The tailor nodded, noting it in his ledger while correcting him at the same time. “Theburnt umberis an excellent choice for a waistcoat, sir, and will complement your strong wheaten coloring.” He gestured to Gal’s freshly cut hair with his pencil. “Might I suggest a coat in fine-gauge wenge wool to go with it? As that combination will emphasize your impressive shoulders, too.”
He couldn’t help but smile at that ridiculous word. “I was with you for the umber and the wheat, Mr. Bardwell, but I’m afraid that you’ve completely lost me with the wenge, as I wouldn’t know what that shade was if you slapped me in the face with it.”
The tailor reached for a book of swatches and rifled through them until he found a dark sort of brown, which he held against the slightly reddish brown of the checks. “Wenge, sir. Don’t they go well together? These two, paired with some tight buff breeches, will have all the ladies in Hyde Park swooning as you ride past them.” He also liked to flatter his customers by commenting on their magnificent physical attributes or by claiming everything made them more attractive to the opposite sex. While such sycophantic tactics were water off a duck’s back to Gal, he could imagine it worked a treat for the pompous fools like that windbag Dorchester who Miss Venus put so much stock in. “What do you say?”
Internally, he was frustrated at himself for voluntarily thinking about Venus again when he was here, four hours early and on the unfashionable side of noon, because the witch had crept into his dreams again last night to ensure he slept fitfully. He still blamed their waltz last week rather than last night’s card game for his continued preoccupation with her. That damn dance had given his body ideas about the vixen it had no right having, let alone holding on to. But hold on it had, as last night’s fevered but vivid dreams were testament.
Thanks to their card game, his imagination had added a new twist to its recent nocturnal torments. One involving her and him playing a game of cards using their clothes as the stakes.
His blood heated again just thinking about it.
“I say I’ll give the wenge a whirl.” Gal also pointed to the elaborate cornflower damask silk, which was reminiscent of the shade Venus had worn so well at the Rokeby Ball, the shade that matched her eyes, but which Mr. Bardwell insisted on callingBleu de Francewith a matching French accent. Probably because that made it sound more exotic and justified the extortionate price he was charging. A price that had caused Gal to almost choke on his own tongue when he first heard it. “You’ve talked me into this, too.” He decided not to wince at the additional dent one stupid waistcoat would make in his wallet. After all, he had to dress as if money were no object to attract the clientele who lived and died by those ridiculous standards into his new club when it opened.
This rash purchase was absolutely nothing to do with Venus and her eyes.
Perhaps if he told himself that often enough throughout the day, he might actually believe it by this evening when the inevitable remorse set in.
“Have I shown you the stripes that arrived last week?” Mr. Bardwell turned his back to fetch a heavy bolt of fabric from his shelves behind. “This verdigris will do wonders for your eyes. I know how much the ladies admire them…”
Currently, there was only one lady’s admiration he was craving, damn it, and he was honest enough with himself to acknowledge that it had nothing to do with his quest to improve relations with her or his business. The relations he wanted to have with her involved them both cozied in his bed together naked watching the sun rise while he probed the inner recesses of her mind to discover exactly how that clever brain of hers thought. An expedition that he knew would take more than one night of passion, because Venus was more than a temptress. She was afascinating dichotomy—a prim and proper card sharp with the heart of an angel, the mind of an academic, and a body made for sin.
A lethal and dangerous combination best avoided.
Annoyed that she had invaded his thoughts yet again, Gal allowed his gaze to wander to the falling snow outside the window while Mr. Bardwell did his best to blatantly sell him his entire shop. Irrespective of the early hour and the continued foul weather, Piccadilly was bustling. He couldn’t help smiling as well-heeled shoppers and their servants mixed with the street hawkers on the crowded pavements, and the nose-to-tail carriages and carts moved at a snail’s pace through the filthy snow.
The familiar hubbub reminded him of Broadway back home. Perhaps that street across the ocean had been rougher around the edges than this polished cousin, but the sounds, sights, and smells of this city were much the same. Even the weather felt reassuringly familiar. Winters could be as bitter along the banks of the Thames as they had been along the Hudson, and the cloying summers were just as unbearable when the hot July sun chose to be relentless. Those similarities were oddly comforting on the rare occasions Gal allowed himself to hanker for the past, echoing a distant beat he understood and could fall into step with most of the time.
“… I think this new dove kerseymere would be an asset to your wardrobe, too, Mr. Sinclair.” As Gal turned back to his tailor, he saw something else familiar out of the corner of his eye. Or perhaps in his wayward, lusty imagination. A fine, curvaceous figure and a distinctive walk that could surely only belong to one woman as she bustled past the window. “A coat in the same cut as we are doing in the wenge…”
With last night’s carnal dream so fresh in his memory and the unwelcome impact of it still resonating in his needy body, if this was Miss Venus, then he should let her go about her business.
Chasing after her with no justification beyond the worrying compunction to simply see her smile wasn’t wise when he had drunk hisfill of it last night across the card table. There would be other, better opportunities to find a plausible excuse to collide with her and improve their fledgling relationship over the coming days and weeks, and Rome wasn’t built in a day. It would be much better to allow the strides they had made last night to marinate, then collide with her again within the safety of a family or social situation. Because therewassafety in numbers, and being alone again with her suddenly felt… dangerous.
That was a more sensible plan of action.
“Whatever you think best, Mr. Bardwell.” Yet contrary to that sound plan, for some inexplicable reason his fingers had already grasped the doorknob to follow her anyway, even while his head screamed at his feet to stay put. “I shall be back presently but…” As his head began to scream at his mouth, too, for uttering words it shouldn’t be uttering, he stood on tiptoes to follow her progress down Piccadilly. The second her sensible blue bonnet melted into the crowd, some irrational force more powerful than him convinced Gal to dash out onto the street to follow her before he even finished his sentence.
For the first few yards he thought he’d lost her, but he finally caught sight of Miss Venus crossing the road. Or at least all his senses told him that the compelling woman in blue was Venus.
It had to be her.
The unconscious sway of her bottom as she strode with purpose, contrasting with the useless, silly little reticule that swung from her gloved wrist, was surely proof enough?
As Gal hurried across the road in reckless pursuit, she paused only long enough for him to notice that she wasn’t alone as she shepherded three boys into Hatchards bookshop. Like a man possessed—or bewitched—he followed, then skidded to a brief halt outside so that he might enter the building with a casual nonchalance that he hoped looked convincing.
As she was already engaged in a conversation with a shop assistant at the counter when he burst through the door, and because he had no earthly clue why he was even here when he was supposed to be elsewhere, he darted behind a long row of bookshelves. He used the excuse of perusing the titles on offer as an opportunity to compose himself because, frankly, and to his complete surprise, he was in dire need of some serious composing.
His stupid heart was racing, and more than the exertion of a short dash warranted. There was something peculiar going on in some of his other organs, too. A fluttering in his stomach hinted at excitement or anticipation, or both, and a tightness in his throat suggested he was nervous. The sort of nervous a fella got when he wanted to make a good impression on a girl he was taken with rather than the ominous-bad-feeling kind that would have been preferable at this precise moment.
All very odd and unlike him.
Clearly, the long, fitful night filled with inappropriate dreams had left him too tired to think straight if he was fancying himself fancying Venus. His lifelong dream was so close he could taste it, so now was the time to remain single-mindedly focused on his business and not…
“Hello, Galahad.” He inwardly cringed at the sound of her voice and attempted to arrange his features into a look of surprise before he turned to greet her, only to fail thanks to the stunning smile she bestowed upon him. A smile that completely disarmed him and made him grin back like a besotted idiot. “How is it possible that I usually only see you once in a blue moon and yet here we are colliding again for the second time in less than twelve hours, and the fourth in two weeks?”
“Well, howdy.” Too late he tried to act more surprised at the sight of her than he was at the disingenuous greeting that his mouth had vomited. His performance so unconvincing his toes curled inside his boots.
Howdy.
