At night, Molly sat up with a few lit candle stumps and sketched creations that, come the next morning, would surprise even her. Mrs. Bathurst exclaimed that only a woman conversant with the skilled touch of an amorous lover could design gowns as she did, but Molly assured her that she simply had a very good imagination.
Danforthe and his contract amendment remained in her thoughts, hovering over her like a great black-haired bird of prey. Despite her own resolve and Mrs. Lotterby’s gentle warnings, Molly’s stubborn will had begun to pull in a wicked direction, stirred by his kiss and the touch of his hand around hers.
He had called her Margaret. For some reason that seemed more wickedly intimate than any other word he might have used.
***
In the last few days before the ball, Molly and her assistants spent their time traveling from house to house, making final fittings and discussing accessories for their clients. The very last scheduled fitting was that of Baroness Schofield, who, as she was hooked into a striking buttercup-yellow gown with short puffed sleeves, inspected her image in a long mirror and exclaimed crossly, “Yellow? But I never wear yellow in the evenings. Not since I was a girl.”
“Then it will be something fresh and unexpected, madam.”
With a heavy theatrical sigh, the baroness exclaimed, “I don’t like it, Robbins. It makes me look jaundiced.”
“But in candlelight the effect will be quite different.”
“I think I know what colors suit me, Robbins, and this does not. No, I cannot get used to it. Also the bosom is not cut low enough. These crisscross ribbons on the bodice crush my curves too severely. Ugh! I just cannot get beyond this dreadful color.”
Molly felt her assistants growing fidgety. The baroness had expressed no such doubts before this, and she’d had several fittings. There was only one day until the Sutherland’s ball, and while that left time for final adjustments, it did not leave much time for an entire new gown. Color was not something that could be altered with a few careful stitches.
“And these sleeves,” the woman gestured impatiently, “look childish.”
Childish? Molly swallowed a hot spur of anger, but it smarted in her throat. Nothing she ever designed could be called childish. This was a gown she had specifically made thinking of Carver Danforthe and what he would like his mistress to wear. She politely suggested the lady might like to consider the gown a little longer.
“No. I don’t like it.” With one quick move, the woman tore the sleeve from the bodice. “You’ll have to start again. Nothing yellow, for pity’s sake, Robbins.” She dropped the ruined sleeve to the floor at Molly’s feet. “The entire world knows a woman over twenty should never wear yellow for a ball. Not in Town. Perhaps in the country dullard’s village that spawned you it was acceptable. Here it just won’t do.” Stepping down from her stool, she put her foot directly on the torn scrap and walked on with her lady’s maid. “Help me get out of this atrocity of a gown, Peters. I’m feeling quite nauseated by so much bile yellow.”
Molly stared at the woman’s back.
“Oh, and, Robbins”—the baroness turned to look over her shoulder—“I like to look young, but I’m not a girl. This does nothing for my figure. If anything, it hides the bosom, which is one of my best features. We’re not all flat across the top like you. A rare and expensive orchid would be more appropriate for me than a common buttercup.”
“But the Earl of Everscham approved the design. He prefers buttercups to cultivated flowers.” It came out of her before she could bite it down and force it back into that secret vault where she kept everything she knew about him, everything she’d stored away in her mind’s scrapbook.
The baroness had very sharp green eyes that never warmed, even when she smiled. Today they left Molly’s face with ice burns. “I think I know what he likes.”
She curtsied, her gaze lowered hastily to the torn scrap of sleeve. “Of course, madam.”
The other woman came back to where she stood. With one long finger she raised Molly’s chin until their eyes met. “What do you mean, he approved the design? When did he see it?”
“I meant to say that his lordship would approve it, madam. I feel certain of it.”
“Well, you’re wrong. You do not know him as I do. You never could.”
“Of course not, madam.”
The baroness made her voice soft and silky as the purr of a well-fed cat stretching on a sunny windowsill. “You’re so plain, Robbins, such a grim little face. Perhaps you ought to take this gown and make something out of it for yourself. Yellow might lift your features. If anything could. Not that you have any use for a ball gown, of course.” She sighed, her gaze drifting down to Molly’s small bosom. “Poor thing.” With that she walked away again, dismissing her with a pert, “Peters will see you to the door, once she’s helped me out of this disastrous creation.”
Leaving that house, Molly was seething and hurt, but by the time she arrived back at her lodgings, the feelings had mellowed somewhat. It could not be easy trying to keep the earl’s interest, she supposed. His mistress must be aware of the tenuous place she held in his life, and with a new batch of debutantes on her heels, that would draw anyone’s nerves thin.
“What shall we do?” Emma asked as they laid the rejected gown across the worktable and gathered around it like mourners at a funeral.
“I say we spit on it,” said Kate, “and tell that hussy to go to the ball in her drawers.”
Molly couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Come, girls, let’s not be downhearted.” She put her arms around them both. “We must look at this as a challenge.”
She told herself that not every design would be a success, not every client would love her work. Until then, she’d been fortunate, meeting praise at every turn. But the baroness had reminded her of how quickly favor could be lost as well as won. Favor in all its forms.
***
Carver attended the Sutherlands’ ball with Sinjun and Lady Anne, who, despite her annoying qualities, had become a useful conduit to the company of a certain frustrating dressmaker.
“May I say, Lady Anne, you look very lovely this evening,” he assured her while a liveried footman announced their names to the folk gathered in the ballroom.
“I know that’s what a gentleman is supposed to say, Danforthe,” she replied merrily, “but I also admit you are right on this occasion too. I have no qualms about confessing my loveliness, and it’s all due to the wonderful Miss Robbins.” She dropped his arm and gave an excited twirl in her blush-pink gown. “She is thoroughly brilliant. I only wish I could keep her all to myself.”
He knew the feeling.
Sinjun came up behind them. “I see the Baroness Schofield in fine fettle this evening. Covington seemed to think the two of you are on the verge of parting company.”
Carver pretended he didn’t hear and swept Anne off for the first minuet. Dancing had only one use in his mind. It was an excellent disguise, a meaningless exercise performed while one hatched the most fiendish plots of seduction. He’d never been a great dancer, but lessons forced upon him in boyhood ensured he did not make a complete ass of himself on these occasions. His sister had also done her best to chisel and carve him into a better dancing partner—all part of her campaign to get him married off. A pointless effort on her part, but she insisted on it.
As they joined the other couples, he noted all the usual faces, and thought to himself, not for the first time, what a strange ritual this was. Everyone gathered in one place to dress up, show off, and usually make sizeable fools of themselves before the end of the evening. For fifteen Seasons he’d walked this path, tolerated every tedious moment.
“Oh, lord!” Anne exclaimed. “I must have caught my sleeve on the carriage door. I thought I felt the stitches pulled! Now my lovely beads are coming unraveled.”
He followed her panicked gaze to where a few tiny pink drops scattered from her arm, down her skirt, and across the dance floor.
“Excuse me.”
She released his hand. “I must find Miss Robbins and see what she can do.” Turning before she had even finished her sentence, she slipped away through the other dancers, and he watched her go.
Amazing what one could achieve with the ring on one’s little finger, while pretending to place a gauze shawl around a lady’s shoulders as she exited his carriage. Although Margaret must have sewn those beads on damn tight, for he’d expected them to start falling sooner.
Noting a few hopeful faces eyeing him eagerly above fluttering fans, he picked up the fallen beads and made a hasty retreat from the dance floor.
***
Molly had promised herself not to look for him, but as soon as she took her turn at the crack in the dressing-room door, her tired, misty gaze traversed the bright crowd for a certain tall figure with very dark hair.
Oh, there he was. She caught a tense breath. Carver Danforthe was always a fine sight in his evening clothes. While she watched, he steered a young lady in a minuet. Pink gown. Was it Lady Anne Rothespur? Her eyesight was not cooperating, so she fumbled for her spectacles—a new cross to bear, but sadly a necessary one—and put them on. A series of very bad headaches had sent her, at Mrs. Lotterby’s urging, to see a physician who insisted on the spectacles, much to her dismay.
Ah, yes. It was Lady Anne. A vast improvement on his usual partners. As she watched the couple dancing, it occurred to her that Carver Danforthe really ought to marry. Despite his oft-stated disdain for the institution, his estate needed an heir. Lady Anne was full of life and did not appear to have a single affectation or mean bone in her body. She would make him a charming wife. If Carver did marry, thought Molly, perhaps it would finally help her conquer these unsuitable feelings for him. Feelings that continued to grow inside her, despite determined neglect.
The couple had not danced long, when the young lady suddenly turned and headed directly for the annex room, which served as a dressing room for the ball, filled with lady’s maids waiting to fix the inevitable tears and stains their mistresses would soon bear. Molly quickly backed away from the door rather than be caught spying.
A few footsteps later, and Lady Anne dashed into the room. “My beads! I’m so dreadfully annoyed with myself, but I caught my sleeve on the carriage door, and now…see?”
“Don’t fret, your ladyship.” Molly assessed the damage through her spectacles. “We have some extra thread and beads in case of this very eventuality.”
“Thank the Lord! You are a treasure, Miss Robbins. It’s my first dance of the evening, and only with silly old Danforthe.”
She was just about to thread her needle when she heard someone else enter the room behind her, and the atmosphere suddenly had a new bite to it, like the taste of unexpected ginger spice in Mrs. Lotterby’s marmalade when one expected only sweet, bland orange.
“Oh, sir, you shouldn’t be in here,” someone exclaimed. “This is ladies only.”
“But I reclaimed Lady Anne’s beads. Will they not buy me admittance?”
Her heart raced at the clear, deep sound of his voice amid the cluster of females. Hastily removing her spectacles to slide them out of sight, Molly pricked her finger and silently cursed herself for that pathetic vanity. But she got on with her work, even with something closed tight around her heart, squeezing. Whatever it was—whatever she was tempted to call it—the feeling had no mercy, just like his kiss.
“Miss Robbins.” His hand was stretched out to her, palm up, showing her the fallen beads. “Will these help?”
“Danforthe, you shouldn’t be in here.” Lady Anne laughed. “Were you trying to see ladies in their petticoats?”
“Perhaps,” came the wicked reply.
No one dared make any move to throw him out. Instead, they surrounded him with a churning sea of agitated breathing—outraged sighs, nervous giggles, and heaving bosoms. At times like these, Molly despaired of her own gender. He’d be disappointed if he ever thought his nearness would corrupt her into a quivering trifle. Having assured herself of her own utter indifference, Molly resumed the struggle to thread her needle. A most problematical enterprise without spectacles.
As she reached for a bead in Carver’s warm, outstretched palm, she missed. They were very small, and the surface was shiny.
“Here,” he said, “let me.” He took one of the beads and held it for her. Somehow she got the point of her needle through the miniscule hole. “How lucky, Miss Robbins,” he observed softly, “that you are here.”
She said nothing, eager to preserve the proprieties under these strange circumstances. Just because one person misbehaved didn’t mean they all had to, as her mother would have said.
“Give the beads to me,” Lady Anne whispered. “Your presence is upsetting everyone, Danforthe. You really are too naughty. What are we going to do with you?”
“I am on tenterhooks to find out.”
“Danforthe!” Lady Anne exploded in giggles that shook her shoulders and thereby made Molly’s task even more trying. She slowed down, afraid of pricking the fidgeting young lady with her needle.
“I have wandered into a land of Amazons,” the earl teased. “And we all know what the Amazon warrior women did to the males they encountered.”
Playing right into his hands, Lady Anne demanded to know what they did.
“Why, they used men for only two things—body strength or seed for propagating the species. In short, slavery and breeding.”
A ripple of dizzy laughter danced and skipped through the small room, and Molly felt the heat rise several degrees. Trust Carver Danforthe to speak of matters that the high-born, unmarried young ladies in that room should know nothing about. Must be in his cups, she thought with a terse sigh, staring hard at her blurred stitches.
“I’m sure Miss Robbins would have made a very fine Amazon queen. See how stern she keeps her countenance, despite all attempts by the lone male present to make her smile. See how savagely she wields her skillful needle, weaving her web. No man would get beyond her gates without capture. He would find himself bound up in her threads.” She felt him moving around her. Very close. “While she decided what to use him for. Slave or mate. Both perhaps.”
“Danforthe, you are the very worst! Stop teasing poor Miss Robbins and let her work.” But even as she admonished him, Lady Anne could not keep the laughter out of her voice, and it rather sounded as if she sweetly corrected the bad habits of a little lapdog, not the saucy words of a rake.
Molly pursed her lips and took back her earlier thoughts regarding Lady Anne’s suitability as his wife. The girl was too young, too giddy to put him in his place. He needed a slap with a rug beater, not a tickle with a feather duster.
“Am I troubling you, Miss Robbins?” he inquired, leaning over her shoulder.
“Certainly not,” she replied crisply.
“There. See?” She heard the sly grin in his voice. “Miss Robbins is not troubled, and she’s the most important Amazon here, I think we can all agree. Without clothes created by the likes of Miss Robbins, you’d all be naked and at severe disadvantage for battle against the intruder in your midst.”
His fingers casually moved the pleats of Molly’s skirt.
Goose bumps rose on the nape of her neck, under the stray wisps of hair that had escaped her topknot. She feared he would see. Oh, she wished someone would throw the rake out. If only Lady Mercy were there, but alas, she was flitting about the countryside, leaving her wicked brother to his own devices. Chaos. Utter chaos.
He was determined to seduce her, it seemed. Each time they met, he wore away at her resistance a little more.
“Are you ready for another?” he asked. His hand moved her skirt again, surreptitiously brushing the thigh beneath.
“What?” She couldn’t think, could barely take a breath.
“Another bead, Miss Robbins.”
“Yes…thank you, your lordship.”
He proceeded to thread another bead onto her needle. “You look flushed, Miss Robbins, and your hand, which I’ve he
ard described as infamously steady, appears to tremble.”
“The room is overheated.” She accidently met his gaze full on while raising her eyes from Lady Anne’s shoulder. Somehow he held her there, just with the ravenous, demanding intensity of the look he gave her. “And so are you,” she muttered under her breath. “Too hot.”
“Too hot? I am indeed. We can’t all have ice water in our veins, like you.”
The injustice of that remark caused her to stick her needle too far. Lady Anne yelped, and Molly apologized profusely.
“Danforthe, now you have upset Miss Robbins!” Lady Anne cried.
“Nonsense. I am only teasing. Miss Robbins should acquire a sense of humor.”
A few other ladies had now entered the annex room, ostensibly to have hems and sleeves tended to by their own seamstresses and maids, but very probably to see what Danforthe was up to. Molly wondered where the Baroness Schofield might be. She took a step to the side, inching away from his body heat.
Just two more beads, and she’d be done, but Carver was not helping her cause. In the act of passing her a bead, he fumbled and dropped it.
“Oops!” he exclaimed. “I’ll get the blasted thing.” He disappeared in a hasty crouch, while Lady Anne Rothespur joyfully assured him he was a clumsy oaf.
The dressing-room door swung open again, and a blast of much-welcome cooler air swept Molly’s brow. The clipped tones of Carver’s mistress quickly followed the breeze, almost as if her own thoughts had summoned the woman.
“Goodness it is crowded in here. Robbins, for pity’s sake, make haste. You’ve made a dreadful botch-up of this seam. It’s too tight, and I can barely breathe.”
Molly looked for the baroness, but without spectacles, her overworked eyes were slow to see which of the new faces was the one calling to her. She felt the room begin to tip on one side. Had her eyesight worsened in just these last few hours? Or was it merely the heat of the small room and her nerves suffering the pressure of this grand occasion?
“Robbins!” the baroness snapped again. “Are you deaf as well as mute, girl?”
Miss Molly Robbins Designs a Seduction Page 15