Page 10

Oh well. Native Scottish practicality forced her to recognize that singing a few lines of music was infinitely preferable to being at a man’s beck and call in the bedroom. It wasn’t as if the earl had been any great shakes in the bed anyway. Mind you, he had a lovely body. But it was a matter of here, there, see you later.

Lina shrugged and headed out to the hall to join the earl. But first she nudged the libretto once more with her boot to make sure it was completely buried in paper.

Madame Rocque maintained an establishment at 112 Bond Street, an enclave that whispered money and screamed elegance, to Lina’s mind. She took a deep breath the moment they walked through the door. There was nothing she loved more than the elusive fragrance that wafted through silk-draped rooms like this one. It was the smell of rich satin, of French perfume, of ladies who changed their clothing four or five times a day and thought nothing of ordering three bonnets to match a gown, or two gowns to match a favorite bonnet, for that matter.

The antechamber was made up to look like a lady’s boudoir, complete with a dressing table lined with ruffle after ruffle of crocus-colored silk. The walls were hung with silk of the same dulcet yellow. To one side, an exquisite evening gown was hanging over the back of a chair, as if a distinguished beauty might waltz into her chamber at any moment and put it on. One of Madame Rocque’s innovations had been her habit of making up each of her new models so that one could actually see a gown before ordering it.

Rees stuck out in the midst of this exuberant femininity like a sore thumb. He looked like the very worst kind of degenerate today, with his hair falling out of its ribbon, and too long to begin with. Not to mention that sulky lower lip of his. Yet his title was the only thing that truly mattered to Madame Rocque. Sure enough, with the earl stomping along at Lina’s side they were ushered into an inner room the moment they entered the establishment, and by Madame herself. In the past Lina had been relinquished to a minion after being asked to wait in the antechamber for upwards of a half hour.

Madame fluttered about Rees like a rather weedy sparrow courting a hawk. If she wasn’t such a fool, she’d realize that twittering like that would simply make his temper grow, Lina thought. He was like a child being told to wait for dinner. Madame had yet to greet Lina herself; she was obviously walking a delicate balance between desire for Rees’s patronage and a lavish desire to make it clear to her, Lina, that she wasn’t welcome.

All right, Lina could accept that. There were other modistes who would be ecstatic to gown the chosen mistress of Earl Godwin, given his thousands of pounds. But she wanted the best. To her mind, if she had to live with Rees, she deserved the very best, and that meant patronizing the establishment where ladies went.

So she sat down on a spindly chair upholstered in green silk and disregarded the way Madame Rocque was cooing over Rees. Perhaps she should refurnish her chambers in this green color. It would look like the first breath of spring in the woods behind her father’s vicarage. Lina crossed her legs and swung her ankle gently. She was willing to wait.

As soon as Madame Rocque left the dressing room, Rees took out a piece of paper and began jotting down notes without saying another word to her. Madame Rocque’s establishment was rather flimsily constructed, Lina decided. Even draperies of green silk couldn’t hide the fact that the inner rooms were perfectly audible to each other. Two ladies in the next room were having a most interesting conversation.

“Men like to see an expanse of bosom,” one lady said. She had a sort of honeyed, husky voice that Lina associated with stage actresses. She was an alto, a seductive, opulent contralto. Men must adore her voice: she could have made a fortune on the stage.

The other woman had a higher voice that was rather bell-like. In fact, it was rather like Lina’s own, so she was probably a soprano. The soprano didn’t agree with her friend, which was utterly foolish. Lina firmly agreed with the alto. Show a man a bit of bosom, and he’ll blather himself into a frenzy. She cast a glance at Rees. He was the exception to the rule. She could have dropped her gown to her waist and he wouldn’t notice, Lina thought rather bitterly. He had never shown much interest in her breasts, even in the first few weeks when he was so gratifyingly attentive.

And when they were in bed, well, she could have been in a dead faint, for all he caressed her. Lina was practiced at turning her mind away from depressing subjects, so she went back to the conversation next door.

The alto sounded a little exasperated. “How in the world do you think to catch a man’s attention if you dress like a Puritan?” The soprano presumably was in need of a husband. She must be coming out of mourning, since her voice had far too much maturity for a debutante. At that moment Madame Rocque came burbling into the ladies’ room—so that’s where she was!—and Lina could hear the swishing of silks being held up.

The alto was obviously in charge. “We’ll try that one,” she said, sounding coolly approving. Lina memorized her tone. It was hard not to allow a note of pleading to enter her own voice when she spoke to Madame Rocque.

There was some rustling as the gown was cast over the soprano’s shoulders, or so Lina assumed, and then the alto and Madame Rocque started cooing.

But the soprano cut through it decisively. “I look like an orange without its rind,” she said firmly. “More so because this silk is quite an odd shade of yellow, Madame, if you’ll forgive me saying so.”

No doubt Madame Rocque had put her in one of her newest gowns, the ones cut low in the back and even lower in the front. They were being worn with bared shoulders. Lina, naturally, wanted one of those herself, ever since she’d read a description in La Belle Assemblée.

The alto was doing her best to convince her friend. “You look splendid—”

But the soprano seemed to have a practical turn of mind. “No, I don’t. I look like a plucked chicken. There’s no point to wearing a gown designed precisely to expose one’s bosom when one hasn’t that bosom to expose!”

She had a sound argument, to Lina’s mind. There is nothing worse than a stringy set of shoulders. She looked rather proudly at her own plump figure. Mind you, boredom had made her rather plumper than she’d like to be, but it was in all the right places.

More to the point, Madame Rocque appeared to have chosen sides with the soprano. “I have another idea,” she said in her heavily French accent. Lina was absolutely certain that accent was contrived. She’d had to study in order to rid herself of her Scots accent, and she knew how easily an accent could be faked. Likely Madame Rocque was really Mrs. Riddle from Lower Putney, Lina thought to herself sourly.

There was a moment’s pause and she heard Madame say something curt to one of her assistants. A moment later there was a light knock at their door and a girl entered holding a gown, obviously the same gown, since it was orange. Lina’s eyes narrowed. How many orange gowns could there be in this establishment? She expected to be served by Madame Rocque herself, not by a stammering girl clutching a gown that had just been rejected by another client. She had a mind to refuse to try the gown at all.

“Put on the damn thing,” Rees growled at her. “I have work to do.”

Lina took a closer look and changed her mind. The gown was lovely. The assistant began nimbly unbuttoning her walking costume.

Next door, Madame had returned with another costume. “This gown is a concoction that I offer only to my most daring clients,” she said in her strident, Frenchified voice.

There was a moment of absolute silence in the room next door. Lina strained her ears. Was the soprano being offered something more daring than the creation she herself had just slipped on? Because if so, Lina wanted it as well. Not that the gown she wore wasn’t lovely. It was precisely as described in La Belle Assemblée, and Lina fully intended to order one in primrose, and perhaps another in lilac. But—

“I couldn’t!” That was the soprano. But she had the awed voice of a woman who clearly could.

“My lady, if you will just remove your chemise, and corset, I will put the gown over your head. I think you will be most pleased.”

“Remove my corset? I would feel quite uncomfortable without a light corset,” said the soprano. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question.”

Lina almost giggled. She had given up wearing corsets the moment she left Scotland. She heard some rustling, presumably the gown going over the soprano’s corset.