by Gina Conkle
“My sister and her fascination with men of intellect…be they dead or not. Why waste time on a man who can do nothing for a woman?” She set the basket on the floor and folded herself into the opposite chair, shivering like a child tasting a bad lemon. “Nor do I understand how you like these storms as you do. London is so cold and damp.”
Juliette curled one leg beneath her, revealing a neat ankle under the hems of plush silk underskirts. Black and gold rosettes scattered across the shimmering fabric, connected by twisting green vines.
“Scarlet underskirts today?” Claire sipped her chocolate, her gaze skimming Juliette’s demure outer charcoal gown. “I’m sure you could wear something brighter than your current mode, something to match your underskirts.”
As a nod to her old life, the Frenchwoman wore fine petticoats and the latest cuts in fashion, but she dressed in drab colors when women came for fittings.
“And expect to keep my midtown clientele? Humph. These midtown Englishwomen. They are…” Her tapered fingers fluttered. “What is the word I seek? Boring?”
Claire grinned. “Somber or of sober character would be better.”
The stylish Miss Sauveterre had not mastered the King’s English with quite the same talent as her well-read older sister.
Juliette rolled her eyes. “I know boring. That is the right word, but as you say the somber matrons of midtown would not like their mantua-maker dressed so provocatively.” Her brows rose with suggestion. “Such as the blue-and-silver creation I restored for you…would gain too much male attention, non?”
“That was a courtesan’s gown that you altered for me,” she said, biting back laughter. “My breasts almost fell out.”
“Of course they would.” Juliette slapped the table, laughing. “That is the idea. All the better to lure a man. A certain man, in fact, who dresses well for a rustic.”
Obsidian eyes sparkled at Claire. Juliette embraced life with passion despite her darker circumstances of recent years. Her quick expanse of emotions could be startling at times, which made her skill with needle and thread all the more stunning. The work she did exhibited patient, detailed talent few possessed.
Juliette tapped the box pushed against the window. “And the fact of a gift appearing from a certain man tells me my gown worked some kind of magic.” Lush, Gallic lips pressed together before she added with less enthusiasm, “And you are very lovely too. There is that.”
Claire stifled a smile at the grudging compliment. Juliette Sauveterre preferred to be the most desired woman in any room, but her unexpected friendship was supportive and true, sometimes even zealous the way she prodded Claire to be daring.
She had conspired with Claire about sneaking into the masked ball and forging Mr. Ryland’s signature. The Frenchwoman went as far as to orchestrate certain details, waiting patiently at midnight for Claire in a hack off Piccadilly that fated night.
“If I had known the nature of Mr. Ryland’s appeal, I would have volunteered to seek his signature myself.” Juliette’s accent curled around each word. “And we would not have emerged from his study for days.”
“He could still evict me, and here you are concerned with matters of a sensual nature.”
“Exactement.” Juliette sighed, putting the cup’s rim to her bottom lip, hiding half her wicked smile. “Makes me wish my shop sat on Cornhill instead of Birchin Lane. But he is taken with you. This much is true.”
Taken with me?
She wanted to dig into that idea, but Juliette set her stoneware on the table with a decisive knock on wood.
“And his gift would’ve been opened long ago if I were you.”
Juliette slid the box to the center of the table, her eyes glinting with curiosity when a clamor sounded from below. Claire’s narrow door was wide open. She rose from her chair, her shoe heels tapping bare plank floors. Standing in the doorway, she looked downstairs where soft light glowed from the kitchen.
“Nate? Is anything wrong?” she called.
There was a quiet pause, a scrape of wood against wood, footsteps.
“Knocked over a chair’s all. ’Bout done with the mopping, then I’ll take my leave.” Nate’s voice carried across the shop. “Miss Mayhew, be sure to lock up after me.”
He didn’t poke his head around the corner from the kitchen. He had to be near the shop’s front door, ready to toss out the old mop water. Nate wouldn’t want to walk across wet floors he’d just cleaned.
“Very well. See you in the morning.” She grinned at his admonishing tone.
Threatening rain clouds drove most souls indoors. The door’s lock would be attended to later. Besides, damp air meant the floors would dry slowly, and Juliette’s inviting bread and cheese—fine fare for the unmarried women of midtown—needed some attention first.
An icy draft wrapped around her ankles, all the more reason to shut the door and put coals on the grate to warm her small abode. Juliette chattered on about one of the ladies she had fitted today, and Claire tried to focus but only half listened. She scooped out the porous black chunks from a bucket with a small shovel, careful to seek the smallest pieces, saving the larger ones for cooking and heating the shop tomorrow.
“Are you digging for gold?” Juliette’s fingers drummed the table.
Claire lifted her dark blue shawl from a wall peg and wrapped the wool around her shoulders. As tempting as the box was, other, weightier issues played in her mind.
Money. Or the lack of it.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” She sat across from Juliette again, leaning her elbows on the table. “I have to sell my necklace—tomorrow—if I’m going to make Friday’s rent and pay all the notes due. I don’t think I have enough with what I’ve made each day.”
“Already?” Juliette gasped. “It’s the cabinetmaker, non? The thief charged you twice what he should for tables and benches. You should never have given him a rush request.”
“It’s not that.” Claire pulled her shawl tighter. “I haven’t kept close attention to my spending. The bad coffee beans…the cost of spices has gone up, Annie’s taking longer to master the recipes, burning too many baked goods…” Her voice trailed off. “Everything has added up to be more than I expected.”
“These troubles are why you were so”—Juliette’s face clouded a brief second—“ah…distracted today?” Her lips pursed. “Then it is good you have the necklace.”
“Yes, except I thought I wouldn’t need to sell it this soon. Mr. Ryland was right on one score,” she said archly. “I do need to track my funds better.”
Juliette nudged the box closer to Claire. “Or perhaps he has something for you, something that will solve all your problems.”
Claire examined the wood grain of the simple box, his gift to her. “I don’t want a man to solve my problems.”
“But a dalliance would do you good. Put color in your cheeks.”
“I find it amusing, Miss Sauveterre, how you have no problem mastering English words alluding to sexual congress,” she teased. “And a man putting color in my cheeks got me into considerable trouble in the past, remember?”
That earned her a disapproving moue. Juliette waved her hand dramatically.
“So, your Mr. Ryland wants to get under your skirts. Getting lost in mindless sensual pleasure? Humph. What a hardship.” Dark eyes flashed at Claire. “Just open it.”
“I’m guessing he gave me an account book.” Claire pulled on the red silk. “Or could be he’s returning my shoe in some grand gesture.”
She unwound the ribbon and let the silk drop to the table. Her fingers caressed the box’s smooth wood—walnut, by the grain and soft brown color. Someone had lovingly crafted the small chest. Was this a jewelry box? Juliette’s dark head bent close, but Claire turned the hinged side toward her friend. She wished suddenly to open the box in private. Too late for that now.
&n
bsp; The last gift she opened from a man was the necklace from Jonathan, then heir to the Greenwich earldom. His gift was a form of penance…payment, for taking her virginity with the false promise of marriage.
And then deserting her to attend ladies who made better candidates to be his wife.
Yet, for all the pain of her past, she couldn’t imagine Cyrus Ryland giving a woman false promises. He was too blunt for that.
And then she raised the lid.
She gasped. One hand touched her lips. “Strawberries,” she said, her voice featherlight.
Bright red, the tempting flesh, shiny and plump with tiny, vivid green leaves. Inside, a folded missive rested atop the pile of luscious fruit.
“Strawberries?” Juliette angled her head for a better view.
Juliette studied her and the red berries likely trying to gauge Claire’s reaction to the unusual gift. Her friend must have expected something hard and glittering, stones of the expensive variety, not something soft and temporal, or unique and personal as a favored fruit.
Claire lifted a single, plump strawberry to her nose, smelling the sweet fragrance; satisfaction filled her, as desirable as the delicious aroma. Taking a slow bite, she savored the crunch of what had to be the product of Mr. Ryland’s hothouse, since strawberry season was over for the rest of England.
Juice squished, and she licked her lips. Most of the berries were intact, with a few slightly damaged from their sojourn to her table.
What this meant went far beyond a box of fruit.
The ball. Her delight at the bowl of strawberries.
He remembered.
For a man to carry with him a small, personal detail of a woman’s happiness and then act on it?
One hand touched the exposed skin below her collarbone. Those storm-gray eyes of his saw too much. She pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders, but no amount of cloth could cover her from being bared to him. What other intimate details did Cyrus Ryland store away about her?
Her spirits lightened with this startling revelation, but Juliette flopped back in her chair, bemused.
“There is a note. A billet-doux, perhaps,” Juliette suggested, pointing at the small folded paper. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
Claire set down the half-eaten berry and unfolded the note. Outside, light rain dropped from the heavens, tapping her window. The words on paper were few and personal and as devastating as the surprise of the strawberries.
“Oh my,” she murmured, holding the paper close for privacy.
She didn’t expect flowery, poetic language, but his words reached out, brushing tender, feminine places with shocking, seductive intent. She read and reread the brief missive to make sure she hadn’t missed his meaning. But with Cyrus Ryland, blunt was best.
“Aren’t you going to let me see?” Juliette’s voice pitched higher.
Claire set the sheet on the table so both could view the note’s single line. Juliette’s lips moved while she read the message under her breath.
I find your forbidden fruit most desirable of all.
Cyrus
Seven
Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life. Security is an insipid thing.
William Congreve, Love for Love
The necklace was gone.
Claire rubbed her forehead, pushing back her mobcap. This had to be a mistake. She missed the baubles somewhere amongst the roasted coffee beans.
Look again.
She stood on tiptoe at her counter, digging deeper in the ceramic jar. Hard, roasted coffee beans trickled through her fingers, but the pale aquamarine stones failed to show. She looked wildly around the shop, not more than a dozen patrons sat within the brick walls, sipping their midday brew.
Did someone take them?
Frantic hands dumped the weighty, earthen vessel upside down. Brown beans clattered across the counter and some fell to the floor.
Inside the jar? Nothing.
Numb, she stared into the distance, grateful for the counter holding her up. Rain blew across Cornhill, squalls of wetness smearing the front window. Outside, a few brave souls traversed midtown, hunched blurs holding down their hats as they passed her shop.
The front window. Yesterday.
Nate and Mr. Ryland. The flash of a gold coin passed between them.
Did Mr. Ryland pay Nate to steal her necklace?
She inhaled, a sharp hiss of breath. Last night…the noise below stairs. Was that when Nate searched for her modest jewels? Her pile of bad news kept growing. Everything turned bleaker without the necklace to pay her rent, the notes due. How would she secure her future?
A harsh laugh caught in her throat. Her future wouldn’t matter if she ended up languishing in debtor’s prison.
Her mind bounced between encroaching fear and mounting evidence. A tumble of facts buzzed around her head, working to lay themselves in a neat but unforgiving line.
Nate failed to show up today. Noon had come and gone. Where was he?
He’d mentioned a time or two a life of thievery in St. Giles, “small and insignificant thefts” he’d called them, the kind where no one ever got hurt. Recalling those words, she laughed darkly. A few patrons turned their heads her way before going back to their conversations.
Could such a thing be true? Crimes done, transgressions committed…and no one gets hurt?
But the dear lad had started here, working hard, making a new life for himself. Claire rubbed her forehead, her face crumpling when she looked to her rain-splattered window.
“Oh, Nate, how could you?” she whispered.
An aching throb started where her fingers made slow circles. Everything hit her, a spin of too much to absorb all at once. But she had to. And top among her problems? Nate’s theft. His betrayal of her trust hurt just as much as the knowledge that he’d gone back to his old life.
And the cascade of thoughts kept pouring over her.
Her forgery.
Mr. Ryland’s staunch belief an unmarried woman had no business being in business, putting out her own shingle.
Her mouth twisted. And there was his wish to get under her skirts.
Did Mr. Ryland use his money and influence with Nate? Did he think he’d back her into a corner? And in a desperate state she’d say yes to anything he asked of her?
If she put the parts together correctly, her landlord lured a young man scraping by, striving for a better life. Of course the temptation would be too much.
She didn’t know what hurt worse: bitter disappointment in finding Mr. Ryland to be dishonorable or Nate breaking her heart by choosing to return to his old way of life.
Oh, the choice words she’d have for Mr. Ryland.
“I say, Miss Mayhew, are you well?” a male voice spoke, pulling her from the fog.
Claire blinked, refocusing on the space in front of her. A florid face framed by an outdated, gray yarn wig, the wig of her most steady patron.
“Mr. Cogsworth,” she said, brushing coffee beans away from the counter’s edge.
“Having a fit of the vapors?” His hoary brows twitched. “Perhaps a rest would do you good.”
Dear Mr. Cogsworth, a good man and an energetic trader, married almost thirty years and raised five daughters. He’d likely seen the vapors a time or two, but this wasn’t a fainting spell about to happen.
“Thank you, sir, but I’m fine.” She gave him a brittle smile.
Mr. Cogsworth’s slack eyelids drooped all the more. The dear man didn’t believe her one second, but he nodded briskly, allowing her false assurance.
“Then let me help clean this up.” He scooped beans back into the container, flashing wary looks at her now and then.
His smile, marked by a gap between front teeth, had become a welcome sight every day. Some men could be counted on in life, sturdy and dependable. Men lik
e Mr. Cogsworth. Together, they had most of the counter cleaned when Annie appeared from the kitchen with a large plate of warm biscuits. Her shoes crunched beans on the floor.
“Gor, Miss Mayhew, what happened here?” Annie put the plate down and grabbed the broom leaning against the brick wall.
Claire poured a fresh cup of coffee for Mr. Cogsworth, her mind spinning with what to do next. The stack of notes was due at the end of the week…three days from now. What was she going to do about that? She had no clue, but one small act of kindness deserved another, thus she slipped biscuits on a plate for her most faithful patron.
“For your thoughtful assistance, Mr. Cogsworth.”
“If there’s anything I can do for you, Miss Mayhew,” he said, balancing his plate and mug in both hands.
Mr. Cogsworth lingered, his heavy jowls clenching and unclenching as though he wanted to say more. She turned her attention to the road outside her shop, stone-like resolve forming a plan.
“There is one thing,” she said, her voice level. “I need a hack. Would you fetch one for me? I’ve an urgent errand.”
Mr. Cogsworth cast a hesitating glance at the storm beyond the front window. He mumbled something placating but did her bidding and set his mug and plate on his table. The trader girded himself against the storm, his stare beetling from her to the turbulence outside before he sought the door. Claire whipped her cloak off its peg and wrapped herself inside thin wool, insufficient armor against the tempest, but it would have to do.
Annie swept the coffee bean mess into a tidy pile. Her pale blue eyes bulged under her mobcap when Claire scooped a handful of coins from the till and dumped them in her apron pocket.
She nearly cleaned out her funds.
Then, she produced an iron key from her other pocket.
“Annie, I need you to mind the shop.” The key dangled by a makeshift cheesecloth ribbon. “I don’t know how long I’ll be.”
She fixed the hood on her head, preparing for the turmoil ahead.
* * *