Like Chantal’s. He was finally convinced of Chantal’s wickedness, but he had to carry on. He owed it to Melody to find the truth.
Pru looked up then and saw him. The smile she sent him was wry and knowing and a little sad. Aren’t we in a pickle?
Indeed.
How could he do the right thing without losing the best friend he’d ever had?
CHAPTER 32
That afternoon, they left for Bath. Colin rode with Pru, Evan, and Melody inside the mumsy carriage while Bailiwick drove Balthazar in the traces. Hector trotted along behind, tied to the rear.
In the carriage, Colin held Melody in his lap, despite her pointy little knees and elbows digging into his bruised body. He’d been so worried the previous night that he couldn’t bear to part with her now, not even to place her in the opposite seat.
Pru and Evan rode facing forward. They both fell asleep almost as soon as the ride began. At first Colin suspected that Pru was feigning sleep so that she would not have to converse with him, but false or not, sleep soon took her over for real.
She was obviously exhausted. Rightly so. She’d dealt with bandits and drugged men and pig shit and had still helped prepare dinner afterward.
She was quite a woman.
Colin couldn’t take his eyes off her. In sleep her face was so sweet, so exotic and otherworldly. Her eyes were always so extraordinary that he sometimes saw little else. Yet her heart-shaped, delicate face was very pleasing. Thick russet lashes lay upon her cheeks. Freckles sprinkled across her nose. Her mouth was pink and soft and relaxed, free of her wry humor and terse retorts for once.
I should like to wake up to that sleepy face. Every morning for the rest of my life.
Yet how could it be so?
Feelings warred with obligations as the hours and miles passed. Melody finally slept as well, draped limply across his lap, Gordy Ann tucked beneath her chin in a gray little ball.
How could it be that he was probably going to spend the rest of his life with a woman he didn’t love, and lose the one he did?
Love.
Oh, God. It was true. He loved mad, brave Miss Prudence Filby, seamstress. He loved her completely, trusted her utterly, accepted her—nay, cherished her!—precisely as she was.
Outspoken, outrageous, fierce, slightly vengeful Pru!
Colin passed a hand over his eyes, not denying the moisture there. Losing Pru was going to hurt, dear God, it was going to nearly kill him!
His fingers felt for his handkerchief but instead came in contact with crisp paper. Jack’s letter.
Bailiwick had given it to him that afternoon, but Colin had not had an opportunity to read it. Now he broke the wax seal and unfolded the battered missive. It looked as though it had traveled halfway around the world.
“I will come back to Brown’s.”
At last. Of course, when Jack returned, Colin would be a married man, living in his own house and not the club.
Had Jack received any of their letters regarding Melody? Did he think he was returning to a daughter even now?
Sorry, old man. Life just doesn’t turn out how you expect sometimes.
In front of the carriage, hearty Balthazar trotted on through the night, not stopping even when Bailiwick dozed at the reins.
Balthazar scarcely ever bothered to mind the reins anyway.
At dawn they reached the outskirts of Bath. Bailiwick stopped the carriage on the crest of the hill above the city and they all stumbled wearily out.
Freshly woken, Pru swept a strand of hair from before her eyes. “So this is Bath,” she said flatly.
Evan came to stand beside her, his hands stuffed into his pockets. “Looks like Brighton, w’out the seagulls. Or the sea.”
Melody clung to Pru’s skirts. “I don’t see a bath.”
Colin swung her into his arms. “They’ll be all around you, pet. The water comes bubbling up out of the ground boiling hot and all the people bob around in it like potatoes in the pot!”
Pru stepped out of the way of Colin’s heartiness and turned back to the carriage. He was doing his best for Melody, she knew, but that didn’t mean she had to like the idea of finding Chantal.
Damn you, Chantal.
She had always wanted to see Bath. Even in the midst of her gloom, the drive along the Crescent pierced her with the elegance of the architecture, the lovely houses gleaming like ivory in the morning sunlight. This was a place for the wealthy and the wish-they-were to play.
That wasn’t her life. As soon as Colin found Chantal and released Pru from the duty of caring for Melody, she would begin searching for work. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin.
Hearing her name, she looked up to see Colin looking at her expectantly. The carriage was paused at a corner and Bailiwick was asking for direction through the little trapdoor behind him. Pru realized that Colin had just asked her a question.
“Sorry, sir. What was it?”
He drew his brows together. “I asked you where Chantal might be staying while she is here. Do you have any ideas?”
Chantal, Chantal, Chantal. Pru sighed. “She only mentioned it in passing. I don’t know . . .” But she did know Chantal, didn’t she? She knew precisely where her previous employer’s priorities lay. “The dressmaker, of course,” she murmured aloud.
Colin blinked at her. “Truly?”
Pru shrugged wearily. “It’s as good a place to start as any. Miss Marchant won’t like the other ladies bein’ ahead of her in style.”
Colin chewed the inside of his lip. “No, I suppose she wouldn’t. But Baldwin claimed she hadn’t much money. How would she pay for dresses?”
Pru gazed at him in disbelief. “How does Chantal pay for anything?”
Evan snickered. She elbowed him on the sly without breaking her gaze with Colin. She watched him color slightly, then he glanced away.
He cleared his throat. “Right. Dressmakers. They’ll be on Bartlett Street.” Bailiwick snapped the reins and the carriage jolted into motion once more.
Another advantage to this matter being over soon. She’d never have to sit in this bloody conveyance ever again. Feet would be her carriage, nice, steady, slow feet. Back to a simpler life, just she and Evan.
Oh, yes, the simple life—a life of barest survival, of hunger and cold and the occasional bout of sheer terror.
Can’t wait.
When they reached Bartlett Street, there was only one sign Colin needed to look for.
When he saw it, he pounded on the trapdoor. Bailiwick pulled over instantly. Balthazar snorted at such decisiveness, but Colin was tired of playing about.
He leaped lightly to the sidewalk. “We’re here.”
Pru blinked at him. “But we don’t know which dressmaker she—”
Colin gave her a twist of his lips. “Shall we begin at the top?”
Pru gazed at him quizzically, then looked past him at the shopfront. Her eyes widened. “Lementeur? He’d be more’n Chantal could talk her way up to.”
“Ah, but he knows everyone who is everyone and precisely what everyone is up to. I met him when he dressed Maddie and Melody for the wedding.” Colin collected a drowsy Melody from where she’d been draped over Pru’s lap. Pru glanced away when the back of his hand passed over her thigh.
Colin seemed not to notice. “Come on, Mellie. We’ve stopped. There’s someone you’ll like to see.”
Evan seemed glad enough to jump down. “Naught but dresses,” he muttered in disgust.
“Then you can tend Hector, Milord Finicky. He’s been trotting back there all night.” Pru stepped down smartly before Colin could offer his hand. Taking Melody from him and setting the child on her feet, she shook out her skirts and raised a brow. “Who’d have thought I’d ever go to Lementeur?”
As they entered the shop, Colin smiled at the young man who approached them. “Hello, Cabot. Is His Majesty about?”
Pru was gazing about her in curiosity, the girlish part of her sighing in pleasure at the luxurious,
stylish surroundings. The room was elegantly furnished, almost like a parlor but for lengths of fine fabrics draped about, part function, part décor. Silks and satins and velvets. Hair bobs and ribbons and lacy jabots. Pru thrust her work-worn hands behind her, unwilling to sully any of the beautiful things.
Melody felt no such compunction. “Pretty!”
Then the man himself emerged. Small of stature, famous of name, trim and dapper and screamingly stylish, London’s premier dressmaker emerged from somewhere, popping into view as if by magic.
“Sir Colin! What a lovely surprise!”
“Button!” Melody shrieked and ran for the small man. Lementeur laughed and unselfconsciously dropped to one knee to receive a Melody death-grip hug about his neck. Then he set her back upon her feet and bowed properly to her.
“Lady Melody, I am very pleased to see you again. How is Miss Gordy Ann this fine morning?”
Melody grinned and dropped a babyish curtsy of her own. “Gordy Ann needs a new dress to get merry.”
“Ah.” Lementeur tapped a finger to his lips thoughtfully. Then he whipped a silk handkerchief from his pocket and draped it across his arm as if he showed a rich damask to a duchess. “A fine Chinese silk, madam, dyed by aristocratic maidens in a perfumed garden. The very thing for such an esteemed client.”
Melody giggled and accepted the handkerchief with a regal nod. “Thank you, Button.” Then she dropped into a squat on the floor to tie the silk about Gordy Ann then and there.
Pru mentally applauded the man. He’d pleased Melody and gotten her out of the adults’ way in a matter of seconds.
“Masterful,” she murmured.
Lementeur’s quick eyes flickered over her, assessing her from tip to toe. Pru oddly felt as though the man had measured her with entire accuracy.
Inside and out.
It turned out that Lementeur did indeed know of Miss Chantal Marchant. “She tends to make an impression. I don’t know with whom she is staying, but she is oft accompanied by a Dr. Bennett to the finest parties in town. I don’t doubt that she shall make an appearance at Lady Beverley’s ball this evening. Dr. Bennett is a favorite of Lady Beverley’s.”
Colin nodded grimly. “If she is attending that ball, then so are we.”
Pru felt a jolt of surprise. “We?”
Colin slid an unreadable glance at her. “We,” he said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “You can do it. You mimic upper-class speech perfectly.”
Lementeur’s eyes danced. “Yes, I imagine she does.”
Pru opened her mouth to protest, but Lementeur held up one hand. “Do not fret, my dear. I have the very thing. Lady Carlton turned up at her last fitting with a little passenger. I had to replan her entire summer wardrobe. One of her ball gowns was already finished. It will look admirable with your stunning hair.”
“But—”
It was no use. Colin and Lementeur closed ranks against her and had the entire matter planned out before she could even form a protest.
Perhaps she didn’t try as hard as she might have. She’d never been to a ball. She’d missed her coming out, her presentation, her first Season—all the things she and her mother had planned so dreamily so long ago.
I’m going to a ball, Mama.
With Sir Colin Lambert.
However, Pru knew perfectly well that it took days to prepare for an evening like this, if not weeks. She tried to convince her captors of this, but they only stared at her blankly.
Finally, Lementeur shook his head. “My dear, it is entirely possible to prepare for a ball in one day—if one is very rich.” He smiled approvingly at Colin. “Very, very rich.”
Pru narrowed her eyes at Colin. “Very, very? But you dress like an accountant! And you were going to fob me off with five pounds?”
He smiled at her grimly. “Always negotiate.”
Swine. Pru folded her arms across her chest. “As you wish, guv. It’ll cost you ten pounds to get me to go to this shindig and not a farthing less.”
Colin’s expression was priceless, but Lementeur only smiled.
“You should have asked for twenty, my dear. As I said, very, very.”
CHAPTER 33
This time it was no rustic inn they checked into. Colin guided them all into an establishment that made Lementeur’s shop seem almost monastic.
Pru followed Colin through the hushed and gilded lobby of the hotel in a daze. Liveried boys came to take her battered valise from her hand. Even Bailiwick was reduced to having his saddlebags carried for him.
And not once, not for a single moment, did any of the hotel staff look twice at their rumpled and worn appearance. They were treated with utmost respect and deference.
Very, very indeed.
Bloody hell!
Pru was shown to a room she would share with Melody, while Evan followed Colin and Bailiwick to the suite next door. A pretty chambermaid ordered her a bath and offered to help her undress. When Pru demurred, the girl curtsied deeply and left her with a steaming tub, a dish of scented soap, and a pile of toweling so luxurious it made Pru throb with acquisitive desire.
Though she’d bathed the day before, she didn’t hesitate to submerge herself into the steaming decadence of the vast tub. Scented soap!
Melody helped her wash her hair and Pru surreptitiously made sure that Gordy Ann “fell” into the tub as well. All in all, the three of them had a lovely girlish time of it.
Afterward, Pru donned the satin dressing gown supplied by the chambermaid and sat down before the mirrored dressing table. Goodness, was that her? She hadn’t had a moment to examine herself in a glass for years.
Well. She wasn’t as plain as she remembered, which was nice to know. Rather more freckles than she’d like. Her mother had recommended lemon juice. With her pockets full of Sir Colin’s very-very, she mused that she just might indulge in a lemon now and then.
She took up the silver bristle brush and began to work it through her hair. As it dried she brushed it smooth and shining over her shoulders.
When a knock came at her door, she jumped up to answer. The borrowed gown was due any moment.
To her surprise, she opened the door on Lementeur himself. He tilted his head and regarded her with open pleasure.
“Oh, my. Yes, indeed.”
In he came, followed by several of the hotel staff toting a large box, a small box, several paper-wrapped parcels, and a leather-strapped case.
“Thank you, thank you.” Lementeur clapped his hands and the minions departed, filing out in the same order in which they had entered. In moments, he had shooed Melody off to Bailiwick next door, where her supper awaited her. “Off with you, Lady Melody. A party with your own personal guard giant. You and Gordy Ann will enjoy yourselves immensely.”
Unbelievably, Melody scuttled off without the tiniest protest.
This is a dream. A very odd, very nice dream. A dream which I am shamelessly going to enjoy to its fullest.
After all, it was only a dream.
Then Lementeur took over and it was all Pru could do to breathe at her own pace. First, he plunked her down at the dressing table and did mysterious things to her hair, which he would not let her see.
Then it became truly strange. Though entirely polite and gentle, Lementeur would brook no demur as he stripped her naked and dressed her from the skin out.
Silk pantalets. Silk chemise. A corset so light and well made that it lifted her bust and refined her waist without restricting her breath or movement in the slightest. Clocked stockings with blue silk garters. An underskirt of cotton batiste so fine that it might as well have been silk.
Then he ordered her to close her eyes. She heard him open the large box. Raising her arms obediently when ordered, she felt him lower a gown over her head and settle it down over her body.
She tried to peek but he would have none of it until he’d done up every last button and even then he insisted on sliding perfectly fitted dancing slippers onto her feet first.
Then
he turned her and positioned her carefully.
“Now you may look.”
Pru opened her eyes. At first she couldn’t grasp that the figure she saw in the oval standing mirror was not some priceless portrait decorating her room.
Then she realized that the flame-haired goddess in the glass was herself.
The gown was blue. Yet to say it so simply was to insult the radiant, iridescent azure silk. With her every tiny movement, it shimmered like moonlight on a pool of water.
The cut was deceptively simple. A graceful Grecian-style bodice appeared to be loosely draped and gathered, but her breasts were supported and displayed with no chance of some unfortunate neckline mishap. However, to the outside observer, her bosom looked as though it was considering its very own debut. The tiny cap sleeves only emphasized her natural assets.
She’d never realized she owned such a lot of creamy, seductive real estate!
Where most gowns hung from a high waist and concealed the lower body, this one clung to every curve as if it were wet. It wasn’t tight in the slightest, yet every time Pru angled her body to see it in the mirror, a new part of her anatomy was briefly and seductively outlined before the silk fell away again. This magnetic effect collaborated with the elegance of the fabric to make one think one was imagining such a shameless display.
The gown, bosom included, was the largest bit of theater. The rest of her appearance was uncomplicated, even plain, yet screamed expensive elegance.
Her hair was wound simply about her head with tiny, curled tendrils “escaping” at her brow and a surprising fall of loosely curling locks down her back. With no ornament save a single blue ribbon, her auburn hair shone like a crown of dark fire.
Her face looked entirely bare of embellishment, except for the divine fact that her freckles had gone missing, yet her eyes had never been so large and darkly mysterious.
Incredible.
She couldn’t help herself. “Bloody hell!”
Lementeur laughed out loud. “Most gratifying, if a tad on the vulgar side. Still, I shall take credit where credit is due. I am a genius. However, you, my dear, are a true beauty.”
Rogue in My Arms: The Runaway Brides Page 23