Part 18 (1/2)

Noirot folded her hands and, while Clevedon and Clara watched, astonished, her eyes filled. The tears hung there, glistening, but did not fall. She said, ”Dearest Mama, I know you do not wish for me to be mortified in front of all my acquaintance. And here,” Noirot added in a more normal voice, ”be sure to mention somebody your mother loathes. And when her ladys.h.i.+p says this is all nonsense, as she well might, you will tell her about the French gentleman who was mad in love with a married woman-”

”That isn't the sort of thing for Clara to-”

”Pray let her finish,” Clara said. ”You're the one who brought me to this aggravating person, and I've steeled myself to suffer with her in order to be beautiful.”

”Your ladys.h.i.+p is already beautiful,” Noirot said. ”How many times must I repeat it? That's what's so infuriating. A perfect diamond must have the perfect setting. A masterpiece must have the perfect frame. A-”

”Yes, yes, but we know that argument won't work with Mama. What about the gentleman and the married woman?”

”His friends reasoned with him, pleaded with him-all in vain,” Noirot said. ”Then, one night, at an entertainment, the lady asked him to fetch her shawl. He hastened to serve her, imagining the silken softness of a cashmere shawl, the scent of the woman he loved enhancing its perfection...”

Clevedon remembered Noirot's scent, the memory reawakened only minutes ago: the scent her bonnet held. He remembered inhaling her, his face in her neck.

”. . . a cashmere shawl that would put all the other ladies' cashmeres to shame. He found the garment but-quelle horreur!-not cashmere at all. Rabbit hair! Sick with disgust, he fell instantly and permanently out of love, and abandoned her.”

Clara stared at her. ”You're roasting me,” she said.

Clevedon collected himself and said, ”You'll find the anecdote in Lady Morgan's book about France. It was published some years ago, but the principle remains. I wish you'd seen my friend Aronduille's face when I asked him whether it mattered what a woman wore. I wish you could have heard him and his friends talking about it, quoting philosophers, arguing about Ingres and Balzac and Stendhal and David, art and fas.h.i.+on, the meaning of beauty, and so on.”

Clara glanced at him, then returned to Noirot. ”Well, then, I shall try it, and I shall say it is all because Clevedon is so infernally discriminating, worse even than Longmore-”

”Clara would it not be better if you-”

”But what am I to wear to Almack's tomorrow night?” Clara said. ”You've rejected everything.”

Almack's, he thought. Another dreary evening among the same people. He would have to pluck Clara from her hordes of admirers and dance with her. Whatever she wore, he would know Noirot had touched it.

He said, ”Since no one was being murdered, and I seem to be de trop-”

”Not at all, your grace,” Noirot said. ”You've arrived in the nick of time. Her ladys.h.i.+p has been remarkably patient and open-minded, considering that I've upset her universe.”

”You have, rather,” Clara said.

”But here is his grace, come to take you for a drive. Fresh air, the very thing you need after this trying morning and afternoon.”

”But Almack's-”

”I shall send you a dress tomorrow,” Noirot said. ”I or one of my sisters will personally deliver it to you, at not later than seven o'clock, at which time we shall make any final adjustments you require. The dress will be perfect.”

”But my mother-”

”You will have already dealt with her, as I suggested,” Noirot said.

Clara looked at Clevedon. ”She is the most dictatorial creature,” she said.

”His grace has been so kind as to mention this character flaw before,” Noirot said with nary a glance at Clevedon. ”I serve women of fas.h.i.+on all day long, six days a week. One must either dominate or be dominated.”

Ah, there it was: the disarming frankness, leavened with a touch of humor.

Gad, she was beyond anything!

”I have had enough of being dominated for the present,” Clara said. ”Clevedon, pray be patient another few minutes, and I shall be glad to take the air with you. I promise to be back in a trice. Mrs. Noirot has left me a few paltry items she finds not completely abhorrent. My maid shall not have any momentous decisions to make regarding bonnets or anything else.”

She started toward the door, and hesitated. Then, with the look of one who'd made up her mind, she went out.

She had exactly what she wanted, Marcelline told herself. More than she'd hoped for. She hadn't even had to wait for the betrothal. She had Lady Clara already, and a large order. Tomorrow night, the creme de la creme of Society would see Lady Clara Fairfax wearing a Noirot creation.

Maison Noirot would soon be the foremost dressmaking establishment in London.

Marcelline had accomplished everything-and more-than she'd planned when she set out for Paris, mere weeks ago.

She could not be happier.

She told herself this while she set about sorting the various rejected items of Lady Clara's wardrobe.

”Are you going to burn them?” came Clevedon's voice from the corner to which he'd withdrawn.

”Certainly not,” she said.

”But they have no redeeming qualities,” he said. ”I should never have noticed the poor choices in color before you poisoned my mind, but even I can discern inferior cut and st.i.tchery.”

”They can be taken apart and remade,” Marcelline said. ”I am a patroness of a charitable establishment for women. Her ladys.h.i.+p was so generous as to allow me to take half the discards for my girls.”

”Your girls,” he said. ”You-you're a philanthropist?” He laughed.

She longed to throw something at him.

A chair. Herself.

But that was her shallow Noirot heart speaking. He was beautiful. Watching him move made her mouth go dry. It wasn't fair that she couldn't have him without complications. In bed-or on a carriage seat or against a wall-it wouldn't matter that he was idle and arrogant and oblivious. If only she could simply use him and discard him, the way men used and discarded women.

But she couldn't. And she'd used him already, though not in that way. She'd used him in a more important way. She'd got what she'd wanted.

A maid entered, and Marcelline spent a moment directing her. When she went out again with a heap of clothing, Marcelline did not take up the conversation where it had stopped. She did not take up the conversation at all.

She wouldn't let him disturb her in any way. She was very, very happy. She'd achieved her goals.

”Which set of unfortunate women is it?” he said. ”I'll tell my secretary to make a donation. If they can make anything of those dresses, they'll have earned it.”

”The Milliners' Society for the Education of Indigent Females.” She could have added that she and her sisters had founded it last year. They'd learned at an early age more than they wanted to know about indigence and the difficulties of earning a living.

But her past was a secret under lock and key. ”Some of our girls have gone on to become ladies' maids,” she said. ”The majority find places as seamstresses, for which there's always need, particularly during mourning periods.” Luckily for them, the court was frequently in mourning, thanks to the British royal family's penchant for marrying their Continental cousins.

The butler entered, followed by a footman carrying a tray of refreshments to sustain his grace during the wait for her ladys.h.i.+p.

Marcelline was famished. She'd been waiting on Lady Clara since this morning, and had not been offered a bite to eat or anything to drink. But mere tradesmen did not merit feeding.

Oh, would the girl never be dressed? How long did it take to tie on a bonnet and throw a shawl about one's shoulders? One would think, given her anxieties about Marcelline ruining his life, Lady Clara would not leave them alone together for above half a minute.

But they were hardly alone, with servants going to and fro. Not that Lady Clara had anything to worry about, servants or no servants.