by Eliza Emmett
The duchess patted Grant’s hands. “She is a special woman, Grant. Don’t let her go.”
“I, she, I, but—”
“I apologize for my bluntness, but it’s in your eyes.”
“I’m sure it is.” There was no point in his denying what was plain for anyone to see. “Well, I thank you. It would be unfair that a group of women who do not understand what it means to work and make a living should have the power to cause Miss Larsen’s shop to close—and all because of evil gossip and rumors.”
“I agree. But you can rest assured that after I waltz into a ballroom wearing one of her gowns, Miss Larsen will once again have more work than she can handle. I still have that power, Grant.”
“I will be forever in your debt, Laura.” He kissed her hand and thought the familiarity of calling her by her given name was justified.
“Just give me a special seat at your wedding, Grant, and we will be even.”
In the next few days, Grant found out that every one of Addy’s close friends had also walked into Cora’s shop and ordered gowns. His favorite tailoress was as busy as she could possibly wish to be. As surely as birds would sing in spring, Cora’s creations would be the toast of town again.
****
Lady Ashworth was not one to call early in the morning. Gossiping was an afternoon activity for her, like tea with scones. So when Lady Galavyin received the information that the aforementioned acquaintance sat in the morning room at a quarter to nine on a Monday morning, she knew it was for more than idle gossip, and she wasn’t pleased.
She let out a sigh of impatience. She hated having her morning routine interrupted. Sometimes Lucrecia Ashworth fulfilled her role as messenger, courier of necessary damaging information, and overall bearer of any bad news Lady Galavyin might want to spread. But the woman could be insufferable and ultimately a bore. If she wasn’t so useful, she would have been cut from Lady Galavyin’s visiting list a long time before.
Lady Galavyin powdered her nose and checked herself in the mirror to make sure the right degree of paleness had been achieved. She never acknowledged wearing powders, which of course didn’t mean she would ever be caught without them. She dabbed some color on her lips too. Then, she put on her earrings.
“I trust she has been offered refreshments, Lydia?” she asked her maid.
“Yes, Lady Galavyin.”
“Then I should be there momentarily. You may go.”
A nagging thought pinched her. It bothered her when she went down the stairs, and it still throbbed in her brain as she entered the morning room. It was confirmed in the unflattering wrinkle shooting across Lady Ashworth’s forehead, and it was finally revealed in the plump woman’s words.
“I apologize for coming so early, but I might have needed salts if I hadn’t come here to tell you.”
“You did well. If there’s something to be heard, there’s no time like the present.” Lady Galavyin gestured toward an armchair since Lady Ashworth had got up to preface the reason for her visit and now fidgeted in the middle of the room like a nervous child. She herself remained standing.
“Well, you know how just a few weeks ago we were speaking of the incident involving Miss Larsen? The seamstress, you know?”
“Yes?”
“And how she had eloped with that young man, and how it could only have been a ploy because of his money? And how her name had been stained, and now we were not going to buy her gowns anymore?” Lady Ashworth could hardly catch her breath. The words rushed out of her like a train derailing from the tracks.
“Yes?” Lady Galavyin felt her patience evaporate through her every pore.
“My dear, it pains me to say that she is at it again. And this time, the unsuspecting victim is your son, Lord Galavyin himself!”
Lady Galavyin could have crushed a china cup with her bare hands. “You must be mistaken. You know how senseless gossip makes it way around this city.” She knew the gossip was real enough. She just hoped she would make Lady Ashworth think otherwise.
“I’d agree with you, my dear friend, and nothing would make me happier than to confirm this is all idle talk, but my daughter Denise saw them with her very eyes, quite by accident to be sure, behind a tree, in Hyde Park!”
Lady Galavyin’s blood sweltered. It was probably at the temperature of a well-cooked duck. Her son, a man of his standing, behind a tree. She had underestimated this enemy.
“My dear Lady Galavyin, what can I do?”
She recovered almost instantaneously. There was work to do. “You will not utter a word of this to anyone. If you do, I cannot be held responsible for the damage I will inflict. Reputations will suffer. Invitations will be withdrawn.” She towered over the other woman, who finally stood still and looked up.
Lady Ashworth stared at Lady Galavyin as if it were the first time they had met. “Well, I never—I really don’t understand the tone you are taking with me.” It was as if she had finally woken up to who Lady Galavyin was.
“This is no time for civilities. You have been warned. Not a word.” And with that Lady Galavyin gathered all her elegance and exited the room, leaving what was no doubt a flabbergasted Lady Ashworth behind.
****
It had been a whirlwind of a week. All of a sudden, Cora had gone from no work to two new seamstresses. If Duchess Newcomb’s new dresses weren’t enough, five other ladies had requested an average of four dresses each. They were all of complicated execution and therefore expensive. There was fabric everywhere, and matching ribbons and colorful beads saved next to delicate embroidery.
And now Grant Galavyin was standing in front of her, on a Friday evening, with his disheveled hair and with that smile that could make time stop, and he was saying the words that she longed to hear from a man.
“Will you make me waistcoats and trousers?”
It was after hours. Everyone else had left. He had surprised her and brought in dinner, which he had spread out on a table at the back: cold meats, vegetable pie, grapes, breads, and potatoes. He confessed he had cooked the meal himself. He had practiced with Cook several times. He had even brought candles in beautiful silver candleholders.
But that was for later.
He dropped his coat on the ground. She grabbed a measuring tape and smoothed it across his shoulders. She took her time running her hand across his back, and she was very aware of the soft fabric that wrapped his torso. When she wrote down the numbers, her hands shook, making her usually beautiful handwriting crooked and uneven.
When she measured his chest, she noticed that his breathing was much altered. He stuffed out his chest, intuitively she imagined, as her measuring tape covered its width. When she looked up to check her work, his lips brushed against her forehead, sending shivers down her body.
Next, she encircled his waist with the tape, and it felt like she was brave and embraced him. She then realized she had to get closer and closer to him, as the demand of taking accurate measurements was very real. But just as she was trying to figure out where the courage to do that would come from, two strong hands interrupted her rumination and grabbed her arms. They lifted her up as if she were nothing more than a fallen twig. And those hands folded behind her back and then carried her over to the chaise longue in the back room.
“I don’t want to make your life difficult, and I seem to bring trouble to you no matter how much I try to be good. There is nothing I want more than to be with you, but is this what you want?” he asked.
She managed to whisper out a yes. Yes, this was what she wanted, though her heart that beat in her throat almost stifled her words. She forgot he was a lord, and he clearly didn’t care she was a dressmaker. He placed her on the chaise and kissed her eyelids closed. He kissed the soft skin by her cleavage, her wrists, and her palms. Night turned into dawn, and they spent first light trying to think through the ins and outs of each other’s clothes—his shirt’s confusing buttons made her impatient. Her gown, in turn, produced a frothing noise as it was lifted this way and th
at. There was fumbling and tearing, stripping and sliding, until their garments were nothing but discarded and forgotten rags on the floor.
Dinner, she realized, would have to take place some other time.
****
“Miss Larsen, Miss.” Sally might have been calling her for a while, she couldn’t tell. Her mind was still on her night with Grant Galavyin, on trying to decide whether that feeling of bliss was a sign of love or of her utter inconsequence. She had been through this before—an aristocratic man, her better judgment set aside, a lot of heartache. And yet she could not stop smiling. Love had a way of unlocking one’s heart.
“Yes, Sally?”
“A messenger came for you. With this.” She handed Cora an envelope. Inside, Cora found elegant monogrammed stationary. Prominent was a red letter G. The note read,
Miss Larsen,
I require the courtesy of your presence at my house, on this day at two o’clock in the afternoon. A coach will be sent for you.
Lady Galavyin
Cora could not help but think it was the curtest note she had ever received, and although the only subject that united them both was Grant, she could not imagine he would have confided in his mother. She was curious about the note and especially puzzled by its tone, so Cora prepared herself quickly and was ready to leave when the coach arrived. She wondered if she would see Grant in the house and what she would do if he was there, but figured that if she had been summoned, there was little chance of his presence.
At the Galavyin mansion, Cora was taken to the same room where she had her first visit with the lady of the house. Just to be there gave her an unpleasant feeling of anxiety, which travelled from the bottom of her spine all the way to her skull, where it settled as lightheadedness. There was no sign of Adele or Grant, and this time she didn’t have to wait to be met with renewed offensiveness as soon as Lady Galavyin entered the room.
“Miss Larsen, I will be brief and to the point.” The woman didn’t even offer her a seat. “I have tried indirectness with you, and it seems my actions were too veiled for you to comprehend. I removed you from your place of work so that you could start elsewhere, preferably far, and so that you would detest my family and my son. I let the good people in my circle know that you preyed on successful well-to-do young men, and still you insisted. What will it take for you to call to a halt your efforts to marry money?”
Cora could not say a word. She felt her mind and her body split into two. The rest of the outburst, she heard from someplace outside herself, as if shock and alarm had sealed her mouth and incapacitated her brain. How dare this woman treat her with such contempt? She wasn’t her better. Even if she had earned her money she would not be. It was people’s hearts that mattered. Nothing more.
“My son, Miss Larsen, is expected to accomplish great things. He is expected to marry within his circle. You cannot seriously imagine that he will throw his life away for a seamstress. Because of the good will of people like me, you have been allowed a glimpse of a world where you don’t belong, a world you could have enjoyed in moderation and gratitude, and now you have truly overstayed your welcome. You—”
“No need to continue, Lady Galavyin.” Cora raised a hand. She had finally found her voice. It might cost her all her strength. It might destroy her. But she needed to speak. “Contrary to what you might believe, I understand what you say well and clearly. I will see myself out.”
Cora couldn’t remember being this humiliated before. She was used to the indirect pokes and remarks from those who thought that being lords and ladies excused them from showing a little humanity. She had dealt with customers who thought the sole purpose of her life was to listen to their frivolous complaints and not to exist beyond them. Too many times had she been invisible to be surprised. But these were not indirect insinuations and silly notions. They were much more.
Lady Galavyin had admitted to actively trying to harm her. She had lost her place of business, and her good name had been blemished. All for vanity and arrogance. Did Grant know about this? Was she a game to him? Perhaps because of what had happened to her before? She could not even conceive of such betrayal.
She walked out of the mansion and clutched a hand to her stomach. Worried that her legs might falter, she sat on the first bench she could find right across the street. She couldn’t cry. There were no tears. There was only pain and terrible, awful embarrassment. She sat there for a long time until it occurred to her she should hire a coach. She had barely climbed in when her eyes travelled to the other side of the street to meet Grant’s. He had just arrived in front of his house. The last thing she saw was him, as he hurried to cross the street toward her. He then stopped and looked forlorn as the coach disappeared around a corner. She buried her face in her hands and hoped with all her heart she would never see him again.
****
“Hattie, you need to tell me where she is. I must speak to her.”
Hattie stood at an appropriate distance and looked at him with what he considered to be compassion. “Lord Galavyin, nothing would make me happier than to take you there myself, but my sister has trusted me—and me alone—with her location, and I cannot betray her confidence. She left firm instructions that I should not let anyone know, especially you, where she is. I’m really sorry. She wants to be by herself. She left here in such a state.”
When Grant had seen Cora hire a coach outside his house, he could instantly tell that something was very wrong. The look on her face was unmistakable, and she acted as if she were in physical pain. At his own house, no one had uttered a word.
Now he paced the front room of Cora’s shop. Cora had left Hattie in charge, and although the sister was not the artist that Cora was, he could see she was competent and able to supervise the seamstresses to finish the orders already in place. Now that work was coming in, it would be terrible to disappoint the patrons and face another setback. Despite her state of mind, despite the pain caused once more by some mysterious event at his house, Cora had seen to everything, he could tell.
“Hattie, I am going crazy with worry and regret.”
Hattie came closer and then, as if embarrassed at taking such liberty, took a step back. “Give it time. I can tell you she was very shaken when she left. She could hardly utter a sentence that made sense.”
“But why? I don’t understand. The last time we met…” He stopped midsentence. He couldn’t possibly mention what they had done the last time they met. “The last time I saw her she was fine. Happy.”
Hattie sat with him for a while. They didn’t speak. He figured each held onto the part of Cora they didn’t want to betray. After some time, he announced he would leave. He hesitated for a second longer and hoped Hattie might change her mind. She didn’t.
Grant reached for her hands. “Hattie, if at any moment you feel you can trust me with a little more, please send for me immediately. Day or night.” She assented with a nod. “Write to her, please. It’s very important.”
As he left the shop, Grant heard the door creak behind him, and Hattie called out. “Perhaps you should speak to your mother.” Before he could react, she closed the door in haste.
Chapter Fifteen
Lady Galavyin was not the kind of woman to leave important outcomes in the hands of others. She never did. In this case, she was certainly not willing to have the fancies or the conscience of Cora Larsen, whatever the case might be, dictate whether or not Grant was free from the claws of ambitious little seamstresses. Cora was a proud woman, she could tell, but that was not enough of an assurance that she had no other stratagem ready to be put in place.
It was worth investing in a strong and final blow—a move to guarantee Cora Larsen would not come calling again, and that if she did, Grant would not want to see her. And she knew exactly what needed to be done, and who needed to be called.
Sir Rudolph Lester was a weasel of a man. She had located him without much difficulty. Everyone knew her, and many acquaintances were happy to do her a favor to remain in h
er graces. She was the kind of woman people wanted as an ally. The bad part was inviting him to the house, but sacrifices were necessary at distressing times.
He wore a distasteful ponytail and a smug smile that suggested he would want some reward for his trouble. His coat was too showy and colorful, something only a nouveau-riche, unpleasant man would wear. How Cora Larsen could have possibly put both Grant and this creature in the same category was beyond her.
“Would you sit down, Sir Lester? I would call for some tea, but it is my understanding you never drink…that.”
“Very true. Tea is a woman’s beverage, wouldn’t you say?”
She didn’t even pretend to smile. She never pretended to smile.
“Then shall we talk about the reason for this visit? It is my understanding that you and a Miss Cora Larsen were once close?”
He raised an eyebrow and looked as if he were trying to anticipate where this conversation was going. “I guess you could say that.”
“I understand you are unattached at the moment.”
“I guess you could say that too.”
“Then, Sir Lester, you would do me a great favor and service, one that I would not easily forget, if you were to renew your attachment with Miss Larsen, at least temporarily. Write to my son. Invite him for a conversation. Share your intention with him.”
“I see.” He stood and perused the room. He looked out toward the garden and took his time responding, leaving her waiting. Lady Galavyin sensed he perceived he had the upper hand. “So when you say you would not easily forget, what precisely do you mean?”
****
On the first day Cora spent at the Bristow Estate in Dorset, she did not eat. She did not utter a word, and she did not even pick up a book. She brought a rocking chair to the balcony of her guestroom, and she rocked herself into a state of self-hypnosis, in which she remained until nightfall.
The second day, Abigail Bristow, her friend and old-time benefactor forced her to eat some soup, threatening to call her father if she did not. Now, four days into her exile from London, Cora felt bold enough to walk the impressive, formal gardens, to sneak a book of poems out of the library, and even to play with the dogs. But these external markers of normalcy should not be confused with actual ordinariness. Nothing was normal. It was all far from normal. Her heart was shattered into a million pieces, and she wasn’t even sure she could find all of the shards to ever mend it.