Dawn with a Duke: 12 Dukes of Christmas #9

by Erica Ridley

  Morning sun streamed through the large window on the final wall. Unlike the red bricks outside his bedroom window, this direction faced a sweeping panorama of snow-covered hills adorned with frost-tipped evergreens.

  Calvin had only glanced through the pane once since his arrival. His interest did not lie in the out-of-doors, but rather the trunks of treasures he had arranged indoors. The best part about the window was not the view, but the influx of sunlight. He needed to take advantage of every hour of natural light possible.

  He made his way to Duke, the tall, broad-shouldered wicker manikin modeling Calvin’s latest prototype. He couldn’t wait for Jonathan to see this one.

  Jonathan MacLean was a clever business partner, a talented artist, and persuasive speaker. The gregarious Scot had not only convinced Calvin to agree to dedicating months of his life to this risky venture, but also captured the interest of a wealthy prospective sponsor, whose investment and influence would turn this project from a dream into reality.

  Calvin grinned at Duke, and began adjusting the pins holding the lay figure’s raffish evening wear in place.

  Despite the elegant wickerwork figure’s lordly title, the intended audience for Calvin’s designs was not aristocrats, but ordinary men like him. Dukes and earls already had their preferred tailors, some of them famous like Schweitzer and Davidson, who outfitted dandies like Brummel.

  Calvin’s creations weren’t bespoke designs customized to the individual client, but rather sophisticated but accessible styles meant to be produced on a grand scale and sold as-was in clothiers well off Bond Street. One could enter a millinery shop in Yorkshire or perhaps a draper in Cornwall and rent or purchase marvelous, already tailored, full evening dress for the monthly ball in one’s local assembly rooms.

  Or, if Jonathan were to be believed, he and Calvin would sell directly to customers all across the nation via seasonal catalogs, just as they now ordered books or seeds.

  Men and women already thumbed through repositories such as Ackermann’s and La Belle Assemblée to gawk hungrily at the magnificent styles they could never afford. Why not give them something they could?

  Pins protruded from the corner of his mouth as he adjusted the fit of the manikin’s waistcoat. Men were going to covet this style.

  Calvin would create the designs and prototypes, Jonathan would sketch and color the advertisements. They’d employ local seamstresses and textile workers for the actual manufacturing, and the money would pour in like the tide. The “Fit for a Duke” line of men’s apparel would be as popular as bread and butter by springtime. Aspirational fashion at affordable prices.

  Although a fundamental tenet of their operation was no custom orders, for the discerning client all was not lost. The hems were sewn generously enough that each item could be taken out or in, as the wearer’s body required. All material sumptuous, but sturdy.

  If one did not have access to a tailor, perhaps one’s wife or sister or the aspiring gentleman himself could arrange his own alterations. If it were not as neatly done as Schweitzer and Davidson did, who would know? The wearer would not be rubbing shoulders with actual viscounts and marquesses. He’d merely look like he could, in the eyes of his compatriots.

  It would be enough.

  The appearance of wealth held almost as much power.

  Calvin knew this magic firsthand. His impeccable attire was the armor that protected him since he was a child. The thought that others might need it too had been the spark behind this project. For years, it had remained a favorite dream, until he’d confessed the idea to Jonathan.

  Jonathan had not only seen the potential at once, he’d also outlined a dozen ways to make it even better. Calvin wanted to create affordable, aspirational fashion? Let’s call the company Fit for a Duke, and present each offering as though it were a fashion plate. Calvin wanted to stay behind the curtain, perfecting the product but never speaking to prospective clients? Perfect! Jonathan loved meeting new people, and could sell hair combs to a bald man. They’d be off and running in no time at all.

  Success was so close Calvin could smell it. His longest, dearest dream, mere weeks from coming true. All he had to do was survive a painfully awkward in-person meeting with a wealthy investor, whose contribution—if Calvin’s prototypes and Jonathan’s sample advertisements were compelling enough—would determine whether Fit for a Duke launched to the stars, or sputtered out like the last gasp of a candle.

  It would be good enough, damn it all. Calvin was unwilling to accept otherwise. The talent was there. The costumes were gorgeous.

  He set his shears atop a tall stack of Jonathan’s sketches. When they met in a couple of days to go over the latest prototypes, they’d choose the best sketches together. Jonathan would color each illustration to Calvin’s specifications and arrange them like a fashion repository, presenting it to the investor as their inaugural catalog. Every household in England would recognize their names and the distinctive lettering of Fit for a Duke.

  All Calvin had to do was create a few more immaculate designs, get to the meeting on time, and not say or do anything awkward to cock up the investment opportunity. His future and Jonathan’s depended on everything going perfectly.

  There was no room for even the tiniest mistake.

  Chapter 6

  Belle never imagined that looking presentable would one day be a daunting challenge.

  The first steps were deceivingly easy. Bathing herself was nothing new, nor was sliding on a linen shift. But that was as far as she could go.

  Once Mr. McAlistair had unfastened her buttons, she’d managed to step out of her dress and slowly, painstakingly, loosened her stays, with a lot of wiggling and her arms twisted uncomfortably behind her to tug at the lacing.

  Putting it back on by herself? Impossible. She did possess short demi-stays that laced in the front, but those were only used at home in the hottest days of summer, so of course she had not packed them for a winter holiday in the northernmost corner of England.

  Asking handsome Mr. McAlistair to kindly fasten a few buttons was scandalous enough. She could not possibly stroll into a corridor with an expensive gown draped over one arm to request that the guest in the chamber next door first lace up her stays.

  But if she went without... Belle gazed dubiously at her mint-striped sarcenet with its French ruff. Women needed their stays if there was to be any hope of the right silhouette. The boning didn’t nip in one’s midsection, but the ivory busk running down one’s torso ensured proper posture and separated one’s breasts, which were held improbably high by stiff, gravity-defying cotton half-cups. Without the stays to keep one’s bosom in place, the carefully tailored bodice would be a disorderly, bouncing mess.

  “Then mess it is,” she muttered, as she slipped her day dress directly over her shift.

  Without stays, her fashionable gown would look ill-tailored and unflattering. But she was Mrs. Lépine, not Lady Isabelle. Ill-tailored and unflattering was only a crime when one was the disappointing daughter of the Duchess of Nottingvale. An independent widow like Mrs. Lépine would not be bothered by something so trifling as a droopy bosom.

  Besides, it wouldn’t be for long. Even before morning tea or breaking her fast, Belle planned to go straight to Ursula to see how she was feeling. With luck, Ursula was much improved, and life could return to normal. All the same, Belle would take the watercolor she’d painted for Ursula in the hope of bringing a bit of cheer.

  Heaven knew, Belle needed something to lift her spirits. Now that she was semi-clothed in a shift with no stays and an unbuttoned morning gown gaping open at the shoulder blades, the next question was what to do with her hair.

  Ursula had always been the one to tame it and arrange it. Belle gazed hopelessly at her hand mirror. She’d dried her hair with the towel as best she could, but her tiny chamber did not contain a fireplace to sit beside. She dragged a comb through her long locks, so at least they weren’t tangled, and then opened Ursula’s traveling case of coiffure ac
coutrements.

  Hair combs, diadems, and tiaras floated in a sea of hairpins.

  What the dickens was Belle meant to do with all of that? The posting house wasn’t a diadem or tiara sort of establishment. The diamond and pearl hair combs seemed equally out of place. The pins could secure any number of complicated interlocking braids or intricate twisting coiffures—if one had any notion how to do so.

  Belle... did not.

  With a sigh of frustration, she gathered all her hair in one big hunk, twisted it until it formed a knot, and then jabbed in pin after pin until the bun mostly stayed in place. It immediately listed to one side.

  So much for her daydream of becoming a fashionable independent spinster. She’d been Mrs. Lépine for less than one day and was already a disaster. Her shoulders tightened. She closed the box of pins and strode to her door, then paused before her fingers touched the handle.

  The only thing Belle hated more than feeling useless was for other people to think it about her, too. Yet the only way she could go downstairs to see Ursula was if she first ventured next door to beg Mr. McAlistair to button her dress.

  She lifted her head high. A half dozen pins showered about her shoulders. Ignoring her increasingly lopsided hair, she pressed her lips together and marched out into the corridor to knock on Mr. McAlistair’s door.

  It took him longer than expected to answer. When the door swung open, he stared at her without comprehension for a moment, as if he’d forgot who she was and what she needed him to do.

  Or as if he were a busy man with important things to do that Belle had just interrupted.

  “This is the last time,” she said in a rush. “I’m on my way downstairs to resolve this matter posthaste. If my lady’s maid is still unwell, I shall employ another at once.”

  His brown eyes sharpened their focus. He took in her sagging hair, her sagging bosom, her sagging dress, and grimaced as if her crimes against fashion physically wounded him.

  Her cheeks flamed with heat, but she held her ground.

  “Turn around,” he said gruffly.

  She turned around, her heart pounding. Although he was to button her up, rather than unlace her, the brush of his fingers against her spine felt even more decadent and sensual than before.

  It wasn’t because she was attracted to Mr. McAlistair, she assured herself. This strange sensation was because she was missing a layer of protection. The thick cotton stays kept her torso immobile and her breasts molded in place.

  It was the chill winter air in the drafty corridor that made her nipples pucker against the thin linen of her shift. It had nothing at all to do with the heat of Mr. McAlistair’s body or the brush of his calloused fingertips against the gooseflesh of her bare skin.

  “Six buttons,” he said hoarsely. “This will go faster than last time.”

  Yes. Belle had removed all two dozen gowns from their traveling trunks in order to select today’s dress based on the least number of buttons. It was an act of self-preservation. He hadn’t even started yet and her flesh shivered in anticipation.

  He gathered the loose flaps of her gown to the nape of her neck. “Hold this.”

  She reached up behind her neck to grab the twilled silk as requested, and instead accidentally caressed Mr. McAlistair’s fingers.

  He froze.

  She froze.

  Now they were holding hands in the most awkward way possible, with one of her elbows jutting high in the air.

  “I’m so sorry.” She let go at once and tried not to melt into a puddle of mortification.

  “No, it’s...” His free hand closed about her trembling one and guided her fingers back to the finely ribbed sarcenet. “Right there. I’ll start at the bottom and be through in a trice.”

  She nodded, not trusting her ability to be coherent.

  As before, Mr. McAlistair comported himself with the cool detachment of a total gentleman.

  But he was not a gentleman. Despite his handsome face and impeccable attire, he had never been anywhere near Belle’s social circles, or she would have heard his name before now. Clothes could lie. Look at her—she doubted her current state gave anyone the impression of a woman who was secretly a duke’s daughter.

  She didn’t even seem like a marginally independent widow.

  His hand covered hers lightly. “You can let go now.”

  She dropped her arm to her side. Probably her forearm should ache from having twisted at such an odd angle for so long, but all Belle could feel was the phantom sensation of Mr. McAlistair’s warm hand gliding over hers.

  “There.” His soft breath tickled a stray hair at her nape. “All buttoned.”

  “Thank you,” she said without turning around, and ran down the corridor to the stairs in the most embarrassingly unladylike manner possible.

  Naturally, once she’d reached the second floor, she remembered she’d forgot the painting for Ursula, which meant Belle was forced to creep back up the stairs to her guest chamber and pray Mr. McAlistair was no longer in the corridor to witness her folly.

  He was not. He was busy. He had more important things to do than stand about thinking about a disheveled widow with drooping everything.

  Painting in hand, she made her way back down the stairs toward the bar where she’d last seen the proprietress. Mrs. Price was not present, but due to the early hour, few guests were in the dining room, and the serving girl from the night before was able to greet Belle in short order.

  “Sit at any empty table.”

  “I don’t want breakfast.” A loud rumble from Belle’s stomach gave lie to her words. The kitchen’s intoxicating scents nearly made her dizzy. “I’d like to see Ursula. Can you show me to the sickroom?”

  “Absolutely not.” The serving girl turned away.

  Belle’s mouth fell open. Had she just been dismissed? By a servant?

  “You’re Mrs. Lépine,” she muttered to herself. “Mrs. Lépine enjoys being cut by serving maids. It’s a hobby.”

  The girl glanced over her shoulder. “Did you say something?”

  “Yes.” Belle folded her hands. “Can you please tell me how Ursula is coming along and when I might see her?”

  The girl’s gaze softened with empathy. “She’s over the worst of the symptoms. Because so many maids have fallen ill, Mrs. Price has forbidden all visits to the sickroom. That includes you, madam. There’s no sense you taking ill, too. The influenza will pass in a few days.”

  “A few days?” Her stomach bottomed.

  The serving girl laughed lightly. “Oh, it’s not so bad. With the weather we’ve got, no one’s going anywhere for at least that long, anyway.”

  “Is there...” Her pulse fluttered in panic. “Is there someone I might employ temporarily in the meantime?”

  The girl’s eyebrows shot up with wry amusement. “If there was, Mrs. Price would have already employed her. Half of our maids are in the sickroom. You’d best take your meals down here, because there won’t be anyone to carry trays up and down the stairs.”

  Belle sat down hard in the closest chair. No Ursula. No maid. No friend.

  She was on her own.

  “Tea or coffee?” the serving girl asked.

  Neither.

  “Do you have chocolate?” Belle asked hopefully.

  The serving girl stared back at her flatly.

  “Coffee,” Belle said in defeat. “With milk and—”

  “I’ll bring you a plate.”

  Belle rubbed her temples. This was nothing like home. Lack of her ritual morning chocolate was the least of her concerns.

  She’d never been alone before. Not properly. Ursula was always there at home, as well as dozens of other servants Belle had known since she was a child. Sometimes she took her easel outside to paint, but even that was done in busy places, surrounded by a crowd.

  Most often, she went wherever her mother insisted. Teas, balls, gardens, theatre. Almack’s on Wednesdays, Gunter’s on Saturdays. It was the opposite of being alone. It was suffo
cating.

  That was why Belle had so looked forward to spending a relaxing week with her friend Angelica prior to the start of her brother’s Yuletide party. Angelica had loads of friends and family, but Belle wasn’t required to put in an appearance at any given activity.

  She could paint while Angelica worked in her jewelry shop, and then they could enjoy one of Cressmouth’s many Christmas festivities or spend a lazy evening in Angelica’s parlor, reading novels and drinking wine before the fire. She had counted on that week to restore her equilibrium before the obligatory whirl of Vale’s party.

  How Belle missed Ursula! Being snowbound in a posting house wouldn’t be half so bad with a friend to talk to.

  Belle’s dream of independence was rapidly revealing itself to be a nightmare.

  “Coffee.” A tin pot and chipped cup appeared in front of Belle, along with a dram of milk and a plate of fruit, cheese, and toasted bread. “Your breakfast.”

  “Wait.” Before the serving girl could turn to go, Belle handed her the watercolor she’d painted. “Could you please see this is given to Ursula?”

  The girl’s eyes widened when she saw the paper contained nothing but a brick wall.

  Belle’s cheeks heated. “It’s—”

  “The third floor. The bit between rooms eighteen and nineteen.” Impressed, the serving girl looked Belle over with renewed interest. She jabbed a finger at the paper. “I’m the reason those bricks chipped like that. Back then, me and Esther cleaned the guest rooms. One morning I leaned out of the window to—”

  “Mildred!” called a male voice from the kitchen. “Does tea deliver itself now?”

  “Hold your wool, Ezekiel,” Mildred called back. “Wait ’til you see this!”

  Mildred ran toward the kitchen, Belle’s watercolor in her hand.

  She added milk to her coffee. It was difficult not to find it bittersweet that the first stranger to react positively to Belle’s art was a serving maid reminiscing over a brick wall.