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What a state he was in!—a contained fury that made the air about him seem to thrum even while he appeared outwardly calm.
Clevedon wasn’t like this—not the Clevedon she knew, the man she’d recognized when he’d entered the drawing room and smiled in his old, fond way. This was a stranger.
She looked away, to gaze blankly at the passing scene while she tried to form an answer. She hardly knew what the other two women had been saying about the green dress. She’d been trying to hear what he was saying to Mrs. Noirot. She’d been trying to watch them without appearing to do so.
“I didn’t quite understand,” she said. “It was a beautiful dress, I thought, but they seemed to be discussing how to remake it.” She tried desperately to remember what exactly they’d said, but she had only half-listened, and now her mind was whirling.
She was not naïve. She knew Clevedon had affairs. Longmore did, too. But she’d never seen her brother in a state anything like Clevedon’s when Mrs. Noirot approached them. She’d been trying to make sense of that, when he snapped about Mama and ... what Clara wore?
“I think ...” She thought frantically. “I received the impression that something was wrong with the dress, but not wrong with the dress.”
“Clara, that makes no sense.”
Really, he could be as irritating as any of her brothers. She said goodbye to her patience. “If it’s so important to you, you’d better ask Mrs. Noirot,” she said. “What did you mean about Mama and what I wear?”
“Damnation,” he said.
“You told me I ought to shop there, but you said I must not take Mama.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I should not have said that.”
“Oh, come, Clevedon. When did you ever mince words with me? What makes you so missish all of a sudden?”
“Missish?”
“So delicate. One of the things I have always liked about you is your refusing to treat me like an imbecile female. In your letters, you speak your mind. Or so I thought. Well, perhaps you don’t tell me everything.”
“Good God, certainly not. And I shall not tell you where to have your dresses made. It’s of no concern to me.”
“You may be sure that I shall take care not to ask you to accompany me to a dressmaker ever again,” she said. “It puts you in the vilest temper.”
Some hours later
“The little wretch!” Marcelline said, when they were closing up the shop that evening. “I knew she wouldn’t forget his fine carriage or his fine self.”
“My dear, she can’t help it,” said Sophy. “It’s in her blood. She can spot a mark at fifty paces.”
“He didn’t seem to mind,” said Leonie. She’d come out into the showroom in time to see Clevedon and Lady Clara leave.
All three sisters had had time to observe Lucie/Erroll’s antics through the shop windows. It was clear in an instant that Millie had lost control of her, but it had taken Marcelline precious minutes to extract herself from Lady Renfrew and go out to collect her wayward child.
Sitting on his lap, the schemer, and holding the ribbons! She’d be expecting to drive her own carriage next.
“Of course he didn’t mind,” Marcelline said. “She was at her winsome best, and even the Duke of Clevedon can’t help but succumb.” Meanwhile, she, more cynical and calculating than he could ever be, had not been able to steel her heart against the sweet, indulgent smile he bestowed upon her daughter.
“She made sure to shed some winsomeness on Lady Clara, I noticed,” said Sophy.
“Yes,” Marcelline said.
“He did bring her,” Leonie said. “And not a moment too soon.”
They hadn’t had time until now to talk of the day’s events, because the day had been exceedingly eventful.
Marcelline had had her hands full, making the changes to Lady Renfrew’s dress. She’d had to do this in secret, of all things—upstairs, away from the seamstresses, as though she were forging passports. Meanwhile Sophy and Leonie, in between trying to calm two other irate customers, had to dance attendance on the steady trickle of curious ladies who’d come mainly to stare at the famous gown.
The curious ladies gaped at the dress and peered into every corner of the shop, looking for Marcelline. They made the sisters show them lengths of fabric and take out of the drawers any number of buttons, ribbons, beads, feathers, fur, and other trim.
They left without buying anything.
