by Kelly Bowen
“Miss Nettles, please allow me—”
Her face paled as she ducked down on the seat. “Your voice is loud. Look at the ladies fanning and peeking at us. Tell the gawkers I peddle gowns not flesh.”
“They could be customers. How can anyone so gifted be so afraid?”
She snapped the reins. Her mount seemed to awaken. The tired old horse pulled away at a slow speed. August could easily catch up by walking.
With her bag in his hands, he had to. The thought of keeping it to force her to come to him, to chase him swept into his head and then out his ear, the one prone to aches.
Miss Nettles’ gig was in the rain heading her to the next appointment. She worked hard. The woman didn’t need tricks or hide-and-seek games.
In eight long strides, he caught her gig.
Surprise, maybe even a little fear crossed her fair features, but he lifted her reticule to her.
She took it and stashed it onto her simple seat, one with a pad far too thin for comfortable travel. “Thank you.”
He nodded, his mind struggling. Who sold her this poor gig? Who peddled her this nag? She’d been cheated, truly cheated by others.
Heat singed his gut worse than ever.
But he kept his anger to himself and let her leave.
This was not going to work. Miss Nettles was too wary.
Standing in the drizzle, inviting a cold, he sunk his hand into his coat pocket and crumbled bits of his torn bank note. How would she ever accept the money needed to fulfill the benefactor’s challenge if she refused to deal with him?
“Have a good day, Miss Nettles.”
Whether she heard his loud voice was irrelevant. She was on her way, away from him.
Going in the opposite direction, he proposed to go see Solicitor Carruthers. There had to be another way to win the challenge the benefactor set, one that didn’t involve imposing on the feisty Miss Mary-Anne Nettles, a woman whose forgiveness, he didn’t know how to earn.
3
A Courtesan Knows
Old Sprinter, Mary-Anne’s beloved horse, finally made it out of town and into the less populated country. The air was fresh, crisp like pressed pleats.
She passed the field where a hot air balloon was moored.
All that wonderful silk stitched and lacquered together to form a ball that was as big as the sun.
How did it go up?
And what was it like to fly and be able to look down upon everyone and everything?
Then the August Sedgewicks of the world couldn't bother her or upset her—or make her think of him.
He was more handsome than she allowed herself to remember.
He came to this wedding just to see her, and apparently, he’d tracked her to other weddings. That was enough to make her heart skip.
A shadow of the big ball, the floating hot air balloon covered her. She looked up and saw the basket, the corset underneath the silk that held the passengers.
What would it feel like to be a passenger, floating, flying here or there?
It might be pretty nice for a girl from Jamaica, where buildings rarely grew as tall as the townhomes or churches like St. George’s.
“Come on, Sprinter, we’ve a client to see and a big scarlet dress to deliver.”
August Sedgewick waving money at her.
She tried to put him out of her mind, but the bothersome man had recommended her to today's client, a duke’s daughter.
A pain wrapped about her deeply scarred palm and traveled along the bones of her thumb. Hot sweaty hands. This was the worst.
She eased her grip on the reins and opened and closed her palm— pump, pump, pump. Whenever she worked this hard on delicate fabrics, at such close tiny stitching, her fingers swelled. They felt raw as if they'd just met flames.
Pump, pump.
The client where she headed was the famed courtesan, Madame Labonne. She was exclusive to the head of a family she did not name—other than using the word cheap and haughty to describe him.
Mary-Anne chuckled thinking of the many tales she’d heard of this unnamed man, his thriftiness and schemes. It sounded farcical that men could be like that toward a woman they proclaimed to love, but then she met the miserly August Sedgewick and his frugalness for his sister’s wedding. She’d only considered that lack of care reserved for fathers, not older brothers.
Her weaker hand began to cramp. The exercise did not work.
A glance at her watch showed she had time for a small rest. Pulling Sprinter to the edge of the road, she took a moment to rest and to drink in the sight of the great silk balloons. Another one was landing after skirting the high limbs of the trees.
For a moment, the jade and emerald leaves of those trees formed an underskirt for the silk balloon and the flowers budding with pink and oranges petals—fine embroidery at the hem.
Mary-Anne chuckled and thought it better to save some of her imagination. Madame might need a new idea, another design.
Pain relenting in her hands with fingers full of energy, she tugged on the reins. “Come on, Sprinter. Madame awaits.”
The horse followed her lead and as fast as an old work horse could go, they arrived at the country manor of Madame Labonne.
Ignoring the look of the footman as he led her poor horse away, Mary-Anne juggled her reticule, a bolt of bright pink satin, the scarlet evening gown, and her sketches as she climbed the stone steps to Madame’s country house. An expensive house—a gift by a former admirer.
A footman took her bundles, and another came for her hat and coat. She gave those two things easily but refused to part with her gloves. It was her custom to keep them. They were her security, her measure to avoid stares and requests to explain. They were her power over the past.
Gathering her bundles, she went down the hall. Beautiful watercolor paintings lined the walls above gilded chair rail moulding.
A servant opened the door to the parlor, exposing the deep coral room like a well-placed slit in a corset or robe. The seductive perfume of rich hickory and tea roses filled the escaping air.
Juggling her wobbling bundles, she went inside Madame’s favorite room. Mary-Anne feasted on the vibrant colors of the walls, the lines and arches of the Egyptian styled chairs and tables.
These sights and scents teased her nose, her eyes, her muse. She was ready to work.
She pressed deeper inside, looking for the changes. Every month or so this room looked different as Madame reinvented herself.
“Madame, I have—”
A muffled cry became a full-throated sob. Mary-Anne dropped her things and spun about the room. Her heart seized seeing Madame half on the chaise, half on the floor.
“Madame Labonne, are you much hurt? Should I call for a doctor?”
The woman shook her head and more of her vibrant red locks spilled down her shoulders. “He’s left me.”
The three worst words a woman made to love like Madame could say.
Mary-Anne didn’t know what to do. Stand there, watching this woman weep or join her? And cry for things she’d lost—her lost sister, the lavish home she missed in Jamaica, and her larger-than-life father she’d sworn never to see again.
Mary-Anne’s pulse pounded, her stomach reeling knots for things unsaid, unfixed, unresolved.
But this moment wasn't about her.
Her best client needed her.
She risked rebuke and put a hand on Madame’s shoulder and said what an abandoned woman needed to hear. “All will be well. He always comes back.”
“Not this time. This time the earl will marry. Ma chère, he’s too cheap for a wife and a mistress.”
Earl? “Your gentleman must be teasing. He always comes back after a row.”
She patted Mary-Anne’s hand, then slipped it, glove and all, beneath her cheek. “Miss Nettles, he never jokes with money. No one in that family does. He’s going to marry a duke’s daughter for her large dowry—more fuel for his failing investments. Money has finally come between us.”
The sobbing began again with new vigor, and Mary-Anne’s eyes felt damp, too.
Madame’s exclusive relationship was with an earl. From all Madame’s talk it had seemed a secret love match, an impossible relationship of two souls who could never be united outside of the shadows. At least that was how she had explained it the three years Mary-Anne worked for her.
She dug a handkerchief out of her reticule and boldly dabbed Madame’s tears. “Even if the earl has forgotten, know that you are beautiful. Another friend, a new one—”
“He has forgotten my charms, chère. I’ll have to remind him.”
She took Mary-Anne’s extended arm and swept her to the grand mirror in the corner. “Maximillian will have to be made to remember.”
It was the first time she’d used his name, and she did so as if Madame and Mary-Anne were old friends.
Perhaps they were.
Madame pinned up her long straight hair and began pushing up her bosom, as if they'd started to sag.
They hadn't.
She was very pretty, like delicate lace that been laundered with care. No fraying or yellowing with age. Classically stunning.
“Now show me the dress you made, Miss Nettles, that will win back my Max.”
How could a woman change a man’s mind about things such as this? With a shrug, Mary-Anne turned and picked up the sketches and other items she’d brought and settled them on a chair. “I will do my part, but know you are beautiful.”
She scooped up the scarlet dress and draped it against her, floating the hem, making it whip as if a breeze had blown into the room and danced with the ruffled hem. “What do you think, Madame?”
The woman now sat on her floral chaise, clutching Mary-Anne’s handkerchief to her pert nose. “It’s lovely. Red is Maximilian’s favorite color.”
A new round of tears flowed.
Mary-Anne spread the dress across a chair and took a seat beside Madame to let her know she was there for her, that someone cared. She waited, saying nothing.
After twenty minutes, Madame caught Mary-Anne’s hand and brought it again to her cheek. “You are a very careful woman, Miss Nettles, but you needn't wear gloves about me.”
“I want to be respectful. I—”
“You know who I am, and I know who you are. You needn’t be so tense. You act as if you must share a dance on the point of a needle with six hundred angels. It’s not to be done.”
When Mary-Anne looked upon Madame’s face, she studied her eyes, ones very much like her father’s, very blue, very serious, but these offered no judgment.
“Your talent makes room for you, Miss Nettles, but your character, your honesty keeps the door open.” She smiled a when-you-are-ready-and-comfortable smile. “Get your new sketches. Let me be dazzled.”
Mary-Anne placed them into Madame’s hands. Her client had always been easily excitable—a shout, a clap—when something caught her eye.
Today, nothing. A face made for glowing was dimmed.
“I thought this would make an excellent gown for the theater, but please tell me what you want. I can make changes.”
“Can you?” Her voice held the perfect pitch for uncovering truth, a clear tone that could cut through glass. “You are set in your ways. I don’t think change is in you, Miss Nettles?”
The accusation pierced Mary-Anne’s heart, making a hole through armor she’d put in place since her sister’s death. The shield had grown thick, impenetrable she thought, never cracking, surviving a father’s shuns, the English physician’s horrible salves for her hands, the termination from an apprenticeship. Madame broke through with her talk of change.
“Ma chère? Ma chère, this is where you convince me I’m wrong.”
“I don’t know if you are.”
The woman picked at her handkerchief. “When we met, you were let go from Bond Street, non?”
Late by ten minutes. Ten minutes to help a stranded woman, but neither her modiste employer nor the customer cared. “Yes. Time is very important.”
“But that change made you strike out on your own, let you shine. You are the designer for the streets.”
The change was liberating. Mary-Anne came into her own and found a way to survive the gawking at her hands—gloves. No one would ever condemn her again for being too late, too talkative, too dark to pass, too ugly.
“I can change, Madame.”
She patted Mary-Anne’s hand. “When you're ready, I am too.” She fingered the charcoal sketch. “The line of the bust. It is too low.”
“Too low?”
“Yes, I know. I typically like a low cut, but now I’d like one more demure.”
Madame had always preferred low, bottomless pit low, no modesty, more here-I-am low. “I don't understand, ma’am.”
“I think a higher neckline will make me appear younger.”
Younger? “Madame, you are in the bloom of life, healthy and beautiful.”
“The bloom has been off this rose for a while. And my earl, he doesn’t want mature and experienced. I must bore him.”
She began to cry again. Her delicate face, like fine bone china, looked so fragile soaking in tears.
Was it too much to suggest that this earl— this cheap man—wasn’t worth turning oneself inside out … or even hearing out?
But she wasn’t thinking of Madame’s earl but August Sedgewick. He sounded sincere and now wanted to pay the original debt. And his turn of phrases offered humor to someone who’d forgotten how to laugh. He was a danger to her, her balanced world, her shredding armor.
Mary-Anne folded her arms about her stomach, willing her armor to strengthen, to make herself invisible to a man who’d caught her eye until he’d made his sister cry.
“Madame, new or unexpected can be exciting, but your figure, your curves—they are something these girls fresh for the season do not have. You’ve kept your gentleman’s attention all these years. He’ll return, that is if you want him. What color shall we make this new gown with the higher neckline?”
“Claret, I do look well in that deep red. But, you think I should not want him?”
The words, it’s not my place to say, were on her tongue, but Mary-Anne needed to help this woman, her hurting friend. “I’ve watched you, how you made him your every concern, all the changes for him, and now because of money, he wants to dismiss you. If a man is not loyal, how can you still want him?”
“I’m a courtesan, Miss Nettles. Until Max, I counted on men not being loyal to their status or, regrettably, their vows.” She wiped at her chin. “Max, how can we come to this? Years of listening to his problems, of being his muse.”
Mary-Anne reached for a fresh piece of paper and dug out her charcoals. “A new design, Madame. That’s what we need.”
The vision in her head—a refined gown that gently swaddled Madame’s curves—soon made its way onto the paper. Emboldened by the passion of her design, the warmth of their friendship, she took off one glove, one, and shaded the delicate lace. “A gown in off-white would do well for the theater.”
“Off-white? And for the theater?” Madame took the paper but briefly covered her silky palm atop Mary-Anne’s burn scars. “This does look well. And Max loves the theater. I wonder if he will attend with his fiancée once he proposes.”
“He probably will. Haven’t you always said that no one changes their ways unless something happens to force change?”
She clasped Mary-Anne’s naked, burn-ravaged hand again. “Yes. And change can be good. Off-white. I want this.”
Change was an interesting thing. Perhaps she’d risk hearing out August Sedgewick.
She didn’t want his investment.
She didn’t need his money.
But what if there was a way for this son of the Ton to enable Mary-Anne, a woman on the fringes, to secure clients outside of the shadows?
Sedgewick had referred her to the duchess. Her dream of being a renowned modiste, a sought after modiste, needed help. Was he the path?
The on
ly way to know was to entertain August Sedgewick and his dangerous smile.
4
The Challenge
With arms folded, August closed his eyes and rested against the hard bench at the rear of Mr. Carruther’s office. It took a day and a half to gain an appointment with the busy solicitor.
August was grateful, but waiting wasn’t his strong suit. Nor did he like sitting around in a draft. Spring colds were as bad as winter ones.
Catching a sniffle from chasing Miss Nettles in the rain wouldn’t have been terrible if he’d settled his debt to her.
“You need to stop keeping such late hours carousing.”
He blinked and saw the spry face of his aunt, Lady Katherine Blackmore, Kitty as she was affectionately called. “You know I no longer carouse or keep late hours out of the house. I’m on full-time watch of my younger siblings as a proper guardian should be.”
Kitty chuckled and stashed an auburn curl behind her ear. “August, you’re taking your responsibility very seriously, too seriously. You need fun. You are still young.”
His aunt was far too cheerful for the early hour, but she was wrong—no fun, no carousing, no peace. If he’d paid closer attention to his oldest sister, Sarah, he might’ve been able to forestall her botched elopement.
He fisted his hand thinking of his sister’s ruin and her marriage to a man who wanted her and a piece of the Sedgewick fortune. “If I had been more serious, things would be very different. I could’ve saved Sarah.”
Kitty’s frown spread. “Sarah loves the scoundrel. And they are set up quite well with the large dowry you gave her husband.”
“Stolen dowry, money taken from my endeavors and my younger sisters.”
August relaxed his fingers, then patted the bench. “Sit, my dear,” he said in the easiest voice he could muster. “We can avoid a sprain to my tired bones if I don’t have to keep looking up.”
She tsked and shook her head. “You sound very old, August. You’re barely thirty.”
“Your admonishment is stated like a wizened woman, ancient. Pity you’re barely thirty-three. Maybe it is for the best to be a sage aunt. Why greatly age to acquire sarcasm?”