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“You concealed the truth about the move,” Cleo pointed out. “Your preliminary offer was laughably insufficient, considering that you expect Mrs. Quimby to leave her family and friends, not to mention eschewing the steady income resulting from her connections with the best theater companies in the kingdom.”
Cleo gave herself a silent huzzah for using “eschew,” a word of the day from two weeks ago. Slowly but surely, she was enlarging her vocabulary.
He didn’t just glance at her this time; he turned his entire body and looked her up and down. Cleo didn’t like the glint in his eye, mostly because she couldn’t interpret it. Men often responded to her with either a lascivious or a condescending attitude, but he didn’t seem to display either.
He certainly wasn’t admiring.
“Does England allow women to be solicitors now?” he demanded.
Cleo had been grief-stricken for nearly a year; irritation was a salutary change. “They do not,” she told him. His eyes drilled into hers. It would be a misnomer to label that gaze condescending: appalled, perhaps.
Like many other men, he likely believed that women had no place outside the home.
Arranging her face into an innocent expression, as if she were merely answering a tourist’s inquiry, she beamed at him. “British women are not yet invited to attend university, nor the Inns of Court.”
Her smile had no effect.
“Then what in the bloody hell are you doing, butting in with your opinions of a matter that doesn’t concern you?”
“Rude!” Gussie hissed.
Martha coughed. “Sir—”
“It concerns me,” Cleo said, cutting her off, “because you are standing in my establishment, Mr. whatever-your-name-is from America. I own Quimby’s. In England women are allowed to be investors, and I am one of them.”
“You’ve been doing a rotten job of caring for the emporium,” he retorted, giving each word a sharp edge. “It was an act of pity on my part to offer four thousand pounds for an establishment deep in debt that seems to have kept only happenstance records and can’t account for most of its inventory!”
“Yes, I can,” Martha interjected indignantly. “I can lay my hands on every feather that enters this workroom. My girls are not thieves, if that’s what you’re implying!”
His jaw flexed. “It is my understanding that a theater commissions a costume for a fixed amount, am I right?”
“Yes,” Martha replied hotly, folding her arms over her sturdy bosom.
“After which, you create the costume. According to your own records, you pay no attention to the profit you expect from each gown. From what I understand, you add feathers and silver embroidery with no consideration to whether an extra feather will take you from profit to loss.”
Martha’s chest visibly swelled, and her cheeks turned red. “You know nothing of the art of costuming, you . . . you Yankee!”
He gestured toward the sewing circles. To a woman, the seamstresses were gaping in their direction. “Just how much will the costume they are working on have cost on completion, Mrs. Quimby? Do you have any idea?”
Martha glared at him.
“Your opinion is irrelevant,” Cleo said, before Martha could launch into a speech that might reveal how hastily they had agreed to work together. “I am Quimby’s new investor. I offered Martha five thousand pounds immediately, with a thousand pounds a month for the next two years; we will share profits.”
His brows drew together. “My plans for expansion of Quimby’s will make it far more profitable than it can possibly become here in Britain, where theaters are limited to London. In America, theaters are popping up in every city. I own three in different localities, and I have plans to acquire more.”
“London is full of theaters,” Martha retorted.
“They are owned by different people. My theaters will put on the same play, at the same time, in different cities. All costume measurements will be created, Mrs. Quimby, in New York City and sent out for alteration by local seamstresses. I’m sure you agree that it is far more profitable to sew the same gown four times.”
“Far more boring,” Cleo said coolly. “My plans for expansion do not involve repetitive work. Quimby’s will soon be creating garments for gentlepersons as well as for theaters, and I fully expect my investment to double before the two years are finished.”
The American’s eyes narrowed. “French modistes dominate that market,” he told her, his tone just a hair from insolent. “Your endeavor will fail.” He looked back at Martha. “This woman will drive your emporium into the ground with her foolish ideas. Trust me, a duchess will never order her clothing from a costume store.”
“I don’t see why not,” Martha protested. “My clothes are as well made as any of them made by those supposed Frenchwomen. Most of them really are from the East End and putting on a fancy accent.”
“I grew up with Madame LaClou,” Gussie put in, “back when she answered to Batilda Forks.”
“A duchess is already acting a role,” the American said, with the insufferable air of lecturing to students at a parish school. “The last thing Her Grace wants is for the hoi polloi to recognize how very little separates nobility from commoners: a matter of silk, a feather or two, and supposed blue blood.” His curled lip showed that he was fully in agreement with his countrymen as regards the aristocracy’s claim to being a ruling class.
