Dilemma in Yellow Silk

by Lynne Connolly

  “Ah.” To Dominic’s relief, Malton appeared to accept his explanation. His visit here had become annoyingly clandestine. “Is your business concluded?”

  Not at all. “Completely.” Dominic offered a smile and paused at the stand by the door to collect his sword. This set of government offices didn’t even allow gentlemen to carry the mostly decorative swords. Dominic’s was more than decorative, made of fine flexible Spanish steel. “Are you heading into town?”

  “To Bond Street. I have to collect my sisters from the drapers’.”

  Dominic had planned to walk to St. James’s, but abruptly he changed his plans. “Your sisters are up from the country?” Malton belonged to a large and influential family. Known as ‘The Emperors of London,’ they were a force to be reckoned with. Especially with regards to the Dankworths, supporters of the Pretenders, young and old. The family feud was so old nobody recalled its origins. It had renewed itself in force when the Dankworths and the Emperors took opposite sides in the Jacobite conflict. The Emperors could prove useful to him in his current quest.

  Dominic was acutely aware of his lack of supporters. In the army he’d had a complete network of allies. Here, if he were found on the wrong side, he had no doubt the authorities would arrest him and cart him off to prison. If they needed a scapegoat, he provided the perfect subject. Most definitely he needed friends. Someone who knew more about this civilian battle.

  However, despite Malton’s cordial greeting, he and Dominic were only socially acquainted. Dominic sheathed his sword and clapped his hat on his head, then glanced into the mirror by the desk to adjust it to his satisfaction. Malton dressed soberly and behaved responsibly. Dominic did what he liked. Released from army discipline, he’d enjoyed spreading his wings once he got to town. As the heir to a wealthy and influential title, he was in great demand.

  He had no doubt that was why Malton had invited him to meet his sisters. Dominic was not a philanderer, more a card player and a man who enjoyed all forms of entertainment, respectable and decidedly otherwise. However, he never toyed with society ladies. They might expect more than he was prepared to give them.

  Malton and Dominic walked out of the offices into glorious sunshine. Dominic glanced up. “A pretty day, is it not?”

  Malton nodded curtly. “Indeed, sir. Spring is well advanced, although last month it seemed as if it would never arrive.”

  They walked down Horse Guards in the direction of Bond Street. Up St. James’s Street, with its burgeoning clubs, and past the palace, where the Royal Standard fluttering from the gatehouse proclaimed the King was in residence. A rare event, since his majesty preferred the more modest comforts Kensington Palace had to offer.

  Dominic remarked as such to Malton and received a nod in return.

  “I believe his majesty wished to greet the Ambassador of France. He’ll scuttle back to Kensington as soon as he can.” Malton smiled. “I do not begrudge him his comforts. The longer we can keep him healthy the better, would you not agree?”

  Sounding him out, no doubt. “Indeed.” Dominic had no hesitation in concurring. “It gives the Prince of Wales more time to mature into his role. I fear a king still in his minority could cause problems for the government.”

  “He is a promising child, but I fear far too ready to listen to his mother’s favorite.” Malton hesitated delicately before the last word, intimating that the Princess of Wales and Lord Bute were more than royal patron and favorite. Most in London considered them lovers.

  A political situation that would be coped with, unlike the advent of a different branch of the royal house. “I don’t pretend to understand politics.” Dominic waved his handkerchief to illustrate his point. A fine lace-edged piece of linen, it would probably be ruined if he put it to any practical use. “It is all far beyond me.”

  “I’m sure you would cope.” Malton sounded so smug that Dominic spared him a glance. No, he wasn’t mistaken. Clearly, Malton considered Dominic as the intellectual half-wit he preferred people to think him. A man more interested in fashion and gossip than anything serious. The pose was beginning to pall, but it had taken a year and a half for it to do so. It might prove useful for a little while longer. When people underestimated him, they were more likely to talk freely in his presence. Consequently he heard much more of the gossip before others did.

  “I find other matters more interesting,” he said, lengthening his vowels to a fashionable drawl. “Surely gossip about the Princess of Wales and her lover is old news. May we discuss Elizabeth Chudleigh’s latest exploit?”

  They did, Malton discussing the subject easily enough, until they reached Bond Street. At this time of day, the fashionable and the wealthy thronged the place, from the boxing saloon at the end to the florist’s at the other. While Dominic would have preferred the fencing-master’s studio, Malton took him straight past it to the drapers’ shop two doors down.

  The curved bay window with its bull’s-eye glass panes revealed swaths of fabric, a few toys strewn across it. His gaze met fans, handkerchiefs, and a particularly pretty necessaire, the separate elements of pen, paper, scissors, spread for the admiration of the customer. Dominic spared it a glance on his way inside.

  Three ladies sat at the broad counter to the left of the door. Another counter stood completely opposite, and at the end, bales of fabric were stacked.

  Dominic groped for the ribbon tied at his waist and lifted the quizzing glass he kept at the end of it. Surely he was seeing things. “You said sisters,” he murmured. “You did not say twins.”

  Or beauties, for that matter.

  “I omitted that part, didn’t I?”

  If he didn’t know better, Dominic would have detected laughter in Malton’s voice. So far his acquaintance with the man hadn’t revealed a sense of humor. Despite Malton’s enjoyment of his surprise, Dominic considered himself a winner here.

  The two young ladies seated in chairs before the counter were slender of figure. However, their breasts swelled invitingly above their bodices, and they possessed clear-complexions. Both were possessed of heavenly blue eyes. They had lively features, although one bore an air of serenity, and her gown was a little more subdued than her sister’s.

  The other, the one with the slight smile curling her lips, intrigued him. Something about this one drew him. She wore pink, which should not have suited her with that red-gold hair, but it did, enhancing her slender loveliness. Dominic would not call either lady a beauty, not in the accepted society sense, but they were lovely enough to create a sensation if they wished to. Their chins were slightly too pointed, their noses too large. He liked them; they added character.

  While Malton performed the introductions, she watched him. He only looked away when his bow required it, and then glanced up and found her challenging gaze fixed on his. He flicked her a hard stare, before he recalled himself and allowed his lids to droop over his eyes in his usual society manner.

  Her eyes widened. “I did not meet you in town last year, Lord St. Just. I would have thought you very hard to miss.”

  She scanned his red coat, matching waistcoat, and spotless white breeches. Gold buckles adorned his shoes, with the tiniest of diamonds and rubies, and his sword hilt was encrusted with jewels and engraving. The fact that good Spanish steel was sheathed beneath may have passed her scrutiny.

  Showing no sign of insult, Dominic took her careful observation as a compliment. He flourished his hat, which he’d taken off when performing his bow. “You are too kind, Lady Claudia.”

  She made a sound in the back of her throat that could have been the start of a derisive snort. Except for that tiny sound, Dominic would never have known she was laughing at him from her gracious smile and nod. She’d was probably been taught from the cradle to hide her true emotions. “My lord, it would be difficult to miss such magnificence.”

  “The color is rather engrained in me, I fear.” He straightened up. He, too, could don a public mask. After all, what was his whole appearance but a mask? “
I was until recently taking the King’s shilling.”

  Gratification swept through him in a warm tide when her eyes widened. He’d won an open, startled reaction from her, enough to make him want to see more. He wanted to get to know her better.

  She was the first woman to affect him in this way since he returned to England.

  “You were a soldier?”

  “If your brother had introduced us formally, he’d have mentioned that I am Major Viscount St. Just.” Ignoring Malton’s muttered apology, he concentrated on her. “I am home now because my two cousins sadly perished last year, leaving me the sole hope of my house.”

  “The only male heir,” she murmured. “Now you come to mention it, I do recall something about that. I beg your pardon, I should have paid more attention, and I am indeed sorry for your loss.”

  He hadn’t meant to make her feel guilty. “I barely knew my cousins, I regret to say. I had a lot to arrange when I came home, so I decided not to come to town last season. My parents remain in the country.”

  Leaving him to hunt down a bride, something he resented. He hadn’t meant to marry for years yet, and he was doing his best to deter them, but it was proving difficult. Society understood the value of the estate he stood to inherit and the necessity of marrying and begetting.

  Once he’d done that, he could consider returning to the life he loved, in the army.

  For the present, he had a delicious distraction. He could only consider her as such. Someone of her temperament would probably not agree to remain quietly in the country while he went back to war. He needed someone sweet, docile, and happy to rusticate. Not this handful of trouble. Even now her eyes danced with mischief.

  Now she’d softened a little toward him, he saw that more clearly. “Were you in one of those pretty regiments, the ones that dance attendance on court and curry favor with foreign dignitaries?” she asked. “You would be a credit to them.”

  He almost laughed, but contrived to keep a straight face. “No.” He would give her no guidance. Let her discover for herself. “Discussing the past can be tedious, can it not?” He gestured to the pretty display on the counter. “Have you made your decisions, or may I assist you in any way? My mother tells me I have an excellent eye for color.”

  The laughter disappeared, and her mouth flattened. Disappointment? Perhaps so. Perhaps he should not think of getting to know her at all. “Except for the green. I dislike it. It’s so predictable to put a red-haired woman in green, don’t you think?”

  He picked up the fabric, a delicate silk in a shade of green he privately labelled puke-colored. “It slips through the fingers nicely.”

  As her hair would, did she ever let him near it. The notion came to his mind unbidden, as did the notion of stroking her skin to discover if it was as satiny as it looked.

  A fine sheen smoothed over it when the sun came out from the clouds and streamed through the broad shop windows. It turned her hair into a ball of fire, and then the light went, disappeared behind its cover.

  The shock numbed him. He dropped the fabric and reached out, touched her arm between her elbow-ruffles and her wrist.

  She gasped and drew her arm back. Startled, wide eyes met his, but he said nothing. Just stared. That contact had changed everything for him, although if anyone had asked him what “everything” meant, he couldn’t have answered.

  “St. Just, are you feeling well?”

  Malton’s gentle query brought him back from wherever he’d gone.

  With a short laugh, he shook his head to clear it of the odd emotion he had difficulty describing, even to himself. Exhilaration and a sense of rightness, of things falling into place was the nearest he got to it. Like at the end of a long military campaign.

  “I’m sorry, a moment’s inattention. That is all.” He recalled the topic of conversation. “I think, madam, there are different shades of green. While I have no doubt you would appear charming in apple green or the green of beech leaves in springtime, this green is definitely to be avoided.”

  “Hmm.” She touched the spot he had lately been, letting the material slip through her fingers.

  Dominic braced himself against a threatened shudder. What if she touched him with such delicacy? A shiver racked him. He froze his features, fighting for control.

  “I believe you are right, sir,” she said softly. “This fabric is not for me.”

  She flipped the stuff back so it folded in on itself, revealing the ivory beneath. “Nor this one. Sallow skin and ivory do not make a good combination.”

  “Not sallow. Creamy,” he said. Her skin reminded him of nothing more than a bowl of cream fresh from the dairy, whipped for a special dish, ready to enrobe and enrich a dish of fresh strawberries. It would taste best taken from her skin.

  He took a hasty step back. This highborn lady was not one he should be dallying with. How could he let himself think such a dangerous notion?

  Rebuking himself for a fool, he picked up a piece of fabric at random. The shopkeeper had created a brilliant display by tossing rolls of expensive fabric across the counter, so it lay in gorgeous disarray. The piece in his hand had cherry-red stripes. He pushed it aside and found the only one on the display that he considered worthy of her. “A green like this one.” This was stiffer taffeta, a rich green that would flatter her, the color of mint leaves. It held a cool quality that would counter her fieriness.

  “Why you are right. I hadn’t considered this one.” The minx gently removed the taffeta from his grasp and cradled it against her cheek. “It is a little rough.”

  He suppressed a sigh of longing, when he considered how soft that cheek would be.

  She knew it, too. Her eyes flashed wickedly as she blatantly checked his response to her flirting.

  He rallied. “Certainly not to be worn next to the skin, for sure,” he agreed. “Though it would make a wonderful sacque. It would drape extraordinarily well.”

  To his relief, he rediscovered his society mask. The idea of her in that puke-green silk made him bilious. “I would love to make a gift of it to you, but I fear you would take such a personal token amiss.”

  One side of her mouth quirked up, and a dimple appeared. “Indeed I would not, sir. As you said, it would come nowhere near my skin.”

  The vixen handed the stuff to the avidly listening shopkeeper. “I’ll take this. Send it to my mantua-maker, if you please. Madame Cerisot. Send the bill to Viscount St. Just. I beg your pardon. Send the account to Major Viscount St. Just.”

  He smiled. She was not trapping him into any more flirtation. From now on, he would do his best to avoid her until he’d thoroughly analyzed the odd feelings she evoked in him. The stirrings of lust, certainly, but anyone looking at these two would consider that. No, the more tender, gentle emotion with which he was entirely unfamiliar. Except with his parents, and that was an entirely different case. No similarities at all.