Regency Rogues and Rakes. Anna Campbell
came home without him.”
“Why worry?” said Marcelline. “To all intents and purposes, they’re betrothed. Breaking with Lady Clara would mean breaking with the whole family.”
“Maybe another beau appeared on the scene—one Lord Warford doesn’t care for,” said Leonie.
“More likely Lady Warford doesn’t care for other beaux,” said Sophy. “She wouldn’t want to let a dukedom slip through her hands.”
“I wonder what threat Longmore used,” Sophy said. “They’re both reputed to be wild and violent. He couldn’t have threatened pistols at dawn. Killing the duke would be antithetical to his purpose. Maybe he simply offered to pummel his grace into oblivion.”
“That I should like to see,” Marcelline said.
“And I,” said Sophy.
“And I,” said Leonie.
“A pair of good-looking aristocratic men fighting,” Marcelline said, grinning. Since Clevedon had left London several weeks before she and her sisters had arrived from Paris, they hadn’t, to date, clapped eyes on him. They were aware, though, that all the world deemed him a handsome man. “There’s a sight not to be missed. Too bad we shan’t see it.”
“On the other hand, a duke’s wedding doesn’t happen every day—and I’d begun to think this one wouldn’t happen in our lifetime,” Sophy said.
“It’ll be the wedding of the year, if not the decade,” Leonie said. “The bridal dress is only the beginning. She’ll want a trousseau and a completely new wardrobe befitting her position. Everything will be of superior quality. Reams of blond lace. The finest silks. Muslin as light as air. She’ll spend thousands upon thousands.”
For a moment, the three sisters sat quietly contemplating this vision, in the way pious souls contemplated Paradise.
Marcelline knew Leonie was calculating those thousands down to the last farthing. Under the untamable mane of red hair was a hardheaded businesswoman. She had a fierce love of money and all the machinations involving it. She labored lovingly over her ledgers and accounts and such. Marcelline would rather clean privies than look at a column of figures.
But each sister had her strengths. Marcelline, the eldest, was the only one who physically resembled her father. For all she knew, she was the only one of them who truly was his daughter. She had certainly inherited his fashion sense, imagination, and skill in drawing. She’d inherited as well his passion for fine things, but thanks to the years spent in Paris learning the dressmaking trade from Cousin Emma, hers and her sisters’ feelings in this regard went deeper. What had begun as drudgery—a trade learned in childhood, purely for survival—had become Marcelline’s life and her love. She was not only Maison Noirot’s designer but its soul.
Sophia, meanwhile, had a flair for drama, which she turned to profitable account. A fair-haired, blue-eyed innocent on the outside and a shark on the inside, Sophy could sell sand to Bedouins. She made stonyhearted moneylenders weep and stingy matrons buy the shop’s most expensive creations.
“Only think of the prestige,” Sophy said. “The Duchess of Clevedon will be a leader of fashion. Where she goes, everyone will follow.”
“She’ll be a leader of fashion in the right hands,” Marcelline said. “At present…”
A chorus of sighs filled the pause.
“Her taste is unfortunate,” said Leonie.
“Her mother,” said Sophy.
“Her mother’s dressmaker, to be precise,” said Leonie.
“Hortense the Horrible,” they said in grim unison.
Hortense Downes was the proprietress of Downes’s, the single greatest obstacle to their planned domination of the London dressmaking trade.
At Maison Noirot, the hated rival’s shop was known as Dowdy’s.
“Stealing her from Dowdy’s would be an act of charity, really,” said Marcelline.
Silence followed while they dreamed their dreams.
Once they stole one customer, others would follow.
The women of the beau monde were sheep. That could work to one’s advantage, if only one could get the sheep moving in the right direction. The trouble was, not nearly enough high-ranking women patronized Maison Noirot because none of their friends did. Very few were ready to try something new.
In the course of the shop’s nearly three-year existence, they’d lured a number of ladies, like Lady Renfrew. But she was merely the wife of a recently knighted gentleman, and the others of their customers were, like her, gentry or newly rich. The highest echelons of the ton—the duchesses and marchionesses and countesses and such—still went to more established shops like Dowdy’s.
Though their work was superior to anything their London rivals produced, Maison Noirot still lacked the prestige to draw the ladies at the top of the list of precedence.
“It took ten months to pry Lady Renfrew out of Dowdy’s clutches,” said Sophy.
They’d succeeded because her ladyship had overheard Dowdy’s forewoman, Miss Oakes, say the eldest daughter’s bodices were difficult to fit correctly, because her breasts were shockingly mismatched.
An indignant Lady Renfrew had canceled a huge order for mourning and come straight to Maison Noirot, which her friend Lady Sharp had recommended.
During the fitting, Sophy had told the weeping eldest daughter that no woman in the world had perfectly matching breasts. She also told Miss Renfrew that her skin was like satin, and half the ladies of the beau monde would envy her décolleté. When the Noirot sisters were done dressing the young lady, she nearly swooned with happiness. It was reported that her handsomely displayed figure caused several young men to exhibit signs of swooning, too.
“We don’t have ten months this time,” Leonie said. “And we can’t rely on that vicious cat at Dowdy’s to insult Lady Warford. She’s a marchioness, after all, not the lowly wife of a mere knight.”
“We have to catch her quickly, or the chance is gone forever,” said Sophy. “If Dowdy’s get the Duchess of Clevedon’s wedding dress, they’ll get everything else.”
“Not if I get there first,” Marcelline said.
ITALIAN OPERA, PLACE DES ITALIENS. The lovers of the Italian language and music will here be delighted by singers of the most eminent talents, as its name indicates; this theatre is devoted exclusively to the performance of Italian comic operas; it is supported by Government, and is attached to the grand French opera. The performances take place on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.
Francis Coghlan,
A Guide to France, Explaining Every Form and Expense from London to Paris, 1830
Paris, Italian Opera
14 April 1835
Clevedon tried to ignore her.
The striking brunette had made sure she’d attract attention. She’d appeared with her actress friend in the box opposite his at the last possible moment.
Her timing was inconvenient.
He had promised to write Clara a detailed description of tonight’s performance of The Barber of Seville. He knew Clara longed to visit Paris, though she made do with his letters. In a month or so he’d return to London and resume the life he’d abandoned. He’d made up his mind, for Clara’s