“After all,” she mused, running her fingers up his jacket sleeve, “what powers could a small, defenseless young miss like myself—”
He laughed at the absurdity of that!
“—have over a strong and dashing man?”
When she squeezed his bicep, he strangled on his laughter. Defenseless? The woman was downright deadly.
“Why, I don’t know the first thing about men.” She brushed her hand over his shoulder to his neck, then played with his neckcloth. “I don’t even know how to properly tie a man’s cravat to put it on.” Her fingers slipped beneath the cloth to tease across his bare neck and sent his pulse spiking. “Or untie it to take it off.” She offered in a throaty murmur that twined through him, “Perhaps you’d like to show me?”
He stared at her, unable to think of a decent retort. Oh, he wanted to show her things all right. But only half a dozen or so involved tying a neckcloth, and none could be described in polite conversation.
“So,” Madame succinctly acknowledged, “we don’t need to spend time on teaching you flirtation.”
Veronica laughed and sashayed away, expertly flitting her fan.
Damnable woman.
With a flip of the pages to straighten them, he forced his attention back to the newspaper. He scoured it to glean whatever new information he could about the riots and the crown’s response to them. So far…nothing.
“I don’t suppose you know how to dance.”
Madame’s question caught Merritt’s attention.
So did Veronica’s answer. “Actually, I do.”
That surprised him. She didn’t learn to dance where she’d learned to fight. She was well educated, certainly—the way she spoke proved that. But dancing was an altogether different sort of education.
He narrowed his gaze on her over the top of the paper. She was far more than a common thief. What exactly was her past? Where did she come from that her life was such a bewildering puzzle? And how on earth did a beautiful woman who knew ballroom dances end up in Newgate?
“In the morning, I’ll arrange a review lesson for you,” Madame said, “once the pianoforte player is through playing in the drawing room. We’re certain to find a gentleman in the house who can partner you and show you—”
“I’ll partner her,” Merritt interjected in a half growl.
Both women stared at him in surprise, as if he’d transformed himself into a goat. Then Madame arched a knowing brow at his jealous reaction. Bloody hell.
“I don’t want her to have any contact with gentlemen,” he explained, his voice inexplicably rough.
Which only sent her brow higher.
Bloody, bloody hell. “We’re keeping her identity a secret, remember?” A lie. The truth was he didn’t want her to be in another man’s arms, even for a dance lesson. “Your clientele comes from all levels of society. I don’t want anyone who might be present at the ball to see her here.”
“Of course not,” Madame assured him in a purring voice that told him she didn’t believe one word.
He reached for another copy of the Times on the table beside his chair, shook it out, and held it up in front of him. Most likely, this was the first time in history that twelve sheets of paper had ever functioned as a shield.
He scanned over the page—and stopped. A story about the riots filled the last column of page two, reporting that plans had been made by Whitehall to call in the militia to put down the unrest if it continued. He tightened his jaw. That was exactly the worst thing the crown could do. The rising price of not just bread but everything necessary for day-to-day living and lack of jobs had pushed the poor to the brink. Sending in soldiers against British citizens would only enflame the situation and entrench the rioters even more. The only way to end the unrest then would be for the soldiers to inflict such harsh brutality and slaughter that Londoners wouldn’t dare to riot again.
The Home Office would callously do exactly that.
He bit back a curse. The clock was ticking now. He had to find the men responsible for the riots before innocent blood was shed.
He looked across the room at Veronica as she gave up learning the language of the fan and gleefully tossed it away. As she turned, she caught his gaze and frowned at his troubled preoccupation. He gave her a reassuring smile, which only seemed to distress her more.
A commotion went up from the hall—banging and thumping mixed with a woman’s voice raised in unbridled cursing. In French.
“Ah! That must be Madame Barnaud.” Madame smiled at Veronica and crossed to the door. “I’ve convinced her to make your gown. She’s the best French modiste in all of England. But don’t you dare tell her I said that,” she grumbled, “or the woman will start charging double.” She flung open the door with an ingratiating smile. “Madame Barnaud! How good to see you again.”
The women exchanged air kisses to each cheek.
“How have you been?” Madame Noir purred as she stepped aside to let the woman into her rooms.
“Terrible!” Madame Barnaud heaved out a long-suffering sigh. Then with a wave of her hand, she launched into a diatribe in French about worthless shop girls and assistants, aristocracy who never paid their accounts, and the rising cost of fine Chinese silk.
Merritt glanced at Veronica, who stood demurely at the side of the room and watched the dressmaker’s arrival. A knowing smile tugged at her lips, indicating that she understood every word. So she not only knew how to dance, she also spoke French, and not just that drawing room fribble taught to society misses either but real French. Her past just blossomed into an even bigger mystery.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice.” Madame Noir took the woman’s arm and turned her toward Veronica. “This is the reason I sent for you. Miss Chase. She needs a very special gown.”
Madame Barnaud raked an assessing look over Veronica from head to toe. “You are to attend a grand soiree, correct?”
“Yes.”
“With the snake,” Madame Noir confirmed with a dismissing wave of her hand in Merritt’s direction.
He smiled widely in acknowledgment.
Ignoring him, Madame explained, “We need you to dress her. For Carlton Place.”
“Hmm.” As Madame Barnaud circled Veronica to evaluate her from all angles, she gestured at the footmen waiting in the hallway to bring inside the three trunks she’d brought with her. Following in the wake of the footmen and trunks came a very tired-looking mouse of an assistant who had obviously been roused from her sleep in the dead of night. “Supper or ball?”
“Ball,” Madame Noir answered for her.
“Will she dance?”
“Most likely.”
“Satin?”
“Of course.”
“Husband hunting or status climbing?”
“Neither,” Merritt interjected from behind his newspaper, interrupting the volley. “I want her to be invisible.”
A flare of surprise crossed Madame Barnaud’s face. Surely, none of her aristocratic clientele had ever asked for that before. Then she narrowed her eyes at Veronica and gave a sharp nod, accepting the challenge. “I possess those skills.”
She snapped her fingers, and the timid assistant rushed to open the trunks and unpack them. In a matter of moments, every spare piece of furniture in the room was covered with an assortment of ball gowns and accessories of all kinds.
“There isn’t time to make a new gown,” Madame Barnaud explained. “I have brought several that can be altered. But such rapid work will cost…”
“Price is no concern,” Madame Noir assured her, sliding a victorious smile at Merritt. “None at all.”
With a roll of his eyes, he pretended to return his focus to the newspaper, yet he surreptitiously watched Veronica as she let the two women consult between themselves about what she should wear. Her attention had been captured by a sage-gr
een gown decorated with thousands of tiny cream-colored pearls that the assistant had placed across the back of the settee. More than admiration for the dress crossed her face, more than appreciation for the detailed embroidery on the delicate bodice—it was a melancholy longing for things that her life in the Court of Miracles could never provide.
His chest panged for her. He bit back the impulse to tell the two Madames to make a second dress for her.
Madame Barnaud snapped her fingers again. Her nervous assistant raced to fetch the stool from Madame Noir’s dressing table and put it in the center of the room.
“Now.” She directly addressed Veronica. “You. Here.” When Veronica blinked, puzzled at what the woman wanted, Madame Barnaud clapped her hands together sharply as if scolding a misbehaving dog and pointed at the floor in front of the stool. “There—now!”
Veronica did as ordered and came forward, although judging from the irritation and embarrassment coloring her face, she would have loved to have shackled the woman with her handcuffs.
Madame Barnaud took a yardstick and tapped Veronica on the shoulders to make her lift her arms. Immediately, the assistant darted forward like a border collie. The girl’s fingers unbuttoned her bodice with lightning speed, then grabbed the hem of the dress and stripped it up Veronica’s body, over her head, and off, all before Merritt could think to look away.
He sucked in a mouthful of air at the unexpected sight of her. She stood there in short stays and a chemise that hid little from the light of the lamp behind her, which silhouetted her curves through the thin cotton. Instantly, she covered her bosom with crossed arms, but that did nothing to hide the outline of her long legs beneath, the curve of her hips, the dark patch of feminine curls between her legs—
God have mercy. He raised the newspaper high enough that he couldn’t see over the edge and did his best to summon what few tendrils of gentlemanly manners were left inside him. At that moment, in the brothel’s warren of rooms, women were in stages of undress far more revealing than Veronica, yet none of them could have affected him the way that fleeting glimpse of her just did.
More snapping of fingers. “Remove that corset.”
An image of a bare-breasted Veronica filled his head, and he shifted in his chair as his trousers tightened uncomfortably. He didn’t dare lower the paper to take the look at her that the scoundrel in him craved.
Snap, snap! “The chemise, too.”
Which meant she would be wearing nothing except stockings if she—
“And the stockings.”
A heated ache began to throb at his crotch.
“Fortunately, she has a full bosom,” Madame Noir commented. “Enough for a very snug gown, one cut lower in the new Parisian style, don’t you think?”
Yes. Yes, I do.
“And a thin waist, shapely hips,” Madame Barnaud mumbled, “nice round bottom…”
Very much round. And nice. And luscious. Perfect for a man to run his hands over, to squeeze and clench—
He blew out a hard breath and kept the paper high. Although if they kept this up for much longer, it wouldn’t be the newspaper that was raised.
None of it was helped by the fact that he was sitting in a brothel. That even here on the top floor and in an isolated part of the house, he could hear the faint grunts of masculine exertion and the practiced female moans in response echoing from the rooms around them. That the musky odor of sex mixed with the scent of perfume and tallow candles to create a lingering aroma of debauched pleasure.
Madame Barnaud ordered, “Stand up on the stool.”
The thought of Veronica posed naked on a pedestal, like a statue of Venus—
His cock jumped.
Enough. He slapped down the newspaper and vaulted to his feet, keeping his gaze carefully focused on the Aubusson rug on the floor. He stalked toward the door, well aware of all four sets of female eyes staring at him in bewilderment. He didn’t dare glance their way.
“Morning has arrived,” he explained to the floor. “I’m leaving. To work.”
From the corner of his eye, he saw the blackness of predawn still darkening the window and felt like an idiot.
“To catch some sleep,” he amended quickly. “Then work.”
There. That should be a good enough explanation, as opposed to the real one—that if he didn’t get the hell out of there, he’d grab Veronica in his arms like some beast and drag her onto the nearest bed, to hungrily take her the way every inch of him burned to do. Gentlemanly manners and rioters and Scepter all be damned.
“Don’t let her leave,” he ordered the floor. “Keep her away from sharp weapons. And for God’s sake, put some clothes on her before she dies of cold!”
He slammed the door shut with a bang.
Ten
“Are you finished with me?” Veronica tugged the sprigged muslin dress into place and quickly fastened up its buttons herself before the women could once more strip her bare. By now, though, there wasn’t a part of her that hadn’t been measured, traced, and recorded.
Madame Barnaud held up the long list of notes she’d made during the fitting. Her eyes narrowed as she scanned it. “I believe so.”
Thank God. And not a moment too soon.
With a tired sigh, Veronica turned toward the bay window to gaze out at the breaking dawn while behind her, the two women launched into their final business negotiations. A flurry of back-and-forths in rapid French regarding last-minute details over her ball gown, right down to whether she should have bows on the tips of her satin slippers and if her matching wrap should be lined with velvet or fur. In the end, the velvet lost to Madame Noir’s insistence on using only the finest materials Mr. Rivers could afford.
Veronica frowned. Mr. Rivers had fled over two hours ago. She didn’t know whether to take his parting orders to cover her nakedness as an endearment or an insult.
Would she ever understand that man?
Beyond the glass, the city was awash in golden light, the bright sunlight chasing away the blues and grays of the rainy night. The only visible clouds clung low to the distant horizon, white fluffy bunches that looked like puffs of wool against a blue blanket and portended a warm fall day. Instead of welcoming the sight, she felt dread tighten in her chest. No rain meant the possibility of another riot tonight.
Below, King Street was quiet, as if taking a moment to catch its breath before the day began. So was the brothel. The gentlemen had all left by the cover of darkness, although more likely done to miss the morning congestion of carriages on the city’s main avenues than because they cared who might have seen them departing Le Château Noir. The women had all eaten breakfast and gone to bed, to lose themselves in a few hours of rest and privacy before the next round of men began to arrive after sunset. Even the pianoforte player in the drawing room had finished for the night and gone home because Merritt wasn’t there to partner her for dance lessons.
She was more disappointed at that than she wanted to admit. They’d already done a dance of sorts that first night with their swords, so she knew exactly how skilled his footwork, how light his movements. He was a natural-born athlete, and she’d looked forward to dancing with him. But the women had rattled him to the point that he’d had to flee. Veronica had struggled to keep from laughing at the stiff way he’d hurried from the room, newspaper raised like a blinder to the side of his face and his gaze glued to the floor.
It was also endearing. She’d never met another man who wouldn’t have stared shamelessly as she undressed.
Despite his weapons—and being a lawyer—Merritt was a gentleman at heart. That made this all so much worse. It should have been easy to hate a man who reminded her at every step that she’d falsely been branded a criminal, who held a pardon over her head like the sword of Damocles. Yet she’d sneaked a glimpse beneath his façade, and what she was beginning to feel for him was far from hatred.
> Madame Barnaud turned away from Madame Noir and clapped her hands, signaling that all the decisions regarding the clothes had been made. She gestured to the footmen to take the repacked trunks downstairs. Her exhausted assistant let out a long sigh, grateful to be able to slink away after the footmen, while the two women charged ahead into the thick of financial negotiations.
It was almost like watching a play, Veronica mused, enacted by two very well-rehearsed actresses. They’d arrived at the final act.
“The ball gown is your top priority,” Madame Noir reminded the modiste. “It must be done by five in the afternoon tomorrow.”
Madame Barnaud feigned insult that she couldn’t alter a dress by then, even one as delicate and fine as the green satin and gold filigree creation Veronica had coveted since the assistant pulled it from the trunk. “It will be done, along with all the accessories.”
“Good. I also want to order more dresses for Miss Chase.”
That captured Veronica’s attention. What the devil was Madame planning?
“Three day dresses and all the necessary accessories,” she ordered.
“But I only need the one gown,” Veronica interrupted.
Madame Noir rolled her eyes at her as if she were a cake of a girl. “My dear, you will need far more than that.” Then she ignored Veronica and instructed Madame Barnaud, “All in the finest muslin, all in the latest fashion, and none of that pastel nonsense worn by unmarried misses. Deep colors that command attention. I want her to glow when she wears them.”
That wasn’t at all what was needed. Veronica knew how to do reconnaissance, and glowing certainly wasn’t part of avoiding attention. “I don’t think—”
“Along with a green kerseymere coat dress for carriage rides in the park.”
She blinked. Carriage rides in the park? Who exactly did Madame think she was?
Cold realization sank through her. Madame thought she was a mistress. Merritt’s mistress. After all, they’d given her no reason to think otherwise.
An Extraordinary Lord Page 10
