Silk Is For Seduction (27 page)

He should have been bored witless. He should have been frantic to get away, to his club, to a card game, to a bottle or two or three with Longmore.

The Duke of Clevedon was so far from bored that he never noticed the time passing. At some point, they’d stopped to eat from a basket his cook had prepared for them. He couldn’t say when that was, an hour ago or five.

Then they left a warehouse, and when they reached the pavement she said, “
Mon dieu,
it’s done. I think. I hope. That’s everything, isn’t it?”

He took out his pocket notebook, and it was only when he had to squint at it that he realized evening had fallen. He’d stepped out of the shop and joined the flow of activity on the street without noticing that it had grown dark. He’d been too intent on his own plans and calculations. While she was occupied with choosing articles for her shop, he hadn’t been idle.

Now he looked about him at the gaslit streets. The shops would soon be closing, but the streets were busy, the pavements crowded with people passing to and fro, some pausing to look in the shop windows, others going inside—no doubt to the despair of shopkeepers eager for their dinners and the quiet of their hearths. Before long workers would spill from the various establishments, some hurrying home, others to their favorite chop houses and public houses.

What was the last place he’d wanted to hurry to? he wondered. When had he been eager for his own hearthside?

“If we’ve forgotten anything, it’s minor,” he said.

“We’ll see soon enough,” she said.

He told his coachman to take them back to the shop on St. James’s Street.

A
fter what seemed an eternity of crawling through London’s streets at a snail’s pace, Marcelline climbed down from the carriage and faced a darkened, empty shop.

“I can’t believe they’re all gone,” she said. She heard her voice wobble. She couldn’t remember when last she’d felt so deeply disappointed. “I thought—I thought—”

“We were more efficient than we guessed,” he said. “I’ll wager anything they’ve gone home—to Clevedon House, I mean—for a well-earned dinner and rest. As we shall do—as soon as we’ve had a look round.” He took out a key and brandished it. “I am the landlord, you know.”

Enough light entered from the street to allow them to make their way into the shop without tripping over furniture. After a moment, Clevedon got a gas lamp lit, then another.

Marcelline stood in the middle of the showroom, her hands clasped tightly against her stomach, against the butterflies quivering there—eagerness mixed with anxiety at once. She turned, slowly, taking it in: the gleaming woodwork, the elegant chandeliers, the artfully draped curtains, the furniture arranged as though in a drawing room.

“Does it pass the test?” Clevedon said. “Satisfactory?”

“More than that,” she said. “My taste is impeccable, I know—”

“Really, Noirot, you must strive to overcome this excessive humility.”

“—but to see it in its proper setting . . .” She paused. “Well, I shall need to rearrange the furniture tomorrow morning. Leonie is very good with numbers and legal gibberish, and her eye for artistic detail is better than most, but she can be a little conventional in her arrangements. The showroom is most important, because that’s what our patrons see. The first impression must be of elegance and comfort and the little something else that sets me apart from others.”

“The little touches,” he said.

“Nothing too obvious,” she said.

“The French would say
je ne sais quoi,”
he said. “And so would I, because while I know it’s there, I can’t for the life of me say what it is.”

She let herself look at him, but only for an instant. “You’ve come a long way from Paris,” she said. “Then you claimed not to notice such things.”

“I’ve tried not to notice,” he said. “But everywhere I look, there it is. There you are. I’ll be glad to be rid of you. When a man sinks to reading fashion journals—no, it’s worse than that. When a man finds himself plumbing their depths, seeking arcane knowledge of no use to him whatsoever . . . Oh, it’s your corrupting influence. I shall be so glad to see the back of you Noirots, and return to my life.”

“It annoys you to be a guardian angel,” she said.

“Don’t be absurd. I’m nothing of the kind. Come, let’s see the rest of the place.”

They moved more quickly through the rest of the shop: the offices and work and storage areas. He would be eager to be gone, she thought. For a time the details of setting up a shop, the details of trade might have offered an interesting change of pace for him. But he was no tradesman. Money meant something entirely different to him, insofar as it meant anything. And she supposed he was tired as well of being the subject of tedious gossip, and tired of having his household disrupted.

Little did he know how small a disruption that had been, compared to what her family typically did. Her ancestors had torn whole families apart, lured the precious offspring of noblemen from their luxurious homes to vagabond lives at best, abandonment and ruin at worst.

She had seen all of the new place that mattered, she thought, when he led her, not back the way they’d come, toward the entrance, but to the stairs.

Then it dawned on her what she’d missed. The first floor was to contain work areas: a well lit studio for her, a handsome parlor for private consultations with clients, and private work spaces for Sophia and Leonie.

The second and third floors had been reserved as living quarters.

And that hadn’t crossed her mind, not once while she shopped today.

“Good grief, I hope you’ve a mattress or two you can spare from Clevedon House,” she said. “A table and chairs would be useful, too, though not crucial. We’ve camped before. I can’t believe I forgot to buy anything for
us
.”

“Let’s go up and see what’s needed,” he said. “Maybe the absconders left something.”

He led the way, carrying a lamp.

He didn’t pause at the first floor but continued up to the second.

At the top of the stairs, he paused. “Wait here,” he said.

He crossed to a door, and opened it. A moment or two later, the faint light of the lamp gave way to soft gaslight.

“Well, well,” he said. “Come, look at this.”

She went to the door and looked in. Then she stepped inside.

A sofa and chairs and tables. Curtains at the windows. A rug on the floor. None of it would have suited Clevedon House. The furnishings weren’t grand at all. But they reminded her of her cousin’s apartment in Paris. Quiet elegance. Comfort. Warmth. Not a showplace like the shop below, but a home.

“Oh, my,” she said, and it was all she could trust herself to say. Something pressed upon her heart, and it choked her.

From this pretty parlor he led her into a small dining parlor. Then he led her to a nursery, laid out with so much affection and understanding of Lucie that her heart ached. She had her own little table and chairs and a tea set. She had a little set of shelves to hold her books, and a painted chest to hold her toys and treasures.

Thence he led Marcelline to another, larger room.

“I thought you would prefer this room,” he said. “If it doesn’t suit, you ladies can always rearrange yourselves. But you’re the artist, and I thought you should not overlook the busy street but the garden—such as it is—and perhaps catch a glimpse of the Green Park, though you might have to stand on a chair to do it.”

She was a Noirot, and self-control was not a family strong suit. But she, like the others, had a formidable control over what she let the world see.

At that moment, it broke. “Oh, Clevedon, what have you done?” she said, and the thing pressing on her heart pushed a sob from her. And then, for the first time in years and years and years, she wept.

Chapter Thirteen

MRS. HUGHES BEGS leave to inform her Friends and the Public in general that she intends opening Shew-Rooms on Tuesday, the 4th inst. with a new and elegant assortment of Millinery and Dresses, in the first style of fashion . . . Mrs. Hughes takes this opportunity of returning thanks for the great patronage she has already received from her numerous friends . . . An Apprentice and Improver wanted.

Advertisements for January,

Ackermann’s Repository,
Vol. XI, 1814

T
ears had never come easily to her. When she learned the cholera had taken her parents, she’d ached for the missed opportunities and for what she’d always hoped for from them, against all odds and all evidence. When the disease killed Cousin Emma—who’d taken in Marcelline, Sophy, and Leonie time and again when Mama and Papa abandoned them—Marcelline had been deeply saddened. She’d grieved for Charlie, too, for whom she’d given up all her young girl’s heart.

Yet Marcelline hadn’t wept like this. She’d never had time to indulge her grief. Each loss had meant she had to act, right away, to save her family.

She hadn’t wept when Lucie had been so very ill, because there wasn’t time for tears, only for working as hard as one could to keep her alive. When it seemed the fire had consumed her, the searing shock and pain left Marcelline nothing to cry with.

But now . . . but this . . .

It was the last straw, the very last straw, and she broke down and wept. But no,
wept
was too small a word for the great sobs that seized her, like talons trying to tear her apart. She tried to get free of them, but they were too strong. She could only stand, her face in her hands, and weep helplessly.

“Oh, come,” Clevedon said. “Is it truly as ugly as all that? I flattered myself I had a little taste—a very little. One would have thought some of yours would have rubbed off— Dammit, Noirot.”

She would have laughed if she could, but a dam had burst inside her. All she could do was stand, her face in her hands, and grieve for she hardly knew what.

“Curse you,” he said. “If I’d known you’d make such a fuss, I should have taken you straight back home—I mean, to Clevedon House.”

Home. His home. He’d given her a home when she’d lost hers. Then, today, while she thought of nothing but business, he’d made her a home. Another wave of misery churned through her, making her shudder.

“It was supposed to be a pleasant surprise,” he said. “You were supposed to say, ‘How good of you to think of it, Clevedon.’ Then you were to accept it as your due. The way you accept everything as your due. Really, I hope your clients never see you carry on like this. They’ll lose all respect for you. And you know it’s crucial to cow them. You must rule them with an iron hand, or they’ll run roughshod . . .” He gave up. “Devil take it, Noirot. What’s the matter?”

You. You’re all that’s the matter. Only you.

But the storm was subsiding. She took her hands away from her face. To her amazement, they trembled. She found her handkerchief and wiped her face. It was then she saw how he stood, so stiff, his hands fisted at his sides.

He’d wanted to do the natural thing, she supposed. To move to her and put his arms about her and comfort her. But he wouldn’t let himself. What had he done? Conjured Lady Clara in his mind, and thought, for once, of her and what he owed her?

Marcelline wanted to laugh then, too. The irony was too rich.

Now, when he’d demolished her defenses at last, he’d found the moral fiber to keep away.

“You d-don’t underst-stand,” she said.

“You couldn’t be more correct,” he said.

“No one,” she said, and her voice wobbled again. “N-no w-w-one.” Another sob racked her chest. She bit her lip and waved the handkerchief at their surroundings. “In all my life. No one. A h-home. You made a h-home.”

It was true. No one in all her life had ever made a home for her. Her parents had never stayed in any place for long. There had been lodgings, places to hide, to camp, like gypsies. Never a home, until Cousin Emma had taken them in, and even then, what they had was a place to eat and sleep and work. Nothing in it had belonged to Marcelline and her sisters. Nothing in it was arranged for them. The small rooms on the upper floors of the building on Fleet Street constituted the first true home they’d ever had.

Now this. He’d done all this. He’d done it today, quietly, while she was otherwise occupied. He’d planned a surprise for her.

“Oh, Clevedon, what am I to do?” she said.

“Live in it?” he said.

She looked up at him, into those haunting green eyes, where she’d seen the devil dance, and the heat of desire, and laughter and rage. Oh, and affection, too, for Lucie.

“Someone had to think of it,” he said. “You had so much else to do. The shop was—is—the most important thing, of course. Without it, you have nothing. But you only needed me to stand about and look ducal, and I grew bored.”

And there was that, too: He understood what her business meant to her. In a few short weeks he’d gone from completely dismissive—no, scornful was more like it—to this. She’d read in novels of people who couldn’t speak because their hearts were too full and she’d always thought,
Not my black heart.

But now she couldn’t speak, because it was too much, whatever
it
was. Everything was falling into place, a great puzzle she hadn’t realized wanted solving. Now the pieces shifted into place, and she saw.

“It seemed stupid to distract you with ordinary household matters,” he went on. “As it was, you were undertaking the impossible. But that’s so like you, to undertake the impossible. Clara’s gown. Stalking me in Paris. Who on earth would think to do such a thing? Who on earth could imagine she’d succeed? If you had asked my opinion, I should have told you it was a harebrained scheme—”

“And you’d be right,” she said. “It was a mad scheme.”

“But it succeeded.”

“Yes. Yes, it did.”

Except for one slight miscalculation. She felt her eyes filling. She blinked and forced a smile. “I’m happy,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier. Everything I wanted.” She gestured. “And more. A fine shop in St. James’s Street. Scope for my imagination, my ambition.”

He looked about him. “I’m not sure it’s big enough. I’m not sure St. Paul’s Cathedral would be big enough to contain your ambition.
Are
there bounds to your ambition? Ordinary, mortal bounds, I mean?”

He knew her so well. She laughed. It hurt to laugh, but she did it.

He turned sharply toward her. “Noirot?”

“I was only thinking,” she said. “It’s all turned out as I’d imagined. No, better than I’d supposed. And yet . . . Oh, what a joke.”

She shook her head and moved away and sat on a chair and folded her hands and stared at the floor, at the rug he’d chosen. Crimson poppies intertwined among black tendrils and leaves on a background of pale gold . . . with a subtle pink undertone.

The colors of the dress she’d worn to the Comtesse de Chirac’s ball.

Then she realized: This home he’d created for them was his goodbye gift.

How ironic. How fitting.

She’d hunted him and she’d caught him and she’d got what she’d set out to get.

And she’d bollixed it up, after all.

What a joke.

She’d fallen in love.

And he was saying goodbye, in the time-honored fashion of men of his kind, with an extravagant gift.

“Noirot, are you unwell? It’s been a very long day, and we’re both overwrought, I daresay. It’s no small strain, even for you, trying to do the impossible—all this racing from one place to the next, buying, frantically buying. And I—shopping with a woman—it’s possible my sensibilities will never recover from the shock.”

She looked up at him.

They had no future.

Given who he was and what he was, she couldn’t be anything to him but a mistress. And that she couldn’t be. It wasn’t because of moral scruples. She barely understood what those were. It was for business reasons, for the business that supported her family, the business she loved, the great passion of her life.

She could keep her feelings to herself. She could suffer in silence. She could say thank you and goodbye, and really, there was nothing else to do.

The trouble was, being who she was and what she was, noble sacrifice was out of the question.

And the real trouble was, she loved him.

And so she made her plan, quickly. She saw it all at once in her mind’s eye, the way she saw all of her plans. She saw what she needed to do, the only thing to do.

She stood and walked to the bed and pointed. “I want you to sit there,” she said.

“Don’t be stupid,” he said.

She untied her bonnet ribbons.

“Noirot, maybe you failed to understand why I was in so great a hurry to have you out of my house,” he said. “I don’t care about talk, if it concerns only me. But you know the talk will hurt someone else.”

“You’re a man,” she said. “Men are readily forgiven what women are not.”

“I’ve promised myself I won’t do anything I’ll need to be forgiven for,” he said.

“You won’t be the first man to break a promise,” she said.

Still holding the bonnet by the strings, she looked at him, capturing his gaze. She hid nothing. All her heart was in her eyes and she didn’t care if he saw it.

She’d fallen in love, and she’d love for once, openly, without disguise or guile. That was the one last gift she’d give him, and herself.

He came to the bed and sat, his face taut.

She let the ribbons slide through her fingers. The bonnet dropped gently to the rug he’d chosen for her bedroom.

He watched it drop. “Damn you,” he said.

“It’s all right,” she said. “This is goodbye.”

“Noir—”

She set her index finger over his lips. “I thank you for all you’ve done,” she said. “I thank you from the very bottom of my cold, black heart. There are some things I can repay but more that I can never repay. I want my gratitude—its depth and breadth—to be clear, perfectly clear . . . because after tonight, you must never come back here. You must never come to my shop. When your lady wife or your mistress comes to Maison Noirot, you’ll stay far away. You will not speak to me in the street or anywhere else. After this night, you become the man I always meant you to be, the man whose purse I plunder—and no more than that man. Do you understand?”

His eyes darkened, and she saw heat there: anger and disappointment and who knew what else? He started to rise.

“But for this night,” she said, “I love you.”

Something flashed in his eyes, and he flushed, and a brief spasm contorted his beautiful face. It was so quick, come and gone in the blink of an eye. But it was hard to mistake sorrow, however brief the glimpse. Then she knew she hadn’t made the wrong decision.

She began to undress. It was the same dress she’d been wearing on the night of the fire. Though his maids had cleaned and ironed it, it was no longer up to her usual standards. However, she and her sisters had agreed that completing their most crucial orders was more important than replenishing their own wardrobes.

This dress fastened up the back, naturally, but that presented no difficulty. She’d been dressing and undressing herself since she was a little girl. She unbuttoned the sleeves. Then she unhooked the hooks at the back of the bodice, from top to bottom. With the hooks undone, the narrow slit below the waist—invisible when the top was fastened—sagged open and the bodice did, too. Under it she wore an embroidered muslin chemisette that tied at the waist. She untied it and took it off, and let it drop from her hand, in the same way she’d dropped the bonnet.

She heard his breathing quicken.

The top undone, she eased her arms from the sleeves. She pulled the dress over her head, and dropped it.

She unfastened the sleeve puffs and dropped them onto the growing heap of clothing at her feet. She stood before him in her chemise, petticoats, corset, stockings, and shoes.

She stood for a moment, letting him drink her in. She couldn’t be sure what he felt, apart from what men always felt in such cases, but perhaps, just perhaps, he was trying, as she was, to imprint this moment in his memory.

Then she knelt.

“Marcelline,” he said. It was the first time he’d ever uttered her Christian name, and the sound was a caress.

Oh, she’d remember that: his voice, like a caress.

“You made my home,” she said. “Let me make our last time together. Leave it to me. Do I not make everything exactly as it ought to be?”

She tugged off one boot, then the other. She stood them neatly next to her heap of clothing.

She rose. She drew nearer now, and she looked down at him, at his black hair, gleaming like silk in the lamplight. He was looking up at her, his eyes dark, his mouth slightly parted, his breathing faster.