Regency Surrender: Scandal And Deception. Marguerite Kaye
how insignificant it was likely to be. ‘For my cousin.’
In her experience, the smaller he made the purchase sound, the more money he was about to spend. ‘Another cousin, Mr Standish?’ she said with a sly smile. ‘And I assume, as always, it is a female cousin?’
He sighed theatrically. ‘The b-burdens of a large family, Margot.’
After one such visit, she had taken the time to check Debrett’s and discovered that his family was exceptionally tiny and, other than his mother and one sister, exclusively male. ‘Such a large family and so many of them undecorated females,’ she said playfully. ‘Do you not have a single piece of family jewellery to offer them?’
‘Not a stone,’ he said with a solemn shake of his head.
She gestured towards the door that led to the salon. ‘Well, we must help you with this immediately. Come. Sit. Take a glass of wine with me. We have something to suit, I am sure.’ She touched the arm of the nearest shop girl and whispered the selections she wished brought from the safe and the show-cases. The work she had just finished for him must be delivered as well. She had been waiting all week to see his reaction to it.
Then she held aside the gauzy white curtain that separated the private salon from the rest of the shop so that he might enter. There was already a decanter of claret waiting on a low table beside the white-velvet divan.
As she passed the doorway to the workroom, she caught a glimpse of Mr Pratchet shifting nervously in his seat at the workbench. He did not like the special attention she paid to the marquess. She frowned at him. What Mr Pratchet liked or did not like was of no concern. She had hired him as a goldsmith, but he sometimes got above himself in thinking that he was a partner here and not just another of Margot’s employees. To take orders from a woman, and a young woman at that, must be quite difficult for him.
But he would have to learn to do so, she thought, with a grim smile to herself. If he harboured illusions that his talent with metals made him indispensable, he was quite wrong. Nor did she intend to marry him so that control of the shop might fall to him. Mr Pratchet was the third man to occupy the workbench since she had taken over the business. The last two had found themselves without a position at the first suggestion that their place at de Bryun’s would be anything more than back-room craftsman.
Before she could step through the curtain to follow the marquess, Pratchet came to the doorway and whispered, ‘It is not wise for you to be alone with a gentleman in a private room. People will surely talk.’
‘If they did not speak of what went on here, when Mr Montague was alive, I doubt they will have anything to say about me,’ Margot said firmly. The whole town had turned a blind eye to Montague’s mistreatment of Justine, ignoring the fact that she was more a prisoner than an owner of half the shop. No one had offered to help her. Nor had Montague’s unsavoury behaviour halted custom. Why should her innocent interaction with a member of the nobility be a cause for talk?
‘Lord Fanworth is a perfect gentleman,’ she added, glancing wistfully towards the salon. Almost too perfect, if she was to be honest.
‘He is a rake,’ Mr Pratchet corrected. ‘A gentleman would not lie about his identity.’
‘Who are we to question the ways of the gentry?’ she said with a smile. ‘If he wishes anonymity when visiting my humble stop, then I am the last person who will deny it. Especially not while he is such an excellent customer. And since the curtain that separates us from the main room is practically transparent, I am hardly secluded with him.’ She passed a hand behind the cotton to demonstrate. It had been a particularly clever addition of hers, she was sure. It gave privacy to the more important clients, while giving the less important ones a glimpse into the dealings of the ton-weary aristocrats. If they should happen to gossip that Lord Fanworth had been seen at de Bryun’s today, there would be all the more customers tomorrow, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.
But there would be no customers at all if her employees scolded her instead of working. ‘Please tend to your job, Mr Pratchet. There is a necklace with a clasp that needs mending and I wish to see the setting for my most recent design by this afternoon at the latest. You had best hurry for you have not even carved the wax for it.’
Pratchet looked as if he wished to correct her, then thought the better of it and went back to his station without another word.
Only then did Margot sweep through the curtain, letting it whisper shut behind her. Before approaching the marquess, she resisted the urge to check her appearance in one of the many mirrors on the shop walls. But a single glimpse wouldn’t hurt. It was only to be sure that she was showing the proper, professional smile that such a good customer deserved.
And a professional relationship was all this was. Mr Pratchet was right in part. Lord Fanworth was a rake and a very handsome one. For the sake of her reputation, she’d never have dared speak to him outside of de Bryun’s.
But Mr Standish made her smile. And it was no polite, ladylike raise of the lips. It was far too close to a grin. When he realised that he could make her laugh, he went out of his way to do so. His visits were the highlight of her day.
But it was more than that, she was sure. He acted as if it was also the best part of his day to sit in the salon with her, drinking wine and spending his money. Today, his features lit into a dazzling smile at the sight of her. Then, he leaned forward, eager for her company.
Without his asking, she poured the wine into a crystal glass and offered it to him, pulling up a cushioned stool to sit beside him, as he drank. ‘And what may I show you today, sir?’
He gave her a low, hot look. ‘There are any number of things I would like to see. But let us limit ourselves to jewellery, Margot. We are in a p-public place, after all.’
She pretended to be shocked. And for a moment, he looked sincerely alarmed to have offended her. Then she laughed, for there was never any real harm in him. And it was clear by his returned smile that she knew he was not laughing at the stammer that sometimes appeared when he said certain words.
They both smiled in silence for a moment, enjoying the easy camaraderie. Then she said, ‘Jewellery is all you are likely to be shown. It is all you will get from me, at any rate.’
That had been foolish of her. If she wanted the world to believe that these visits were innocent, she must learn not to encourage the man when he flirted. But it was too tempting not to play along with his little game.
He grinned back at her. ‘I must hope, when I find a wife as lovely as you, she will be more agreeable.’
‘Oh, I seriously doubt so, Mr Standish. You seem like the sort of man who will be back in my showroom the day after the wedding, buying gifts for your many cousins. I would advise any wife of yours to bar the door against you, until you promise some modicum of fidelity.’
‘If you were my wife, I would bar the door myself, with us both inside.’ She was sure that he meant it in jest. The idea of him taking her as his wife was quite ridiculous. It was only her overwrought imagination that made the words sound like a sincere offer.
But that did not keep her from dwelling on the scene. The thought of the two of them, locked together in a secluded room gave her a strange, nervous feeling, somewhere between anticipation and fear. She ignored it and gave him a wide-eyed innocent look, as though she could not possibly understand what he meant by such a suggestion. ‘But if you locked me up, how would I get to the shop?’
‘You would not need to be in this showroom, to show me all the treasure I wished to see,’ he pointed out, quite reasonably.
‘All the more reason not to marry you then,’ she said triumphantly. ‘The shop belonged to my father and now it belongs to me. It would be like denying my first love for another, were I to marry you.’
He was still smiling. But it was clear, by his expression, that he did not understand why she would not choose him over her work. She had not really expected him to. It hardly mattered, really. Even if he had been joking about marriage, he assumed it was the ultimate goal of any