Regency Rogues and Rakes

“How can I make you understand?” he said. “I don’t see these things.”

“You do,” she said. “What you lack is the vocabulary. You said it’s alluring. That is the pink undertone, which flatters my complexion, and the magnificent blond lace, close to my face, is even more flattering as well as adding drama.”

“It’s black,” he said. “Noir, not blond.”

“Blond lace is a superior silk lace,” she said. “It doesn’t mean the color.”

This exchange took them to the carriage. He had braced himself for a continuation of last night’s battle, but she behaved as though they were old friends, which disarmed and bothered him at the same time. Too, he was so preoccupied with the nonsense of blond referring to every color under the sun that he almost forgot to look at her ankles.

But instinct saved him, and he came to his senses in the nick of time. As she went up the steps and took her seat, she gave him a fine view of some six inches of stockinged, elegantly curving limb, from the lower part of her calf down.

Last night came back in a dark surge of recollection, more feeling than thought, that sent heat pumping through him. He saw himself bending and grasping one slim ankle and bringing her foot onto his lap and sliding his gloved hand up her leg, up and up and up…

Later, he promised himself, and climbed into the carriage.

A short time later

“I hope you will do me the kindness of allowing me to present Madame Noirot, a London dressmaker of my acquaintance,” the Duke of Clevedon said to his hostess.

For a time, the noise about them continued. But about the instant the Comtesse de Chirac realized she hadn’t misunderstood the duke’s less-than-perfect French and that he had actually uttered the words London dressmaker in her presence and referring to the uninvited person beside him, the news was traveling the ballroom, and a silence spread out like ripples from the place where a large rock had landed in a small pond.

Madame de Chirac’s posture grew even tighter and stiffer—though that seemed anatomically impossible—and her chilly grey gaze hardened to steel. “I do not understand English humor,” she said. “Is this a joke?”

“By no means,” Clevedon said. “I bring you a curiosity, in the way that, once upon a time, the savants brought back remarkable objects from their travels in Egypt. I met this exotic creature the other night at the opera, and she was the talk of the promenade yesterday. I beg you will forgive me, and in the interests of scientific inquiry, overlook this so-great imposition upon your good nature. You see, madame, I feel like a naturalist who has discovered a new species of orchid, and who has carried it out of the hidden places of its native habitat and into the world, for other naturalists to observe.”

He glanced at Noirot, whose stormy eyes told him she was not amused. The tan and black she wore made her look like a tigress, and the bursts of red might have been her victims’ blood.

“Perhaps, on second thought, a flower is not the most apt analogy,” he added. “And all things considered, I might have done better to put her on a leash.”

The tigress slanted him a smile promising trouble later. Then she bowed her head to the countess and sank into a curtsey so graceful and beautiful—the lace wafting gently in the air, the butterfly bows fluttering, the fabric shimmering—that it took his breath away.

All about him, he heard people gasp. They were French, and couldn’t help but see: Here were grace and beauty and style combined in one unforgettable, tempestuous masterpiece.

The comtesse heard the onlookers’ reactions, too. She glanced about her. Everyone in the room was riveted on the tableau, all of them holding their breath. This scene would be talked about for days, her every word and gesture anatomized. It would be the most exciting thing that had ever happened at her annual ball. She knew this as well as Clevedon did.

The question was whether she would break tradition and allow excitement.

She paused, with the air of a judge about to deliver sentence.

The room was quite, quite still.

Then, “Jolie,” she said, precisely as though Clevedon had presented an orchid. With a condescending little nod, and the slightest motion of her hand, she gave the modiste leave to rise. Which Noirot did with the same dancer’s grace, eliciting another collective intake of breath.

That was all. One word—pretty—and the room began to breathe again. Clevedon and his “discovery” were permitted to move on, along the short reception line and thence into the party proper.

“A dressmaker? From London? But it is impossible. You cannot be English.”

The men had attempted to surround her, but the ladies elbowed them aside and were now interrogating her.

Marcelline’s dress had awakened both curiosity and envy. The colors were not unusual. They were fashionable colors. The style was not so very different from the latest fashions displayed at Longchamp. But the way she combined style and color and the little touches she added—all this was distinctively Noirot. Being French, these ladies noticed the touches, and were sufficiently intrigued to approach her, though she was a social anomaly—not a person but an exotic pet.

Clevedon’s exotic pet.

She was still seething over that, though a part of her couldn’t help but admire his cleverness. It was the sort of brazen nonsense members of her family typically employed when they found themselves in a tight spot.

But she’d deal with His Arrogance later.

“I am English and a dressmaker,” said Marcelline. She opened her reticule and produced a pretty silver case. From the case she withdrew her business cards: simple and elegant, like a gentleman’s calling card. “I come to Paris for inspiration.”

“But it is here you should have your shop,” said one lady.

Marcelline let her gaze move slowly over their attire. “You don’t need me,” she said. “The English ladies need me.” She paused and added in a stage whisper, “Desperately.”

The ladies smiled and went away, all of them mollified, and some of them charmed.

Then the men swarmed in.

“This is a mystery,” said Aronduille.

“All women are mysteries,” Clevedon said.

They stood at the fringes of the dance floor, watching the Marquis d’Émilien waltz with Madame Noirot.

“No, that is not what I mean,” said Aronduille. “Where does a dressmaker find time to learn to dance so beautifully? How does an English shopkeeper learn to speak French indistinguishable from that of the comtesse? And what of the curtsey she made to our hostess?” He lifted his gaze heavenward, and kissed the tips of his fingers. “I will never forget that sight.”

I’m not a lady, she’d said.

“I admit she’s a bit of a riddle,” Clevedon said. “But that’s what makes her so…amusing.”

“The ladies went to her,” said Aronduille. “Did you see?”

“I saw.” Clevedon hadn’t imagined they’d approach her. The men, yes, of course.

But the ladies? It was one thing for the hostess to admit her, politely overlooking a high-ranking guest’s bad manners or eccentricity. It was quite another matter for her lady guests to approach his “pet” and converse with her. Had Noirot been an actress or courtesan or any other dressmaker, for that matter, they would have snubbed her.

Instead, they’d pushed men aside to get to her. The encounter was brief, but when the women left, they all looked pleased with themselves.

“She’s a dressmaker,” he said. “That’s her profession: making women happy.”

But the curtsey he couldn’t explain.

He couldn’t explain the way she talked and the way she walked.

And the way she danced.

How many times had Émilien danced with her?

It was nothing to Clevedon. He’d never do anything so gauche as dance with her all night.

But considering he’d risked humiliation for her, he was entitled to one dance, certainly.

Though Marcelline appeared to heed only the partner of the moment, she always knew where Clevedon was. It was easy enough, his grace standing a head taller than most of the other men, and that head being so distinctive: the profile that would have made ancient Greece’s finest sculptors weep, the gleaming black hair with its boyish mass of tousled curls. Then there were the shoulders. No one else had such shoulders. But then, no one else had that body. Very likely he could have spouted any nonsense he pleased at their hostess, and she would have accepted whatever he said, for aesthetic reasons alone. Well, prurient ones, too, possibly. The countess was old and cold but she wasn’t dead.

For a time he’d danced, and now and again, the steps took them within inches of each other. But he always appeared as attentive to his partner as Marcelline did to hers. One might have believed he was completely indifferent to what she did. He’d got her into the party, and anything after that was her affair.

But one must be an extremely stupid or naïve woman to believe such a thing, and she was neither.

She knew he was watching her, though he excelled at seeming not to. In the last hour, though, he’d shed the pretense. He’d been prowling the ballroom, his friend trailing him like a shadow—a talkative one, by the looks of it.

Then at last the Duke of Clevedon’s seemingly casual wanderings brought him to her.

Men crowded about her, as they had from the instant she’d satisfied the ladies’ curiosity. He seemed not to notice the other men. He simply walked toward her, and it was as though a great ship sailed into port. The pack of men offered no resistance. They simply gave way, as though they were mere water under his hull.

She wondered if that was what it had been like, once upon a time, for her grandfather, when he was young and handsome, a powerful nobleman of an ancient family. Had the world given way before him, and had it likewise never occurred to him that the world would do anything else?

“Ah, there you are,” Clevedon said, as though he’d stumbled upon her by accident.

“As you see,” she said. “I have not shredded the curtains, or scratched the furniture.”

“No, I reckon you’re saving your claws for me,” he said. “Well, then, shall we dance?”

“But Madame has promised this next dance to me,” said Monsieur Tournadre.

Clevedon turned his head and looked at him.

“Or perhaps I misunderstood,” said Monsieur Tournadre. “Perhaps it was another dance.”

He backed away, as a lesser wolf would have withdrawn before the leader of the wolf pack.

Oh, she ought not to be thrilled. Only a giddy schoolgirl would thrill at a man’s snarling over her, the way a wolf snarled when another wolf dared to approach his bitch.

Still, this was the most desirable man in the ballroom, and his little show of possessiveness would have excited any woman in the room. Whatever else she was, she was still a woman, and a young one, and for all her worldly experience, she’d never had a peer of the realm warn another man away from her.

Before she could tell herself not to be a ninny, he led her out into the dancing. Then his hand clasped her waist, and hers settled on his shoulder.

And the world stopped.

Her gaze shot to his and she saw in his green eyes the same shock that made her draw in her breath and stop moving. She’d danced with a dozen other men. They’d held her in the same way.

This time, though, the touch of his hand was an awareness so keen it hummed over her skin. She felt it deep within, too, a strange stillness. Then her heart lurched into beating again, and she gathered her wits.

Her face smoothed into a social mask and his did, too. Their free hands clasped in the next same instant, and he swung her into the dance.

They danced for a time in silence.

He wasn’t ready to speak. He was still shaken by whatever it was that had happened at the start of the dance.

He knew she’d felt it, too—though he couldn’t say what it was.

At the moment, her attention was elsewhere, not on him. She was looking past his shoulder, and he could look down and study her. She was not, truly, a great beauty, yet she gave that impression. She was handsome and striking and absolutely different.

Her dark hair was modishly arranged, yet in a slightly disarranged way. Had they been elsewhere, he would have dragged his fingers through it, scattering the pins over the floor. The slight turn of her head showed a small, perfect ear from whose lower lobe dangled a garnet earring. In that other place, elsewhere, he would have bent and slid his tongue along the delicate little curve.

But they were not in another place, and so they danced, round and round, and with every turn the familiar waltz grew darker and stranger and hotter.

With every turn he grew more intensely aware of the warmth of her waist under his gloved hand, of the way the heat made her creamy skin glow a tantalizing pink under the dewy sheen, and the way the heat enhanced her scent: the fragrance of her skin mingled with the jasmine she wore so lightly. It was a mere hint of scent in a warm and crowded room thick with them, but he was aware, keenly aware, only of hers.

In the same way he was distantly cognizant of dancers moving about them, a whirl of colors set off by the blacks and greys and whites of the men’s dress. But all this glorious color faded to a blur, while below him and about him was a swirl of pale gold, pink-tinged like desert sands at dawn, dotted with red bows trembling like poppies in a summer breeze. Nearer still was the black lace, wafting in the air with every movement.

At last she looked up at him. He saw the heat glowing in her face, the throb of the pulse at her neck, and he was aware, without needing to look precisely there, of the rapid rise and fall of her bosom.

“I’ll give you credit,” she said, her husky voice slightly breathless. “Of all the ruses you might have tried, that was one I never considered. But then, I’ve never thought of myself as anybody’s pet.”

“I presented you as an exotic,” he said.

“I take exception to the part about the leash,” she said.

“It would be an elegant leash, I assure you,” he said. “Studded with diamonds.”

“No, thank you,” she said. “I take exception as well to your behaving as though you won me in a wager, when in fact you lost—and not for the first time.” Her dark gaze swept up to the top of his head and down, pausing at his neckcloth, and leaving a wash of heat behind. “That’s a pretty emerald.”

“Which you shall not have,” he said. “No wagers with you this night. We may yet be cast out. The Vicomtesse de Montpellier showed me the business card you gave her. Did no one ever point out to you the difference between a social function and a business function? This is not an institutional banquet of the Merchant Taylors’ Company.”

“I noticed that. The tailors would be better dressed.”

“Are you blind?” he said. “Look about you.”

She threw a bored glance about the room. “I saw it all before.”

“We’re in Paris.”

“I’m talking about the men, not the women.” Her gaze came back to him. “Of all the men here, you are the only one a London tailor would not be ashamed to acknowledge as his client.”

“How relieved I am to have your approval,” he said.

“I did not say I approve of you altogether,” she said.

“That’s right. I forgot. I’m a useless aristocrat.”

“You have some uses,” she said. “Otherwise I should not be courting you.”

“Is that what you call it?”

“You keep forgetting,” she said. “This party. You. This is all business to me.”

He had forgotten. She’d wanted to come to this ball to observe. She would have come without him but for their wager—though that had been less a wager than a war of wills.

“How could I forget?” he said. “I could scarcely believe my eyes when my friends showed me the business cards you handed out as though they were party favors.”

“Has your exotic pet embarrassed you, monsieur le duc? Does the odor of the shop offend your nostrils? How curious. As I recall, you were the one who insisted on bringing me. You taunted me with cowardice. Yet you—”

“It would be vulgar to strangle you on the dance floor,” he said. “Yet I am sorely tempted.”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You haven’t had this much fun in an age. You told me, did you not, of the machinations the high and mighty employ to be invited to this exceedingly dull ball. You’ve done what scores of Parisians would give a vital organ to accomplish. You’ve achieved the social coup of the decade. In escorting me, you’ve broken a host of ancient, unbreakable rules. You’re thumbing your nose at Society, French and English. And you’re dancing with the most exciting woman in the room.”

His heart was thudding. It was the dance, the furious dance, and talking, and trying to keep up with her, matching wits. Yet he was aware of an uneasiness inside, the same he’d felt with her before—because it was true, all true, and he hadn’t known the truth himself until she uttered it.

“You have a mighty high opinion of yourself,” he said.

“My dear duke, only look at the competition.”

“I would,” he said, “but you’re so aggravating, I can’t tear my gaze away.”

They were turning, turning, both breathless from dancing and talking at the same time. She was looking up at him, her dark eyes brilliant, her mouth—the mouth that had knocked him on his pins—hinting at laughter.

“Fascinating,” she said. “You mean fascinating.”

“You’ve certainly fascinated my friend Aronduille. He wonders where you learned to curtsey and dance and speak so well.”

There was the barest pause before she answered. “Like a lady, you mean? But I’m only aping my betters.”

“And where did you learn to ape them, I wonder?” he said. “Do you not work from dawn till dusk? Are dressmakers not apprenticed at an early age?”

“Nine years old,” she said. “How knowledgeable you are, suddenly, of my trade.”

“I asked my valet,” he said.

She laughed. “Your valet,” she said. “Oh, that’s rich. Literally.”

“But you have a maid,” he said. “A slight girl with fair hair.”

Instantly the laughter in her eyes vanished. “You noticed my maid?”

“At the promenade, yes.”

“You’re above-average observant.”

“Madame, I notice everything about you, purely in the interests of self-preservation.”

“Call me cynical, but I suspect there’s nothing pure about it,” she said.

The dance was drawing to a close. He was distantly aware of the music subsiding, but more immediately aware of her: the heat between them, physical and mental, and the turbulence she made.

“And yet you court me,” he said.

“Solely in the interests of commerce,” she said.

“Interesting,” he said. “I wonder at your methods for attracting business. You say you wish to dress my duchess—and you start by making off with my stickpin.”

“I won it fair and square,” she said.

The dance ended, but still he held her. “You tease and provoke and dare and infuriate me,” he said.

“Oh, that I do for fun,” she said.

“For fun,” he said. “You like to play with fire, madame.”

“As do you,” she said.

Tense seconds ticked by before he noticed that the music had fully stopped, and people were watching them while pretending not to. He let go of her, making a show of smoothing her lace—tidying her up, as one might a child. He smiled a patronizing little smile he knew would infuriate her, then bowed politely.

She made him an equally polite curtsey, then opened her fan and lifted it to her face, hiding all but her mocking dark eyes. “If you’d wanted a tame pet, your grace, you should have picked another woman.”

She slipped away into the crowd, the black lace and red bows fluttering about the shimmering pink-tinged gold of her gown.

Chapter Five

Masked balls are over for the season, but dress balls are as frequent as they were in the beginning of the winter. Some of the most novel dancing dresses are of gauze figured in a different colour from the ground, as jonquille and lilac, white and emerald green, or rose, écre and cherry-colour.

Costume of Paris by a Parisian correspondent,

The Court Magazine and Belle Assemblée, 1835

Marcelline swiftly made her way out of the ballroom and into the corridor. She started toward the stairway.

“I picked you?” came a familiar, low voice from close behind her.

Startled, she spun around—and collided with Clevedon. She stumbled, and he caught hold of her shoulders and righted her.

“Delicious exit line,” he said. “But we’re not quite done.”

“Oh, I think we are,” she said. “I’ve looked my fill tonight. My card will be in the hands of at least one reporter by tomorrow, along with a detailed description of my dress. Several ladies will be writing to their friends and family in London about my shop. And you and I have caused more talk than is altogether desirable. At the moment, I’m not absolutely certain I can turn the talk to account. Your grasping me in this primitive fashion doesn’t improve matters. May I point out as well that you’re wrinkling my lace.”

He released her, and for one demented instant, she missed the warmth and the pressure of his hands.

“I did not pick you,” he said. “You came to the theater and flaunted yourself and did your damndest to rivet my attention.”

“If you think that was my damndest, you’re sadly inexperienced,” she said.

He studied her face for a moment, his green eyes glittering.

If he took hold of her again and shook her until her teeth rattled, she wouldn’t be surprised. She was provoking him, and it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, but she was provoked, too, frustrated on any number of counts, mainly the obvious one.

“I brought you,” he said tightly. “I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

“There’s no reason for you to leave the party,” she said. “I’ll find a fiacre to take me back.”

“The party is boring,” he said. “You’re the only interesting thing in it. You’d scarcely left before it deflated, audibly, like a punctured hot-air balloon. I heard the sigh of escaping excitement behind me as I stepped into the corridor.”

“It didn’t occur to you that the deflation was on account of your departure?” she said.

“No,” he said. “And don’t try flattery. It sits ill on you. In fact, it turns your face slightly green. I do wonder how you get on with your clients. Surely you’re obliged to flatter and cajole.”

“I flatter in the same way I do everything else,” she said. “Beautifully. If I turned green it was due to shock at your flattering me.”

“Then collect your wits before we descend the stairs. If you take a tumble and crack your head, suspicion will instantly fall on me.”

She needed to collect her wits, and not for fear of tumbling down the stairs. She hadn’t yet recovered from the waltz with him: the heat, the giddiness, the almost overpowering physical awareness—and most alarming, the yearning coursing through her, racing in her veins, beating in her heart, and weakening her mind as though she’d drunk some kind of poison.

She started down the stairs.

As the buzz of the party grew more distant, she became aware of his light footfall behind her, and of the deserted atmosphere of the lower part of the house.

Risk-taking was in her blood, and conventional morality had not been part of her upbringing. If this had been another man, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She would have led him to a dark corner or under the stairs and had him. She would have lifted her skirts and taken her pleasure—against a wall or a door or on a windowsill—and got it out of her system.

But this wasn’t another man, and she’d already let temper and pride get the better of her judgment.

Leonie had warned her, before she left: “We’ll never have another chance like this. Don’t bugger it up.”

The hell of it was, Marcelline wouldn’t know whether or not she’d botched it until it was too late.

He said nothing for a time, and she wondered if he, too, was pondering the stories shortly to fly about London, and deciding how best to deal with them.

But why should he fret about gossip? He was a man, and men were expected to chase women, especially in Paris. It was practically his patriotic duty. Lady Clara certainly hadn’t made any fuss about his affairs. It would have been common knowledge if she had. Since Longmore behaved much the same as his friend did, Marcelline doubted it had even dawned on the earl to mention the subject when issuing the ultimatum, whatever that was.

Still, all the duke’s other liaisons in Paris had been ladies or sought-after members of the demimonde. Those sorts of conquests were prestigious.

But a dressmaker—a common shopkeeper—wasn’t Clevedon’s usual thing, and anything unusual could set the ton on its ear.

These cogitations took her to the ground floor. They did nothing to quiet her agitation.

She waited while he told the porter to summon his carriage.

When Clevedon turned back to her, she said, “How do you propose to explain this evening to Lady Clara? Or do you never explain yourself to her?”

“Don’t speak of her,” he said.

“You’re ridiculous,” she said. “You say it as though my uttering her name will somehow contaminate her. That must be your guilty conscience speaking, because it most assuredly isn’t your intellect. You know that she’s the one I want. She’s the one I came to Paris for. ‘Don’t speak of her,’ indeed.” She imitated his haughty tone. “Is that what you do with everything uncomfortable? Pretend it isn’t there? She’s there, you stubborn man. The woman you’re going to marry by summer’s end. You ought to speak of her. You ought to be reminding me of her vast superiority to me—except as regards dress, that is.”

“I had originally planned,” he said levelly, “to write to Clara as I always do. I had planned to repeat the most fatuous conversations to which I was subjected in the course of the evening. I had planned to give my impressions of the company. I had planned to describe my sufferings from boredom—a boredom endured entirely on her account, in order provide her entertainment.”

“How noble of you.”

Something flickered in his eyes, and it was like the flash of a lighthouse, seen through a storm.

She knew she approached dangerous waters, but if she didn’t get him under control, she risked smashing her business to pieces.

“And you’d completely disregard my part in events?” Marcelline said. “Stupid question. It’s tactless to mention the women of dubious character you encounter in the course of your travels and entertainments. On the present occasion, however, I’d recommend against that approach. News of our exciting arrival at the party will soon be racing across the Channel, to arrive in London as early as Tuesday. I suggest you tackle the subject straight on. Tell her you brought me to win a wager. Or you did it for a joke.”

“By God, you’re the most managing female,” he said.

“I’m trying to manage my future,” she said. She heard the slight wobble in her voice. Alarmed, she took a calming breath. His gaze became heavy-lidded and shifted to her neckline. Her reaction to that little attention was the opposite of calming.

Devil take him! He was the one who belonged on a leash.

She started for the gate. The porter hastily opened it.

“The carriage hasn’t arrived yet,” Clevedon said. “Do you mean to wait on the street for it, like a clerk waiting for the omnibus?”

“I am not traveling in that or any other carriage with you,” she said. “We’ll go our separate ways this night.”

“I cannot allow you to travel alone,” he said. “That’s asking for trouble.”

And traveling with him in a closed carriage, in the dead of night, in her state of mind—or not mind—wasn’t? She needed to get away from him, not simply for appearances’ sake, but to think. There had to be a way to salvage this situation.

“I’m not a sheltered miss,” she said. “I’ve traveled Paris on my own for years.”

“Without a servant?”

She wished she had something heavy to throw at his thick head.

She’d grown up on the streets of Paris and London and other cities. She came from a family that lived by its wits. The stupid or naïve did not survive. The only enemy they hadn’t been able to outwit or outrun was the cholera.

“Yes, without a servant,” she said. “Shocking, I know. To do anything without servants is unthinkable to you.”

“Not true,” he said. “I can think of several things to do that do not require servants.”

“How inventive of you,” she said.

“In any event, the point is moot,” he said. “Here’s my carriage.”

While she’d been trying not to think of the several activities one might perform without servants’ assistance, the carriage had drawn up to the entrance.

“Adieu, then,” she said. “I’ll find a fiacre in the next street.”

“It’s raining,” he said.

“It is not…”

She felt a wet plop on her shoulder. Another on her head.

A footman leapt down from the back of the carriage, opened an umbrella, and hurried toward them. By the time he reached them, the occasional plop had already built to a rapid patter. She felt Clevedon’s hand at her back, nudging her under the umbrella, and guiding her to the carriage steps.

It was the touch of his hand, the possessive, protective gesture. That was what undid her.

She told herself she wasn’t made of sugar and wouldn’t melt. She told herself she’d walked in the rain many times. Her self didn’t listen.

Her self was trapped in feelings: the big hand at her back, the big body close by. The night was growing darker and colder while the rain beat down harder. She was strong and independent and she’d lived on the streets, yet she’d always craved, as any animal does, shelter and protection.

She was weak in that way. Self-denial wasn’t instinctive.