Vixen in Velvet

by Loretta Chase

  “Meet them?” Leonie looked about the consulting room, exasperation clear in every feature.

  That, he realized was unusual. She was always so guarded. Except in lovemaking.

  “I can’t leave the shop!” she said. “Not today, of all days. It will look as though we’ve abandoned it.”

  “Never mind that your customers have abandoned you,” he said.

  “He doesn’t understand,” she said. “He tries. He understands to a point, but he never had to work for a living. He doesn’t—” She shook her head. “He lives his life as a duke, that’s all, and he assumes we’ll live as a duke’s family. Did he hurt you much?”

  “A glancing blow, no more,” Lisburne said. He caught himself before he tested the sore place on his jaw where His Grace had made contact—and where he might have done substantial damage had Lisburne been an instant slower to dodge. “We’re too evenly matched, and we hadn’t time to assess each other’s weak points. Still, I noted a slight redness at the top of Clevedon’s right cheekbone. With any luck, it’ll turn into a black eye. But speaking of injuries”—he pointed to the place in his jaw—“I detect some throbbing, after all. Perhaps you could kiss it and make it better.”

  Leonie moved away. “Not during business hours.”

  He glanced at the chaise longue and away and suppressed a sigh.

  “Well, then, business,” he said. “I’d just as soon not have to argue with Clevedon over every detail of what’s to be done. He can be intolerably overbearing. Ducal, as you said. If you’ll tell me your plan, I promise to listen attentively and be as good as gold.”

  If he stood too close, he’d catch her scent. Then he wouldn’t be as good as gold.

  He moved away to the looking glass and examined himself. Nothing horribly out of order. Everything buttoned and tied properly. His boots gleamed. His hair was a trifle disordered and his neckcloth wasn’t right, thanks to the contretemps with Clevedon. But he discerned no signs of careless desolation.

  He heard a little giggle, quickly smothered. He turned.

  Her expression was sober, but he knew she was amused to see him playing Narcissus—he who always left it to his valet to fuss over his appearance.

  She looked down at her piece of paper.

  “Have you made two columns?” he said. “Drawn with a ruler?”

  “Yes, of course,” she said. “For one thing, I had to weigh the pros and cons of summoning Sophy. The cons outnumber the pros. I won’t bore you with them. She’d find a way to turn the furor to our advantage, I don’t doubt. But we have strong reasons against her returning quite yet. And so I believe the best way for all of us to recover is find out the truth. Shall I explain my reasons?”

  He wondered why Sophy, who seemed so important to the shop, needed to stay away. He’d heard stories about her and Longmore, but nothing, apart from a bridal trip, that explained an enforced absence.

  He knew it was no good asking. Leonie could be amazingly direct and open. If she wasn’t, she wasn’t, and that was the end of it.

  “I want the truth about Swanton’s mystery woman, too,” he said. “But my reasons are obvious. I’d like to hear yours.”

  “They’re simple enough,” she said. “If we discover that Lord Swanton is in the wrong, he’ll make amends. This is good for us. Since Maison Noirot and the Milliners’ Society are now associated with him, we’ll be associated with doing the right thing. People love confessions and redemption.”

  “They like hangings, too.”

  “I hope it won’t come to that, even if we discover a fraud,” she said. “But first we have to find out which it is.”

  He hadn’t the least doubt she’d enumerated possible courses of action for every possible outcome.

  “I’ll be happy to beat the truth out of Theaker and Meffat,” he said. “While I don’t require help, I believe Clevedon would be overjoyed to assist. That would present a good way of—er—mending our fences. I don’t like to be at odds with him.”

  He hated it. He especially hated knowing he’d deserved Clevedon’s attack.

  “He’s tetchier these days because of Marcelline,” she said. “But I should prefer to reserve beating for a last resort. I’d rather find the woman.”

  “Except for Theaker and Meffat, nobody knows who she is,” he said. “She might be anywhere. We don’t know her name. I didn’t even get a good look at her.”

  “I got the number of the hackney,” she said.

  He blinked once, surprised. Then he saw how stupid he was to be surprised. She was logical and orderly and good with numbers. She’d had the presence of mind—or the recklessness—or both—to follow Theaker and the woman, while Lisburne and Swanton had dithered, chasing their own tails.

  “Do you know how many hackneys ply the London streets?” he said. “Over a thousand. They might be anywhere at any time of the day. Or night.”

  “Fenwick knows most of the hackney coachmen,” she said. “I’m sure I mentioned this.”

  He remembered then. Her sister Sophy had found Fenwick on the streets. The boy liked horses, and made friends with grooms and hackney coachmen. Leonie had told him this. Last night.

  Before the very nice interlude.

  “We still don’t know much about Fenwick,” she said. “He’s a clam about his past. But we do know he’s well acquainted with London’s less elegant population. I sent him out to track down our woman in black.”

  “You sent the boy who wears the gorgeous livery, who speaks his own peculiar version of English,” he said. Lisburne’s mind wasn’t working as well as it ought. It drifted to the chaise longue. It wandered upstairs, to the sitting room. He remembered undressing her. The delicious forever it had taken. The touching gesture of modesty when she’d held the corset over her beautiful breasts . . . the complete lack of modesty and self-consciousness afterward.

  “The people he’ll be talking to understand him well enough,” she said. “This won’t be the first time he’s helped us find a missing person. We must hope he does it quickly. Almack’s last assembly is tomorrow night. People will remain in Town after that, but by the end of the month, they’ll be scattering.”

  “Ten days,” he said.

  “We can’t afford ten days with no customers,” she said. She paused and moved away, to pick up a bit of ribbon from a chair. Since she’d had no customers today, it must be debris from last night.

  Last night. Last night.

  He could close the door. No customers. Her employees worked on the floor below. He could take her behind the curtain . . .

  “I may be forced to sell the Botticelli,” she said.

  Lisburne’s face was a picture.

  His mind had been elsewhere, Leonie knew, and she had a good idea where. Her mind wanted to go there, too. Her body, actually. Straight into his arms. More of what they’d done last night. She’d dreamed such beautiful, wicked dreams.

  But this was full day, a dreadful day, and dreams were for the night, like lovemaking. Dreams, like lovemaking, were for escaping.

  She couldn’t escape now. She had an immense, dangerous problem to solve. If she didn’t solve it, she’d lose everything that mattered, everything she and her sisters had worked and risked and struggled for. She’d lose all that Cousin Emma had given them, and it would be like seeing her die again.

  Leonie had to keep her mind on business.

  Lisburne was pleasure. No, to her he was a great deal more. She’d fallen in love and given herself gladly, and she’d do it again and again until he was done with her. Or until some miracle occurred and she was cured and was done with him.

  But business came first, last, and always. She had a disaster to recover from, and not a minute to lose.

  “The Botticelli,” he said.

  “Our wager?” she said. “Lady Gladys? Beaux and proposals and invitations by the end of the m
onth? Do you recollect?”

  His green gaze narrowed. “I recollect. Two weeks with you. Your undivided attention. No business.”

  “If matters continue as they are, I’ll have no business,” she said.

  “How the devil do you propose to win, if the ladies won’t come to the shop?” he said. “Gladys resides with Lady Warford, you know, while her father the great general is abroad, getting soldiers killed somewhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re related by marriage. If you were Clara’s own sister, and had got yourself into a scandal, Lady Warford would send you away to live with the sheep on a desolate island off the coast of Scotland, and Clara would be forbidden to even write to you.”

  “Lady Gladys must come to the shop,” she said. “We’ve two promenade dresses, a ball dress, and a dinner dress for her. And Joanie Barker has made a splendid hat. Sophy is a genius with millinery, and Joanie is her protégée.”

  “Where the devil is Sophy, then, if she’s so indispensable?”

  “Where she needs to stay,” Leonie said. She remembered what Clevedon had said about Longmore racing back to London to kill Swanton. It couldn’t happen within hours, though. They were in Scotland at present. “I’d better write to her, and send it express. I’ll tell her everything is in hand, and she’s not to come and complicate matters.”

  She started toward the door. Lisburne caught her by the arm, an easy light grasp. But she felt the warmth and pressure everywhere, especially in the place where they’d come together last night.

  “I haven’t the least expectation of losing my Botticelli,” he said. “But I want you to have a sporting chance. Do you want me to write to Longmore? Or talk to him, if that’s feasible.”

  What could she do? She brought her hand up to his cheek. He turned his head and kissed the palm of her hand. “I want to help,” he said. “And I don’t want to sit about waiting for Fenwick to report. Shall I present myself to Longmore so that he can attempt to kill me?”

  “You’re more useful alive and undamaged.” Leonie drew her hand away. “If I write, Sophy will listen, and she’ll manage him—or render him unconscious if necessary. I need you here in London.”

  “That sounds so promising,” he said. “But I have a feeling you mean something other than what I’m thinking.”

  “I need a spy,” she said.

  “Does that mean I report to you, in disguise, in the dead of night?”

  It was the low, insinuating voice. It was the hint of a smile. It was the way he drew nearer and the way his head bent and the way he seemed aware of nothing else in the world but her.

  She could not have him come here again in the dead of night. She couldn’t risk it, not at present.

  She was a businesswoman, first, last, and always.

  But she was as well, like all her kind, a gambler.

  “Don’t let anybody see you,” she said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Almack’s.—The ball on Wednesday evening closed a most brilliant season. Dancing commenced, a little after eleven o’clock, to Collinet’s fine band, with Musard’s quadrilles ‘Les Gondeliers Venetiens,’ which were followed by the waltzes ‘le Soufle du Zephir,’ and the favourite ‘Les Souvenirs de Vienne.’ In the course of the evening ‘Les Puritans, Rome,’ &c., were performed in admirable style. At four o’clock the ball terminated, when the band struck up ‘God save the King.’

  —Court Journal, 25 July 1835

  Almack’s

  Early Thursday morning

  Though by now he’d observed enough of the new Gladys to be past shock, Lisburne was nonetheless taken aback to see her dancing with Crawford. One of the Earl of Longmore’s hard-living cronies, and owning neither a sharp intellect nor much in the way of wit, Crawford was nonetheless popular with women, because he was one of London’s best dancers.

  He was dancing with Gladys, of whom Lisburne recalled somebody writing, during her first Season, “she puts one painfully in mind of a dancing bear decked out in silks, lace, and a king’s ransom in jewelry.”

  Crawford had engaged her for a quadrille, and he was smiling, and so was she, moving as easily through the figures as any other young woman. Lady Alda stood not far away, avidly watching, her head turning this way and that, and occasionally disappearing behind her fan when she whispered one of her barbed comments to whoever was at hand.

  When the steps brought Crawford and Gladys together, Gladys said something and he smiled. Then he said something. She laughed, and a great many gazes turned that way, Lady Alda’s included. Lisburne noticed a number of puzzled looks and some appreciative ones. Lady Alda’s expression soured.

  Gladys had a pretty laugh, surprisingly warm, Lisburne realized. Not a titter. Not trying for a tinkling sound. Not feigned in any way. It came from within, a happy sound, and it seemed to make its hearer happy.

  A voice, he knew, could be a powerful tool.

  He’d learned to use his to command servants, to be taken seriously by men twice and thrice his age, and of course to win over women. Certainly Gladys’s seemed to have captured Swanton’s imagination. But he was extreme in everything. Lisburne found it agreeable, no more.

  Leonie’s voice was another story altogether. There was the brisk, businesslike tone he found so perversely arousing. But even more delicious was her private voice, the one not everybody heard. The low, suggestive chuckle wasn’t for public consumption. Neither was the way she’d look at him from the corner of her eye, a ghost of a smile curving her lips . . .

  And he couldn’t let himself dwell on that, even though he hadn’t seen her since Tuesday afternoon.

  As he’d done at Lady Eddingham’s ball last night, at various clubs this day, and at dinner at Lady Gorrell’s not many hours earlier, he was here to gather information. Clevedon was doing the same, but elsewhere. Lisburne hoped the duke was having better luck, in both senses, at Crockford’s and whatever other gaming establishment he meant to visit this night.

  Lisburne had never acquired a taste for gambling. A game of cards now and again was good fun, but gaming hells held little allure.

  Tonight he’d undertaken Almack’s duty instead. His job was to flirt and dance with the foremost gossips. Next on his list was a waltz with Lady Alda Morris.

  He watched Crawford lead Gladys back to her place, where Lady Warford presided as chaperon. Thence Geddings returned Clara. Several men loitered in the vicinity. Crawford lingered, talking to Gladys. Flinton advanced to claim his dance with . . . Gladys. Someone else led out Clara. Herringstone.

  It was hard to be certain, but Crawford, Flinton, and Geddings seemed to be in Gladys’s circle. Or at least dividing their time between her and Clara.

  All Gladys needed was six beaux, three invitations to country houses, and one marriage proposal, and the Botticelli would have a new home after the exhibition.

  But the odds were still in Lisburne’s favor. Gladys had only eight days to meet the wager’s conditions. Meanwhile, she seemed to be doing well enough socially, a success Lisburne didn’t begrudge her.

  But he would very much begrudge losing his two weeks with Leonie. Her undivided attention . . .

  . . . which wouldn’t be undivided if they couldn’t put the Vauxhall incident to rest before then.

  And so he made himself fix his mind on Lady Alda, whose acidic look vanished when he came to lead her out.

  “How sorry I’ll be to see the Season end,” she said when they’d begun dancing. “Lady Gladys has enlivened it so.”

  “Has she, indeed?” he said. “I’ve seen her only in passing lately.” He paused. “Though, like everybody else, I’ve kept up with her doings and sayings, thanks to the Spectacle.”

  “There’s no predicting what astonishing thing she’ll say,” Lady Alda said. “I know some say it’s pert and unladylike to express opinions so forcefully. But we may acquit her of the charge of being too eager to
please, may we not? Some might say her dress is too mature for her, but I say a lady is wise to dress as suits her figure. Her dancing has improved, do you not think? She keeps time less awkwardly than she used to do, and I’m sure that if she continues to practice hard with a good dancing master, she’ll bend her arms with better grace. But Mr. Crawford always makes his partners look well. Lord Flinton, too, I see. It’s the mark of a good dancer, isn’t it?”

  This monologue went on at intervals, as the steps brought them together.

  A poem came to Lisburne’s mind—not one of Swanton’s, but one Swanton liked to quote. One of Mrs. Abdy’s comic creations. What was it? Something about a friend, and filled with similar backhanded compliments. Very likely Leonie would know the poem.

  Lisburne remembered the way she’d acted out “The Second Son” at the Western Athenaeum. He tried to imagine what her rendition of the friendship poem would be like.

  He became aware of Lady Alda’s expectant gaze, and realized she was waiting for him to say she was grace personified, no matter who partnered her. In another time and place he would have said the right words without thinking. At present, for some reason, he couldn’t put a sentence together, and the moment passed in an awkward silence.

  “I’m so very glad on your account that the patronesses chose to overlook the dreadful scene at Vauxhall on Monday night,” she said.

  She’d used the silence, evidently, to gather her breath for another blast of ill wind.

  “This is the last Almack’s ball of the Season,” he said. “It’s hardly worth the effort to pitch out undesirables.”

  She protested that he was not undesirable. She tittered. He knew flirtation was expected. He liked flirting. It was one of his favorite things.

  Yet his mind went blank, and the best he could manage was a politely amused thanks.

  They went on dancing, mute for a time, then, “I notice that Lord Swanton has chosen to absent himself,” she said. “It seems he declined to test the patronesses’ forbearance.”

  “He’s not the only one,” Lisburne said. “I see no signs of Theaker. He was prominent in the Vauxhall performance, too.”