Silk Is for Seduction

by Loretta Chase

  “It annoys you to be a guardian angel,” she said.

  “Don’t be absurd. I’m nothing of the kind. Come, let’s see the rest of the place.”

  They moved more quickly through the rest of the shop: the offices and work and storage areas. He would be eager to be gone, she thought. For a time the details of setting up a shop, the details of trade might have offered an interesting change of pace for him. But he was no tradesman. Money meant something entirely different to him, insofar as it meant anything. And she supposed he was tired as well of being the subject of tedious gossip, and tired of having his household disrupted.

  Little did he know how small a disruption that had been, compared to what her family typically did. Her ancestors had torn whole families apart, lured the precious offspring of noblemen from their luxurious homes to vagabond lives at best, abandonment and ruin at worst.

  She had seen all of the new place that mattered, she thought, when he led her, not back the way they’d come, toward the entrance, but to the stairs.

  Then it dawned on her what she’d missed. The first floor was to contain work areas: a well lit studio for her, a handsome parlor for private consultations with clients, and private work spaces for Sophia and Leonie.

  The second and third floors had been reserved as living quarters.

  And that hadn’t crossed her mind, not once while she shopped today.

  “Good grief, I hope you’ve a mattress or two you can spare from Clevedon House,” she said. “A table and chairs would be useful, too, though not crucial. We’ve camped before. I can’t believe I forgot to buy anything for us.”

  “Let’s go up and see what’s needed,” he said. “Maybe the absconders left something.”

  He led the way, carrying a lamp.

  He didn’t pause at the first floor but continued up to the second.

  At the top of the stairs, he paused. “Wait here,” he said.

  He crossed to a door, and opened it. A moment or two later, the faint light of the lamp gave way to soft gaslight.

  “Well, well,” he said. “Come, look at this.”

  She went to the door and looked in. Then she stepped inside.

  A sofa and chairs and tables. Curtains at the windows. A rug on the floor. None of it would have suited Clevedon House. The furnishings weren’t grand at all. But they reminded her of her cousin’s apartment in Paris. Quiet elegance. Comfort. Warmth. Not a showplace like the shop below, but a home.

  “Oh, my,” she said, and it was all she could trust herself to say. Something pressed upon her heart, and it choked her.

  From this pretty parlor he led her into a small dining parlor. Then he led her to a nursery, laid out with so much affection and understanding of Lucie that her heart ached. She had her own little table and chairs and a tea set. She had a little set of shelves to hold her books, and a painted chest to hold her toys and treasures.

  Thence he led Marcelline to another, larger room.

  “I thought you would prefer this room,” he said. “If it doesn’t suit, you ladies can always rearrange yourselves. But you’re the artist, and I thought you should not overlook the busy street but the garden—such as it is—and perhaps catch a glimpse of the Green Park, though you might have to stand on a chair to do it.”

  She was a Noirot, and self-control was not a family strong suit. But she, like the others, had a formidable control over what she let the world see.

  At that moment, it broke. “Oh, Clevedon, what have you done?” she said, and the thing pressing on her heart pushed a sob from her. And then, for the first time in years and years and years, she wept.

  Chapter Thirteen

  MRS. HUGHES BEGS leave to inform her Friends and the Public in general that she intends opening Shew-Rooms on Tuesday, the 4th inst. with a new and elegant assortment of Millinery and Dresses, in the first style of fashion . . . Mrs. Hughes takes this opportunity of returning thanks for the great patronage she has already received from her numerous friends . . . An Apprentice and Improver wanted.

  Advertisements for January,

  Ackermann’s Repository, Vol. XI, 1814

  Tears had never come easily to her. When she learned the cholera had taken her parents, she’d ached for the missed opportunities and for what she’d always hoped for from them, against all odds and all evidence. When the disease killed Cousin Emma—who’d taken in Marcelline, Sophy, and Leonie time and again when Mama and Papa abandoned them—Marcelline had been deeply saddened. She’d grieved for Charlie, too, for whom she’d given up all her young girl’s heart.

  Yet Marcelline hadn’t wept like this. She’d never had time to indulge her grief. Each loss had meant she had to act, right away, to save her family.

  She hadn’t wept when Lucie had been so very ill, because there wasn’t time for tears, only for working as hard as one could to keep her alive. When it seemed the fire had consumed her, the searing shock and pain left Marcelline nothing to cry with.

  But now . . . but this . . .

  It was the last straw, the very last straw, and she broke down and wept. But no, wept was too small a word for the great sobs that seized her, like talons trying to tear her apart. She tried to get free of them, but they were too strong. She could only stand, her face in her hands, and weep helplessly.

  “Oh, come,” Clevedon said. “Is it truly as ugly as all that? I flattered myself I had a little taste—a very little. One would have thought some of yours would have rubbed off— Dammit, Noirot.”

  She would have laughed if she could, but a dam had burst inside her. All she could do was stand, her face in her hands, and grieve for she hardly knew what.

  “Curse you,” he said. “If I’d known you’d make such a fuss, I should have taken you straight back home—I mean, to Clevedon House.”

  Home. His home. He’d given her a home when she’d lost hers. Then, today, while she thought of nothing but business, he’d made her a home. Another wave of misery churned through her, making her shudder.

  “It was supposed to be a pleasant surprise,” he said. “You were supposed to say, ‘How good of you to think of it, Clevedon.’ Then you were to accept it as your due. The way you accept everything as your due. Really, I hope your clients never see you carry on like this. They’ll lose all respect for you. And you know it’s crucial to cow them. You must rule them with an iron hand, or they’ll run roughshod . . .” He gave up. “Devil take it, Noirot. What’s the matter?”

  You. You’re all that’s the matter. Only you.

  But the storm was subsiding. She took her hands away from her face. To her amazement, they trembled. She found her handkerchief and wiped her face. It was then she saw how he stood, so stiff, his hands fisted at his sides.

  He’d wanted to do the natural thing, she supposed. To move to her and put his arms about her and comfort her. But he wouldn’t let himself. What had he done? Conjured Lady Clara in his mind, and thought, for once, of her and what he owed her?

  Marcelline wanted to laugh then, too. The irony was too rich.

  Now, when he’d demolished her defenses at last, he’d found the moral fiber to keep away.

  “You d-don’t underst-stand,” she said.

  “You couldn’t be more correct,” he said.

  “No one,” she said, and her voice wobbled again. “N-no w-w-one.” Another sob racked her chest. She bit her lip and waved the handkerchief at their surroundings. “In all my life. No one. A h-home. You made a h-home.”

  It was true. No one in all her life had ever made a home for her. Her parents had never stayed in any place for long. There had been lodgings, places to hide, to camp, like gypsies. Never a home, until Cousin Emma had taken them in, and even then, what they had was a place to eat and sleep and work. Nothing in it had belonged to Marcelline and her sisters. Nothing in it was arranged for them. The small rooms on the upper floors of the building on
Fleet Street constituted the first true home they’d ever had.

  Now this. He’d done all this. He’d done it today, quietly, while she was otherwise occupied. He’d planned a surprise for her.

  “Oh, Clevedon, what am I to do?” she said.

  “Live in it?” he said.

  She looked up at him, into those haunting green eyes, where she’d seen the devil dance, and the heat of desire, and laughter and rage. Oh, and affection, too, for Lucie.

  “Someone had to think of it,” he said. “You had so much else to do. The shop was—is—the most important thing, of course. Without it, you have nothing. But you only needed me to stand about and look ducal, and I grew bored.”

  And there was that, too: He understood what her business meant to her. In a few short weeks he’d gone from completely dismissive—no, scornful was more like it—to this. She’d read in novels of people who couldn’t speak because their hearts were too full and she’d always thought, Not my black heart.

  But now she couldn’t speak, because it was too much, whatever it was. Everything was falling into place, a great puzzle she hadn’t realized wanted solving. Now the pieces shifted into place, and she saw.

  “It seemed stupid to distract you with ordinary household matters,” he went on. “As it was, you were undertaking the impossible. But that’s so like you, to undertake the impossible. Clara’s gown. Stalking me in Paris. Who on earth would think to do such a thing? Who on earth could imagine she’d succeed? If you had asked my opinion, I should have told you it was a harebrained scheme—”

  “And you’d be right,” she said. “It was a mad scheme.”

  “But it succeeded.”

  “Yes. Yes, it did.”

  Except for one slight miscalculation. She felt her eyes filling. She blinked and forced a smile. “I’m happy,” she said. “I couldn’t be happier. Everything I wanted.” She gestured. “And more. A fine shop in St. James’s Street. Scope for my imagination, my ambition.”

  He looked about him. “I’m not sure it’s big enough. I’m not sure St. Paul’s Cathedral would be big enough to contain your ambition. Are there bounds to your ambition? Ordinary, mortal bounds, I mean?”

  He knew her so well. She laughed. It hurt to laugh, but she did it.

  He turned sharply toward her. “Noirot?”

  “I was only thinking,” she said. “It’s all turned out as I’d imagined. No, better than I’d supposed. And yet . . . Oh, what a joke.”

  She shook her head and moved away and sat on a chair and folded her hands and stared at the floor, at the rug he’d chosen. Crimson poppies intertwined among black tendrils and leaves on a background of pale gold . . . with a subtle pink undertone.

  The colors of the dress she’d worn to the Comtesse de Chirac’s ball.

  Then she realized: This home he’d created for them was his goodbye gift.

  How ironic. How fitting.

  She’d hunted him and she’d caught him and she’d got what she’d set out to get.

  And she’d bollixed it up, after all.

  What a joke.

  She’d fallen in love.

  And he was saying goodbye, in the time-honored fashion of men of his kind, with an extravagant gift.

  “Noirot, are you unwell? It’s been a very long day, and we’re both overwrought, I daresay. It’s no small strain, even for you, trying to do the impossible—all this racing from one place to the next, buying, frantically buying. And I—shopping with a woman—it’s possible my sensibilities will never recover from the shock.”

  She looked up at him.

  They had no future.

  Given who he was and what he was, she couldn’t be anything to him but a mistress. And that she couldn’t be. It wasn’t because of moral scruples. She barely understood what those were. It was for business reasons, for the business that supported her family, the business she loved, the great passion of her life.

  She could keep her feelings to herself. She could suffer in silence. She could say thank you and goodbye, and really, there was nothing else to do.

  The trouble was, being who she was and what she was, noble sacrifice was out of the question.

  And the real trouble was, she loved him.

  And so she made her plan, quickly. She saw it all at once in her mind’s eye, the way she saw all of her plans. She saw what she needed to do, the only thing to do.

  She stood and walked to the bed and pointed. “I want you to sit there,” she said.

  “Don’t be stupid,” he said.

  She untied her bonnet ribbons.

  “Noirot, maybe you failed to understand why I was in so great a hurry to have you out of my house,” he said. “I don’t care about talk, if it concerns only me. But you know the talk will hurt someone else.”

  “You’re a man,” she said. “Men are readily forgiven what women are not.”

  “I’ve promised myself I won’t do anything I’ll need to be forgiven for,” he said.

  “You won’t be the first man to break a promise,” she said.

  Still holding the bonnet by the strings, she looked at him, capturing his gaze. She hid nothing. All her heart was in her eyes and she didn’t care if he saw it.

  She’d fallen in love, and she’d love for once, openly, without disguise or guile. That was the one last gift she’d give him, and herself.

  He came to the bed and sat, his face taut.

  She let the ribbons slide through her fingers. The bonnet dropped gently to the rug he’d chosen for her bedroom.

  He watched it drop. “Damn you,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “This is goodbye.”

  “Noir—”

  She set her index finger over his lips. “I thank you for all you’ve done,” she said. “I thank you from the very bottom of my cold, black heart. There are some things I can repay but more that I can never repay. I want my gratitude—its depth and breadth—to be clear, perfectly clear . . . because after tonight, you must never come back here. You must never come to my shop. When your lady wife or your mistress comes to Maison Noirot, you’ll stay far away. You will not speak to me in the street or anywhere else. After this night, you become the man I always meant you to be, the man whose purse I plunder—and no more than that man. Do you understand?”

  His eyes darkened, and she saw heat there: anger and disappointment and who knew what else? He started to rise.

  “But for this night,” she said, “I love you.”

  Something flashed in his eyes, and he flushed, and a brief spasm contorted his beautiful face. It was so quick, come and gone in the blink of an eye. But it was hard to mistake sorrow, however brief the glimpse. Then she knew she hadn’t made the wrong decision.

  She began to undress. It was the same dress she’d been wearing on the night of the fire. Though his maids had cleaned and ironed it, it was no longer up to her usual standards. However, she and her sisters had agreed that completing their most crucial orders was more important than replenishing their own wardrobes.

  This dress fastened up the back, naturally, but that presented no difficulty. She’d been dressing and undressing herself since she was a little girl. She unbuttoned the sleeves. Then she unhooked the hooks at the back of the bodice, from top to bottom. With the hooks undone, the narrow slit below the waist—invisible when the top was fastened—sagged open and the bodice did, too. Under it she wore an embroidered muslin chemisette that tied at the waist. She untied it and took it off, and let it drop from her hand, in the same way she’d dropped the bonnet.

  She heard his breathing quicken.

  The top undone, she eased her arms from the sleeves. She pulled the dress over her head, and dropped it.

  She unfastened the sleeve puffs and dropped them onto the growing heap of clothing at her feet. She stood before him in her chemise, petticoats, co
rset, stockings, and shoes.

  She stood for a moment, letting him drink her in. She couldn’t be sure what he felt, apart from what men always felt in such cases, but perhaps, just perhaps, he was trying, as she was, to imprint this moment in his memory.

  Then she knelt.

  “Marcelline,” he said. It was the first time he’d ever uttered her Christian name, and the sound was a caress.

  Oh, she’d remember that: his voice, like a caress.

  “You made my home,” she said. “Let me make our last time together. Leave it to me. Do I not make everything exactly as it ought to be?”

  She tugged off one boot, then the other. She stood them neatly next to her heap of clothing.

  She rose. She drew nearer now, and she looked down at him, at his black hair, gleaming like silk in the lamplight. He was looking up at her, his eyes dark, his mouth slightly parted, his breathing faster.

  She bent over him, and unbuttoned his coat. She eased it off, as smoothly as his valet might have done. She folded it and laid it gently on a chair. She took off his waistcoat in the same way, only pausing for a moment to let her hand slide over the fine silk embroidery. She untied his neckcloth.

  His head was at a level with her bosom. She could feel his breath on her skin above the lace of her chemise. She heard him inhale.

  “The scent of you,” he said so softly. “Heaven help me, the scent of you.”

  For a moment she paused, her hand trembling on the fine muslin. She remembered the first night, when she’d taken his diamond stickpin and set her pearl pin in its place. She smoothed the muslin lightly before she began to unwrap it from his neck. She slid it away and tossed it onto his coat.

  She unfastened the button of his shirt, and it fell open. She laid her palm against his neck and slid it down over the skin bared, over the hard contours of his chest. While her hand rested on his chest, she bent her head, and laid her cheek against his. She remained there for a moment and let herself feel her face touching his while she breathed in the scent of him, the scent of a man, this man, warm and as heady as hot cognac.