The Dressmaker's Duke

by Jess Russell

  Lord, the man was beautiful. Her dreams had not done him justice. But then she had been so very tired and hungry that day at Crups, it was a wonder he made any impression.

  He was dressed more soberly and finely now, but his plain attire did nothing to diminish huge shoulders, a shaded jawline, lips that would have a sculptor salivating, and an impressive blade of a nose. And that was just the top third of him. His powerful legs were planted wide, his arms long and loose, yet ready, at his sides, the foil held so lightly in his right hand. And then, of course, those eyes…

  Foil be hanged, his eyes were his real weapons. Even the long black lashes framing the icy gold did nothing to soften the cold that seeped forth. The eyes of a hunter. She felt—devoured.

  That’s when it came to her.

  “Tiger.” Blast, the word slipped out before she could quash the impression. She swallowed, her mouth like paper.

  He blinked, frowned, and finally raised an eyebrow, skewering her with the same look he had unleashed on her at Crups when she dared to thank him.

  A cough penetrated her wretched brain. She turned toward the sound. Sir Haggis had suddenly acquired a rotund, gnome-like page.

  “Your Grace, I beg your pardon. I was dispatching Mr. Wadmond and only just came to remove Mrs. Weston,” said the little man.

  Your Grace? She looked to Mr. Merrick for confirmation, but only saw his lips pull into a straight line.

  Was this man the duke? This Adonis? No, surely not. He might not be Mr. Merrick, but he was most definitely no Monk.

  “Never mind, Wilcove. I will deal with her myself.” He turned to her. “Mrs. Weston, if you will give me a moment…” His eyes turned warmer, softer, making him seem almost vulnerable. Likely just a trick of light, for in the next moment they shuttered, his teeth clamped shut, and his jawline jumped in concert. Turning abruptly, he strode to the wall of swords and thrust the foil back home. “Send her to me in five minutes.” And he left the room.

  Olivia collapsed on the bench.

  Well, thank God one mystery was solved and symmetry restored. She would not be kept up this night thinking of where that foil had got to. She swallowed a bubble of laughter, glancing at Wilcove. Which reminded her…

  Ignoring the little man, she heaved herself up on shaky legs, and crossed to Sir Haggis, who was thoroughly intact, from his plumed helmet to his chainmail sabatons. But sure enough, directly behind the knight, was a hairline crack about four feet high and half as wide. An old priest’s door. That she missed it in her endless waiting was a testament to the joiner’s expertise.

  But Wilcove was speaking.

  “Madam, if you will please to follow me.” He gestured to the larger door to his left. Just as she turned from Sir Haggis, his visor flashed in a kind of wink. Olivia bit her lip. She was about to meet a duke—well, about to meet him properly. Adjusting and smoothing her crushed skirts, she nodded, and in what she hoped was her most regal stance, followed the secretary.

  ****

  Rhys stared at the name signed to the bottom of the dressmaker’s bill.

  Mrs. Olivia Weston. Olivia…lovely.

  He had just managed to tug his cravat back into some reasonable fall and scrape his fingers through his hair when the knock came. Well, it would be over in a moment and his curiosity would be satisfied; this modiste would become all too mortal and his heart could stop its racing. Ready, steady— “Come,” he said pulling at his cuffs and schooling his face into its most ducal expression. At the last instant, he plucked the heart-shaped case from his desk and shoved it in his pocket.

  “Mrs. Olivia Weston, Your Grace.” And the door clicked shut behind Wilcove.

  His entire speech dried up in a heartbeat and lay like chalk upon his tongue. While his body, once again, rang like a soundly struck tuning fork, every nerve frizzled and too alive. He did not like the feeling.

  Mrs. Weston seemed to be in a similar state, her mouth forming a perfect O.

  He was trying to refute the notion of instant attraction when she laughed. Well, to be precise, it was more like one barking yelp. But the sound served to snap him back to reality. His vision narrowed on her now—thank God—firmly shut mouth. No one, not even a considerably more than indifferently pretty person, laughed at him. Most especially not a tradesperson. And decidedly not a woman.

  “Madam? You find something amusing?”

  She opened her mouth, then shut it and sank into an elegant curtsey.

  As she rose, a shaft of sunlight pierced the gloom of late morning, bathing her neck. Dust motes drifted at the light’s edges like demonic sprites, setting the stage to play havoc with his senses. Except he did not believe in sprites, demonic or otherwise. She swallowed. How could a neck be that long? That white? What would that skin feel like against his lips? Taste like—

  “Pardon, Your Grace—water?” She made a show of clearing her throat, her hand waving through the beam of sun, making the sprites dance about.

  He gestured to a small table and watched her profile as she selected a glass and poured the water.

  Scrolling through a catalogue of Mrs. Weston’s attributes, he frantically tried to fix on what about her person had put him in this state: lightish eyes—possibly green—dark, almost black hair, alabaster skin, that neck, graceful but not lush curves, an elegant bearing. But these he had seen a hundred times in a hundred other merely beautiful women. These were nothing compared to her—what was the word?

  Bloody hell, he could not even think. This woman, this Mrs. Weston assaulted his senses. He had not had such a visceral response to a woman—well, ever. And he had seen her what…? Only at Crup’s shop for possibly ten minutes and now for maybe the space of two?

  Mrs. Weston set her glass down.

  “I sometimes use my surname in order to remain anonymous.” He thrust the words up like a shield, daring her to respond. She didn’t.

  Already a soft hint of her spicy scent wafted toward him. “I see you are not wearing your paisley shawl.”

  She moved her hands to touch her arms but dropped them abruptly. “No.” She shook her head. “I mean, no, Your Grace.”

  “Did Mr. Crup prevail then?”

  “Mr. Crup?” She frowned, and then her forehead cleared. “Oh, no. No, he did not.”

  “Ah,” he said. She fidgeted with the edge of her sleeve. He would be content to watch her for hours. She frowned again, and her lips pursed ever so slightly. He was staring. “I am glad you still have it. You seemed very partial to it,” he finished rather lamely. Well, at least he would not need to subject himself to Crup’s yapping again. He had already been back to the shop, twice.

  “I did not say I still had it, Your Grace. I only told you I did not sell it to Mr. Crup.” She let her sleeve alone and clasped her hands in front of her. “He did not appreciate its value. I was able to find someone who did.”

  A dozen or so questions shuffled through his mind but only one slid out.

  “Is there a Mr. Weston?”

  “Pardon, Your Grace?”

  “I assume the watch you sold is your husband’s?”

  She looked as if she would not make him an answer, but in the end his title must have won out over her need for privacy.

  “Yes, it was.”

  “Won’t he be sorry to lose such a prize?” His voice sounded sharp even to his ears.

  “No, Your Grace, he will not. He is dead.”

  “Ah.” Relief, absurd pleasure, and then guilt flooded through him. Afraid it might show, he nodded once and shifted a paper on his desk. She was waiting for him to speak again. Instead he sat.

  His breeches felt inordinately tight. He glanced down at his lap and immediately pulled himself under cover. Clearly not having a woman in over a month was playing havoc with him.

  “Mrs. Weston,”—his voice only slightly high—“my man informs me you feel you are owed compensation for gowns which a Mrs. Battersby ordered from you some weeks back. I have the bill here.” His voice sped up. He took a breath
.

  “It is rather excessive for five gowns and various other odds and ends, but I understand they were needed immediately?” He did not pause for an answer. If he did, he would have to look at her again, and he didn’t think he could manage it without leaping over the desk to ascertain if her skin could possibly be as soft as it looked. “Do not accept any further trade from Mrs. Daria Battersby on my behalf. That—connection—ended some time ago.”

  He had to get out of this room. But he had a slight, or rather a stiff, problem…

  He pressed his fingernail into the red and swollen wax burn on his wrist. Pain flashed, but unfortunately had no effect on his cock stand.

  Lurching out of the chair, he grabbed the nearest sheet of paper from his desk and used it as a shield in front of his falls. He limped across the room and jerked at the bell pull. Thank God, Wilcove appeared a mere second later. “Wilcove, issue Mrs. Weston a draft for the specified funds. And show her out.”

  For the second time in a day, Wilcove’s eyes widened, and his lips pursed ever so slightly before his face slid back to dead calm.

  Rhys risked a look at her. Surely it would be safe now that he had his escape route.

  It was a mistake. His throat constricted painfully, and panic bloomed in his gut. Suddenly he wanted to take his words back. He did not want Olivia Weston to disappear from his life a second time. He wanted her somehow tied to him. To need him.

  “Your Grace, I cannot thank—”

  He held up his hand as much to repel her as to stop her words. He needed to get out before he did something ridiculous—more ridiculous. He turned, crossed to the door on the opposite side of the room, pulled it open, and slipped into blessed solitude.

  He pressed his back and arms against the door as if she had the power to seep through wood, to overwhelm him again.

  Green. Her eyes were most defiantly green.

  He needed a drink.

  Rhys fumbled for the brandy, splashing some into a glass. He tossed it back, hoping to wash the woman out of his heated body. His eyes watered and throat burned, but he took another and then one more for good measure.

  As he contemplated a fourth he saw, clenched in his other hand, the paper he had used as a shield. It was his uncle’s letter.

  He set down his glass and cracked the door, painfully aware he was behaving like a schoolboy. Good, she was gone.

  He strode to his desk, swept the mess that was his life to one side, and began to answer Uncle Bertram’s letter.

  Yes, by God, he would be, “quite happy,” the nib of the quill caught and ink spattered. Rhys bore down harder, “to meet Miss Arabella Campbell.”

  Chapter Four

  A tiger—

  Olivia squeezed her eyelids shut. Idiot. The worn leather seat of the carriage provided no comfort. She shifted pulling at her sleeve and then skirts. Her meticulous tailoring felt more like an ill-fitting sack whose seams puckered and twisted, the fabric chafing against her suddenly sensitive body.

  For the third time, she drew open the strings of her reticule and pulled out the duke’s draft, scanning the miraculous number written there. But the unsettled feeling remained.

  Perhaps she should not have taken the cab? Admittedly an indulgence. She was contemplating knocking to have the driver stop when a bottle in an apothecary’s shop window flared, catching a fragment of sun.

  His eyes—very like the color of his eyes. Like nothing she had ever seen in a mere mortal.

  Hmm…Possibly equal parts of sienna and umber, then a dab of blue-black and orange chrome yellow…or perhaps French ochre? Then a quantity of white lead. It had been so long since she had even thought of painting. Her fingers twisted in the strings of her purse, so eager to capture the exact hue.

  You find something amusing? A shiver slid down her neck to her spine, taking a wicked detour straight to her breasts. She covered them with her arms, mashing them to submission.

  “Three bob, Miss.”

  It was the driver. Good heavens, the Duke of Roydan was stalking her as surely as a tiger, even in the privacy of her hired carriage. She shook herself. “Ridiculous! I will never see him again,” and she handed the driver his fare.

  “Oh, if I had a penny for every time I heard them words—well I wouldn’t be driving this here hack.” He pulled at his cap, clucked to his horses, and moved off.

  Barmy bugger. Olivia pushed into the shop.

  It appeared no one was about.

  “Egglet!” A rustle came from the back. She headed toward the sound. Eglantine was rising from the small pallet tucked against the far wall near the stove.

  “Oh, lovey, you’re back?” Egg pasted on a bright smile. Too bright.

  “Where is Hazel? Oh, dearest, you are not well and have let the fire go out again.” Olivia crossed to their small stack of precious firewood—Egg’s lungs could never tolerate the dust and soot of coal. “Let me get you a cup with a bit of something.”

  “No, no, now settle yourself. I sent Hazel home as there was not much to do, and I must have dozed. My bones are not meant for this lumpy old cot,” Egg said, rubbing her shoulder and smoothing her ruffled hair. “But enough about me, you must tell me the news. Were you successful?”

  Olivia’s deliciously teasing scenario, involving knights in shining armor, gnomes, and secret doors, missing swords and monks, dissolved as she saw the worry in her friend’s eyes. Instead Olivia pulled out the draft and held it before Egg’s nose.

  “Feast your eyes on this, lovey,” she said in her best cockney accent.

  “Cor, blimey,” Egg mimicked, “ain’t you the cat’s cream!” She took the draft from Olivia’s outstretched hand. Egg’s jaw dropped open like a nutcracker on Christmas, her gaze meeting Olivia’s.

  “Yes, love; it’s the whole lot of it.” The women had resigned themselves to only partial payment for the bill, if indeed they were to get any of it.

  “You must tell me everything. Did you actually see the duke himself? Is he the Monk everyone claims him to be?”

  A monk?

  Olivia hesitated. “No, he does not inspire heavenly thoughts.”

  “Go on. Tell me everything.” But Egg had begun to cough, her small frame racked with heavy rolling hacks.

  Olivia made herself go numb. She waited silently, willing herself to remain calm. Egg hated for a fuss to be made over her “little spells.”

  “Here now, you are dead on your feet from worry and exhaustion.” Olivia handed Egg some cold tea. “There is time enough for talk and celebrating later after you’ve had a good long rest.”

  “But, Olive—”

  Olivia narrowed her gaze and cocked her head. Her friend sighed and squeezed Olivia’s hand. “Very well, I suppose you are right and not to be gainsaid. I will be a good egg and take myself up for a quick nap. But I expect to be ready for the full details this evening.”

  “I promise to rival the great actress Mrs. Siddons with my telling, but only if you rest.”

  Olivia stood by the narrow window waiting for Egg’s wheezes to settle into soft snores.

  Across the narrow alley, a stray breeze hit a broken window pane, fluttering the dingy black-gray curtain behind. The gray flashed a moment of brilliant blue—the inner protected fold of the curtain—like a bit of open sky against relentless gloom. The curtain was not dull from sunlight; there was none that could penetrate the tight confines of the alley. It was colored with the black soot that rolled down window panes, settled on sills, and penetrated curtains. And lungs.

  Suddenly the window was thrust open and a chamber pot emptied. Somewhere inside, a child cried out and the window slammed shut.

  Olivia turned to now-sleeping Egg. She gently pulled the old coverlet up under her dear one’s chin.

  Eglantine was just on the far side of fifty now and was at last beginning to look it. She had always been sweetly rounded—her Egg, as she had christened her long ago—but now she looked gaunt, her skin loose and gray. Olivia could not bear the thought of life wit
hout Eglantine Wiggins. This frail woman was Olivia’s home. No matter where they had lived, an army tent or lovely rooms in Saint Germaine, Egg had been her rock—sharing grief over the loss of their husbands and then Olivia’s child…

  Ah, dear Jamie.

  Olivia blinked and swallowed hard. She had hoped they would be able to make a good living in London and eventually put down some roots in the country. But now, looking at Egg, she saw that was impossible.

  Olivia sank to her knees beside the bed and whispered to her sleeping friend, “By God, Egglet, I will get you out of this foul city if it is the last thing I do.”

  ****

  “Oooof!” Daria Battersby clenched her teeth, her hands twisting in the sheets.

  “Ah, you like a bit of rough play, do you, my plump partridge?”

  Plump Partridge? She turned her head aside as much from Lord Acton’s sour breath as from his words.

  Daria’s newest “beau” settled in again to pull and grunt over her breasts, his mouth too wet, his hands like a cold, flaccid pudding.

  Her gaze drifted to the familiar painting on the wall next to her bed. A pink-cheeked girl of several decades ago was being pushed on a swing by a young gentleman. Her mouth was open in laughter, her limbs fully extended as she leaned back into his attentive eyes. Daria could not make out the girl’s subtler expressions any longer, no matter how hard she squinted. But there was no need; she knew the bliss and easy confidence reflected in the young woman’s face.

  She used to be that girl. Why, men had clamored for just a smile from her. She could have had anyone. Indeed, puritanical, mad King George had even given her the eye once or twice.

  But she had only wanted one man. The man who had wanted nothing to do with her, the one they called the Monk, Rhys Merrick, the Duke of Roydan. And, by Jove, she had got him. So what if she knew he had taken her mostly out of revenge, so what if he was cold and withdrawn. She had succeeded where no other woman had.

  Yet she did not live in a fairy world. She was a practical business woman. She needed to be careful after Roydan. She could not afford the gossip of another jilt. Not at her age. She would be…dear God, thirty-five this July, a perilous age for a woman of her profession. Every assignation must be dissected and analyzed. She needed to choose her new protector wisely.