Wedded in Scandal

by Jade Lee

  He snorted. “My father hasn’t a groat to his name.”

  “Then it falls to you.”

  He didn’t respond except to stare at her, his eyes glittering with some unnamed emotion. In truth, the sight gave her chills. “My lord,” she offered gently, “if you wish to change the way of the world, I heartily support you. Give your sister charge of her financial affairs and I shall address myself to her. I can tell you that there are myriad benefits to a woman when she manages her own affairs.”

  He lifted his brow. “I am sure you can,” he drawled.

  She detected no outright condescension in his tone, but she bristled nonetheless. “You have no cause to judge me, my lord. I am merely an honest woman plying her trade like any man.”

  He closed his eyes in apparent weariness. “That is not a recommendation, I assure you. Men lie and cheat all the time.”

  How well she knew that. “But I do not.”

  He opened his eyes, and for a moment she wished he had not. In it, she saw pain mixed with weariness. It was stark and reminded her of her own mirror every morning.

  “Very well,” he said. “You have persuaded me.”

  His voice was so deadpan that she did not understand his words. “So, you will pay me?”

  He shook his head. “Hardly. I believe your bill beyond ridiculous. But I shall this very afternoon open an account for my sister. Then she shall have the decision of whether to pay your outrageous fee or not.”

  And with that he stood, turning to Dribbs, who had not left the library door. “Fetch my coat immediately. And show Mrs. Mortimer to the door.” A moment later, he was gone.

  “Bloody arrogant, high-handed, drunken bastard! To suggest that I was robbing them! Robbing! He was going to call the constable!”

  Helaine paced the workroom of their small shop, trying to work off her fury. It didn’t help. She still felt bruised and humiliated by her treatment that afternoon.

  “He bloody well didn’t, did he?” gasped Wendy, her seamstress, co-owner in their shop, and her best friend in the world. She was currently cutting the last of their silk fabric for a dress that would go to the bastard-in-question’s sister. Sadly, if they didn’t get paid soon, they wouldn’t be able to purchase what they needed for any of the rest of her order. “Imagine calling the watch on you!”

  “He didn’t. I stopped him beforehand, but it still didn’t change his attitude. He called our bill ridiculous. Outrageous and ridiculous!”

  “Wot! The bloody cheek!”

  “‘What,’ not ‘wot,’” chided Helaine without thought. Wendy had grown up in a poorer neighborhood than Helaine. Much, much poorer. And her heritage often showed in her speech. But Helaine had been helping her friend better herself, most especially in terms of how she spoke. They were trying to establish themselves as dressmakers to the ton. It could only help if Wendy sounded more educated than she was.

  As expected, Wendy grimaced but repeated the word correctly. “What a bloody cheek,” she said firmly. “Our prices are exactly what they should be.”

  “No,” said Helaine with a sigh as she leaned back against the worktable. “Our prices are high.”

  “As they should be! You are dressing the peers!”

  Helaine shook her head. “Only a few. Maybe we should charge less. At least until we are better established among the aristocracy.”

  “But we cain’t!” Wendy said as she made the last snip in the silk. “You yerself said they won’t come to someone who charges less.”

  “True, but maybe I was wrong. And maybe my dresses aren’t as good as—”

  “Oh, enough,” snapped Wendy. “I won’t hear you saying things like that again. Your designs are beautiful. You see just the way a dress ought to be, and now you must shut up or I’ll be sewing this dress wrong in fury.”

  Helaine smiled. “You’d never do that. You’re too good.”

  “As are you, and I won’t be hearing a word different.”

  Helaine leaned forward and pulled the scissors out of her petite friend’s hands. She was done cutting anyway, but it never hurt to be safe. “Very well. You are a brilliant seamstress, and I am an excellent designer. Between the two of us we cannot fail!”

  “Exactly!”

  “But maybe I should relook at our prices nevertheless…”

  “Aiee! It’s like you were that first year,” Wendy said. “Always worried, always questioning. I thought you’d growed out of all that. And now here you are, after one conversation with a bloody lord, right back to oh me, oh my, are we fools for doing this?”

  Helaine swallowed, realizing her friend was right. Five years ago, the young seamstress had been filled with passion and hope. At seventeen years of age, Wendy had possessed the strength of a woman five times older. As an apprentice to the previous owner, she had sewn Helaine’s one and only ball gown. From Helaine’s dress design, Wendy had recognized Helaine’s talent and begun thinking way back then. When Helaine’s father had destroyed everything, it was Wendy who had sought her out and suggested the dressmaking business. She had everything arranged almost before Helaine had known what was happening. She’d even had the wherewithal to spring Helaine and her mother out of debtors’ prison, though heaven only knew how she’d managed that. Wendy had never told her how that happened, and it was the one secret that remained between them. But that one shadow could not dampen the love Helaine felt for her friend. Their current success was wholly due to Wendy’s belief in both of them. And because of her, they were now owners of a dress shop with clients from the ton.

  But it was a house built upon cards. Their most elevated client was Lady Gwendolyn and her future in-laws. It had been quite the coup to get the lady to buy just a single gown two Seasons past. And then she’d purchased a few more last Season. And now, as a miracle from the heavens, the lady wanted her entire trousseau! If this order went well, it would be the making of their little dress shop.

  But if it all fell apart now because of one arrogant, high-handed brother, then there would be no stopping the disaster. There would be no more elevated clients and no more steady flow of customers. And given that they barely made it through from one week to the next now, there was nothing to keep them from the poorhouse.

  “Stop it!” ordered Wendy without even looking up from her work. “I can hear your brain yapping all the way over here.”

  “I didn’t say a word,” returned Helaine stiffly. It was a pretend anger because they really were the best of friends. And because they had only each other to rely upon. If either failed, they both failed.

  “But you be thinking and worrying yerself to death and I won’t have it. Got the milliner’s daughter Francine coming tomorrow, and we need you to design her something that will get her wed.”

  Helaine sighed, the sound coming from deep within her. “I’m not sure anyone can do that.” The girl was fat. Not even plump, but decidedly fat, and she had a mean temper to boot. The first could be hidden. The second made any efforts at dressing moot.

  “Well, if you can do it, then we’d be established for sure.”

  “Wendy—,” Helaine began, but her friend just shook her head.

  “Jus’ talk to the girl. You can tell her things about how to be sweeter.”

  “But there are some things—”

  “Tut-tut!” the girl said as she pointed her needle straight at Helaine’s heart. “They can’t all be like Lady Gwen. You just think on that and not our prices. Teach that fat girl how to be nice on the inside, and then she’ll find her man.”

  Helaine plopped down by the worktable and pulled out her sketchbook. She didn’t need it. She already knew what would look best on Francine. “It’s not about being nice,” she said as much to herself as to the seamstress. “It’s about feeling happy inside. Then nice is easy. As is husband hunting.”

  “There you go,” said Wendy with a grin. “You just teach her that and we’ll be rich. Easy as stitching a straight line.”

  “Well, maybe for you,” sai
d Helaine. Her stitches had always wandered willy-nilly.

  “Fine then,” said Wendy. “Easy as drawing a straight line. And that I know you can do.”

  That she could. Now if only she could get someone to pay for their talents. Then they would be rich. Or at least not a half breath away from the poorhouse.

  It was that fear that carried her through the night and into the next morning. Years ago, she and her mother had spent two nights in the poorhouse. Two nights crammed into the same bed with a rail-thin mother of three. Two nights of starting at every noise and holding her mother while the frail woman sobbed. Thankfully, they were both exhausted from a day spent doing prison labor—pounding hemp into rope—that at least they managed to sleep on the second night. And then Wendy had rescued them, offering them her home until the business turned a profit. And slowly, their life had changed.

  Helaine and her mother had rooms of their own now, right above the shop. And if they didn’t own anything of value anymore—it had all been sold six months after her father’s disappearance—at least they each had a bed, food on the table, and a little coal for the winter. It was more than many had in London, and Helaine was grateful for it every day. And terrified it would all disappear on the morrow.

  That was the fear that pulled her from her bed at dawn and sat her down at her worktable to sketch. And that was the fear that drove her to work on Lady Gwen’s trousseau, sketching a new dress for her wedding that would emphasize every detail of the woman’s beautiful body. And that was the fear that had her setting down six new designs before Miss Francine while the girl was munching on crumpets and spilling cream upon the paper.

  “But wot ’bou’ m’ ’ck?”

  Helaine leaned forward. “I beg your pardon?”

  The girl set aside the crumpet and dusted off her fingers. “Wot about my neck? Won’t it pinch?” she asked, pointing to the full collar.

  “Oh, no. Not this material and not when Wendy sews it. Trust me, Francine. It shall look divine.”

  The girl was obviously not convinced. Her face pinched up and she reached again for the crumpet. “But it’s so plain. Not a ruffle or rosette anywhere.” She stuffed another full bite into her mouth. “Mama says at least with the rosettes, the men will look at the decoration and not me.”

  Helaine blinked, shock reverberating through her system. “Surely your mother doesn’t say that! The men are supposed to look at you, Francine. How can you possibly think to attract a man if they are looking at the rosettes and not you?”

  Francine didn’t answer as she stuffed another bite into her mouth. But her eyes did, and her body. Her gaze dropped to her lap, and her body slumped in the seat. She was the picture of a depressed, downtrodden woman. Helaine knew the look. She understood the need to hide yourself any way you could. After her father was exposed as the Thief of the Ton, she had done everything but put a bag over her face as a way to hide.

  “It never works, you know,” she said gently. “Nothing can hide who you really are. No laces, flounces, or even the best rosette that Wendy can make will hide who you really are.” Then she leaned forward and lifted the girl’s chin. “And Francine, nothing should.”

  The girl didn’t believe her. She sat there in slumped misery. “I’m fat, Helaine. No one wants a fat wife.”

  “No one wants a mean wife, Francine. I have seen many fat girls get married. Many ugly girls, too. Fortunately, my dear, you are not ugly and not exactly fat yet, either. And you have the advantage of something special.”

  Francine wrinkled her nose. “Yes. My father’s money.”

  “No, silly!” Helaine said. “A talented dresser. Come, come. Put down that silly crumpet and let me show you the truth. Let me show you what I see when I look at you.”

  She didn’t have to pull hard to get the girl to comply. They went to the dressing room to where Wendy waited with the first of three dresses they had made for Francine. In the back of Helaine’s mind was the ever-present knowledge that the girl had to like these dresses—and pay for them—or they would have no money at all until Lady Gwen chose to pay. But she tried not to let it influence her at that moment. This time was for Francine, and she would not let anything detract from that.

  Wendy began with a smile, lifting up the first of the three dresses. It was a moment that Wendy most especially treasured because the ladies always oohed and aahed over what was before them. But Francine didn’t. She scrunched up her nose and made a bad face that clearly upset Wendy.

  “’Ey, now…,” the seamstress began, but Helaine stepped forward to interrupt.

  “Wendy, dearest, before we get to the gowns, perhaps you could do me a favor. Please, would you find that spare piece of muslin and cover the mirror?”

  Not surprisingly, her friend looked at her in shock. “Cover the mirror—”

  “Please, Wendy.”

  The seamstress knew better than to argue. Helaine was the one who soothed the customers and brought in business. When they were in front of a client, Helaine ruled. And so Wendy bobbed a quick curtsy and went to the back room to find the fabric. Meanwhile Helaine turned to Francine.

  “What were you looking at right then?” she asked gently.

  Francine frowned. “What do you mean? I was looking at the dress.”

  “I don’t think so. I was watching your face. You were looking in the mirror. At yourself, weren’t you? That grimace was what you do every time you look in the mirror, isn’t it?”

  Francine shrugged, one shoulder coming up to her ear while her eyes slid away. “Nobody wants to look at your ugly dresses anyway,” she snapped.

  And there she was: Mean Francine. Helaine was beginning to see the problem. Mean Francine only came out when the girl felt threatened or embarrassed. And this, too, Helaine had some experience with.

  “Very well, Francine, I would like you to do something for me. I would like you to turn and look at yourself from all angles in this mirror.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to see how you look right now, really look.”

  “Why?”

  “Please, my dear. Just leave yourself in my hands for a few minutes. And then you shall see something truly special, I promise you.”

  The girl was not going to leap right into trust, and who could blame her? If her mother had been telling her she was fat and ugly all her life, then of course the child was angry. Especially since Mama dressed the girl like this.

  Under Helaine’s instruction, Francine stared at herself in the mirror. She was dressed in puce, of all colors, a washed-out, dull brown. Flounce after flounce covered her, adding to her size and making her look like a fat lump of mashed potatoes and gravy. At least her hair didn’t lie in a flat, greasy pile. The girl was clean and her brown hair was quite lovely. Except that it was pulled ruthlessly back from her face as if someone—her mother most likely—wished to pull the skin back from her nose as tightly as possible. It didn’t work, of course, but created a perpetually pulled expression and most likely gave the girl a terrible headache by day’s end.

  As requested, Francine looked at herself in the mirror. She turned slowly around, her eyes filling with tears of misery. And in the end, she didn’t even finish her perusal, but sat down in a defeated lump. She didn’t even have the strength to argue but just sat there, her eyes darting this way and that, as she no doubt looked for another crumpet.

  “There now, you have looked. I shall not ask you what you saw because I can see it in your face how miserable you feel right now. Ah, here is Wendy.”

  And there was Wendy, covering up the mirror with quick jerks of her arm. As the muslin settled over the reflection, everyone—Helaine included—sighed in relief. The girl in that mirror was the picture of dejection.

  “Now, please, Francine, if you would but stand up, we shall help you into your new gown. You shall see what I see when I look at you.”

  Francine didn’t argue. She obviously hadn’t the strength, but hope did sparkle a bit in her eyes. Just a tiny fla
sh, but one that shot to Helaine’s soul. The girl wasn’t lost yet.

  “First off, let us change your hair.” Francine didn’t have the time to argue as Helaine plucked pins out of her hair. Before long a tumble of loose, lovely curls fell down and Francine was sighing in relief.

  “Those hurt, don’t they?”

  “Terribly. But Mama says—”

  “For the moment, Francine, I have no desire to know what your mother says. She may be the best of all mothers, but she does not know how to dress you.”

  At that, Francine gaped at her. It was perhaps the first time that anyone had contradicted her mother, who was, in Helaine’s opinion, a narrow-minded tyrant. It wasn’t that the woman was cruel. She did love her daughter. But as happened with some mothers, the woman could only see the flaws, not the beauty, in her offspring. That was why Helaine had specifically conspired to see poor Francine alone, at a time when her mother was busy with her son’s tutor.

  “Today, dear Francine, is about you. And what will look best on you despite what your mother says.”

  The girl had no response except to nod. She was obviously still in shock that someone would speak ill of her mama.

  “Next, you absolutely must remove those terrible boots. You should try on this pair of silk slippers, I think.” She held up a dainty pair dyed the palest of pinks.

  The girl looked down at her thick half boots, designed more for a man who worked in a pigpen than for a girl. “But Mama said—” She stopped when Helaine raised her eyebrows. “Slippers wear so easily,” she finally managed.

  “And if you were to be traipsing about London, then you should wear those, I suppose. But we are dressing you for a London party, my dear. Come, come. Mr. Shoemaker makes the most divine slippers. If you like them, then we shall bring his daughter Penny in to show you what can be done for your feet.”

  Helaine didn’t mention that Mr. Shoemaker had not made these particular slippers. That shoe shop was too pricey by half for demonstration slippers. But if Francine wanted to change her footwear, she could afford the best. Meanwhile, Francine did as she was bidden, pulling off her boots with a grimace. Truly, those boots could not have been made for her. They were much too huge.