’t be surprised. She was provoking him, and it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but she was provoked, too, frustrated on any number of counts, mainly the obvious one.
“I brought you,” he said tightly. “I’ll take you back to your hotel.”
“There’s no reason for you to leave the party,” she said. “I’ll find a fiacre to take me back.”
“The party is boring,” he said. “You’re the only interesting thing in it. You’d scarcely left before it deflated, audibly, like a punctured hot-air balloon. I heard the sigh of escaping excitement behind me as I stepped into the corridor.”
“It didn’t occur to you that the deflation was on account of your departure?” she said.
“No,” he said. “And don’t try flattery. It sits ill on you. In fact, it turns your face slightly green. I do wonder how you get on with your clients. Surely you’re obliged to flatter and cajole.”
“I flatter in the same way I do everything else,” she said. “Beautifully. If I turned green it was due to shock at your flattering me.”
“Then collect your wits before we descend the stairs. If you take a tumble and crack your head, suspicion will instantly fall on me.”
She needed to collect her wits, and not for fear of tumbling down the stairs. She hadn’t yet recovered from the waltz with him: the heat, the giddiness, the almost overpowering physical awareness—and most alarming, the yearning coursing through her, racing in her veins, beating in her heart, and weakening her mind as though she’d drunk some kind of poison.
She started down the stairs.
As the buzz of the party grew more distant, she became aware of his light footfall behind her, and of the deserted atmosphere of the lower part of the house.
Risk-taking was in her blood, and conventional morality had not been part of her upbringing. If this had been another man, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She would have led him to a dark corner or under the stairs and had him. She would have lifted her skirts and taken her pleasure—against a wall or a door or on a windowsill—and got it out of her system.
But this wasn’t another man, and she’d already let temper and pride get the better of her judgment.
Leonie had warned her, before she left: “We’ll never have another chance like this. Don’t bugger it up.”
The hell of it was, Marcelline wouldn’t know whether or not she’d botched it until it was too late.
He said nothing for a time, and she wondered if he, too, was pondering the stories shortly to fly about London, and deciding how best to deal with them.
But why should he fret about gossip? He was a man, and men were expected to chase women, especially in Paris. It was practically his patriotic duty. Lady Clara certainly hadn’t made any fuss about his affairs. It would have
been common knowledge if she had. Since Longmore behaved much the same as his friend did, Marcelline doubted it had even dawned on the earl to mention the subject when issuing the ultimatum, whatever that was.
Still, all the duke’s other liaisons in Paris had been ladies or sought-after members of the demimonde. Those sorts of conquests were prestigious.
But a dressmaker—a common shopkeeper—wasn’t Clevedon’s usual thing, and anything unusual could set the ton on its ear.
These cogitations took her to the ground floor. They did nothing to quiet her agitation.
She waited while he told the porter to summon his carriage.
When Clevedon turned back to her, she said, “How do you propose to explain this evening to Lady Clara? Or do you never explain yourself to her?”
“Don’t speak of her,” he said.
“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “You say it as though my uttering her name will somehow contaminate her. That must be your guilty conscience speaking, because it most assuredly isn’t your intellect. You know that she’s the one I want. She’s the one I came to Paris for. ‘Don’t speak of her,’ indeed.” She imitated his haughty tone. “Is that what you do with everything uncomfortable? Pretend it isn’t there? She’s there, you stubborn man. The woman you’re going to marry by summer’s end. You ought to speak of her. You ought to be reminding me of her vast superiority to me—except as regards dress, that is.”
“I had originally planned,” he said levelly, “to write to Clara as I always do. I had planned to repeat the most fatuous conversations to which I was subjected in the course of the evening. I had planned to give my impressions of the company. I had planned to describe my sufferings from boredom—a boredom endured entirely on her account, in order provide her entertainment.”
“How noble of you.”
Something flickered in his eyes, and it was like the flash of a lighthouse, seen through a storm.
She knew she approached dangerous waters, but if she didn’t get him under control, she risked smashing her business to pieces.
“And you’d completely disregard my part in events?” Marcelline said. “Stupid question. It’s tactless to mention the women of dubious character you encounter in the course of your travels and entertainments. On the present occasion, however, I’d recommend against that approach. News of our exciting arrival at the party will soon be racing across the Channel, to arrive in London as early as Tuesday. I suggest you tackle the subject straight on. Tell her you brought me to win a wager. Or you did it for a joke.”
“By God, you’re the most managing female,” he said.
“I’m trying to manage my future,” she said. She heard the slight wobble in her voice. Alarmed, she took a calming breath. His gaze became heavy-lidded and shifted to her neckline. Her reaction to that little attention was the opposite of calming.
Devil take him! He was the one who belonged on a leash.
She started for the gate. The porter hastily opened it.
“The carriage hasn’t arrived yet,” Clevedon said. “Do you mean to wait on the street for it, like a clerk waiting for the omnibus?”
“I am not traveling in that or any other carriage with you,” she said. “We’ll go our separate ways this night.”
“I cannot allow you to travel alone,” he said. “That’s asking for trouble.”
And traveling with him in a closed carriage, in the dead of night, in her state of mind—or not mind—wasn’t? She needed to get away from him, not simply for appearances’ sake, but to think. There had to be a way to salvage this situation.
“I’m not a sheltered miss,” she said. “I’ve traveled Paris on my own for years.”
“Without a servant?”
She wished she had something heavy to throw at his thick head.
She’d grown up on the streets of Paris and London and other cities. She came from a family that lived by its wits. The stupid or naïve did not survive. The only enemy they hadn’t been able to outwit or outrun was the cholera.
“Yes, without a servant,” she said. “Shocking, I know. To do anything without servants is unthinkable to you.”
“Not true,” he said. “I can think of several things to do that do not require servants.”
“How inventive of you,” she said.
“In any event, the point is moot,” he said. “Here’s my carriage.”
While she’d been trying not to think of the several activities one might perform without servants’ assistance, the carriage had drawn up to the entrance.
“Adieu, then,” she said. “I’ll find a fiacre in the next street.”
“It’s raining,” he said.
“It is not . . .”
She felt a wet plop on her shoulder. Another on her head.
A footman leapt down from the back of the carriage, opened an umbrella, and hurried toward them. By the time he reached them, the occasional plop had already built to a rapid patter. She felt Clevedon’s hand at her back, nudging her under the umbrella, and guiding her to the carriage steps.
It was the touch of his hand, the possessive, protective gesture. That was what undid her.
She told herself she wasn’t made of sugar and wouldn’t melt. She told herself she’d walked in the rain many times. Her self didn’t listen.
Her self was trapped in feelings: the big hand at her back, the big body close by. The night was growing darker and colder while the rain beat down harder. She was strong and independent and she’d lived on the streets, yet she’d always craved, as any animal does, shelter and protection.
She was weak in that way. Self-denial wasn’t instinctive.
She couldn’t break way from him or turn away from the open carriage door where shelter waited. She didn’t want to be cold and wet, walking alone in the dark in Paris.
And so she climbed the steps and sank gratefully onto the well-cushioned seat, and told herself that catching a fatal chill or being attacked and raped in a dirty alley would not do her daughter or her sisters any good.
He sat opposite.
The door closed.
She felt the slight bounce as the footman returned to his perch. She heard his rap on the roof, signaling the coachman to start.
The carriage moved forward gently enough, but the streets here were far from smooth, and despite springs and well-cushioned seats, she felt the motion. The silence within was like the silence before a thunderstorm. She became acutely conscious of the wheels rattling over the stones and the rain drumming on the roof . . . and, within, the too-fierce pounding of her heart.
“Going to find a fiacre,” he said. “Really, you are ridiculous.”
She was. She should have risked the dark and cold and rain. It would be for only a few minutes. In a fiacre, at least, she might have been able to think.
The night was dark, the sheeting rain blotting out what little light the street and carriage lamps shed. Within the carriage was darker yet. She could barely make out his form on the seat opposite. But she was suffocatingly aware of the long legs stretched out over the space between them. He seemed to have his arm stretched out over the top of the seat cushions, too. The relaxed pose didn’t fool her. He lounged in the seat in the way a panther might lie on its belly in a tree, watching its prey move along the forest floor below. If he’d owned a tail, it would have twitched.
“I was an idiot to attend this event with you,” she said.
“You seemed to be having a fine time. You certainly did not lack for dance partners,” he said.
“Yes, I was doing quite well, thank you, until you had to turn medieval—”
“Medieval?”
“Out of my way, peasants. The wench belongs to me.” She mimicked the Duke of Clevedon at his haughty best. “I thought Monsieur Tournadre would wet himself when you bared your fangs at him.”
“What a grotesque
imagination you have.”
“You’re big and arrogant, and I think you know exactly how intimidating you can be.”
“Alas, not to you.”
“Still, perhaps all is not lost,” she said. “That sort of possessive behavior is typical of your kind. Furthermore, I am your pet. You brought me to the party for your amusement. And I did make it abundantly clear to the company that I’d come to drum up business and was using you for that purpose.”
“But that isn’t what happened,” he said.
“That is exactly what happened,” she said.
“What happened was, we waltzed, and it was plain to everyone what we were doing even though we had our clothes on,” he said.
“Oh, that,” she said. “I have the same effect on every man I dance with.”
“Don’t pretend you weren’t affected as well.”
“Of course I was affected,” she said. “I never danced with a duke before. It was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened in my mediocre little bourgeois life.”
“A pity I am not medieval,” he said. “In that case, I shouldn’t hesitate to make your mediocre little life even more exciting, and a good deal littler.”
“Perhaps I ought to put it in an advertisement,” she said. “Ladies of distinction and fashion are invited to the showrooms of Mrs. Noirot, Fleet Street, West Chancery Lane, to inspect an assemblage of such elegant and truly nouvelle articles of dresses, mantles, and millinery, as in point of excellence, taste, and splendor, cannot be matched in any other house whatever. Often imitated but never surpassed, Mrs. Noirot alone can claim the distinction of having danced with a duke.”
The carriage stopped.
“Have we reached the hotel already?” she said. “How quickly the time flies in your company, your grace.” She started to rise.
“We’re nowhere near your hotel,” he said. “We’ve stopped for an accident or a drunk in the street or some such. Everyone’s stopped.”
She leaned forward, to look out of the window. It was hard to make out anything but the sheen of the rain where the lamp lights caught it.