Regency Rogues and Rakes. Anna Campbell

Or so it must appear.

      “I or one of my sisters will personally deliver it to you, at not later than seven o’clock this evening, at which time we shall make any final adjustments you require,” Marcelline continued. “The dress will be perfect.”

      “Absolutely perfect,” said Sophy.

      Lady Renfrew was not listening. Not being a shopkeeper in danger of losing her most profitable and prestigious customer, she did look over her shoulder at the door. And she froze.

      “Well, then, here we are,” said a familiar, deep voice. “You may see for yourself, my dear. And there is the dress itself, by gad.”

      And the Duke of Clevedon laughed.

      His heart was beating in an embarrassingly erratic way.

      He’d opened the door, and tried to keep his attention on Clara, but it was no use. He was talking to her, treating this visit to the shop like the joke he’d made out the entire Noirot Episode to be. Meanwhile, though, he couldn’t stop his gaze from sweeping the shop, dismissing everything until he found what he was looking for.

      Noirot stood behind the counter, dealing with an apparently troublesome customer, and she did not at first look toward the door. Neither did the blonde standing nearby, who appeared to be a relative.

      He quickly looked away from her, past the gaping customer, and spotted the mannequin wearing the dress. How could he forget that infernal dress? Then he had to laugh, because Noirot had done exactly as she’d promised. She’d taken charge of the gossip before it could take hold, and turned it to her own account.

      Saunders had brought him a copy of today’s Morning Spectacle. There it was, impossible to miss on the front page: Noirot’s version of events in all its stunning audacity—and not very unlike the mocking advertisement she’d composed when he’d driven her home from the ball. He remembered the tone of her voice when she’d come to the last bit: Mrs. Noirot alone can claim the distinction of having danced with a duke.

      Mrs. Noirot’s dark, silken hair was, as usual, slightly askew and contriving to appear dashing and elegant rather than untidy under a flimsy, fluttery bit of lace apparently passing for a cap. Her dress was a billowy white froth, adorned with intricate green embroidery. A lacy cape sort of thing floated about her neck and shoulders, fastened in front with two bows of the same shade of green as the embroidery.

      He’d taken all that in with only a glance before making himself look away—but what was the good of looking away when it wanted only the one glance to etch her image in his mind?

      “My goodness,” said Clara, calling his attention back to her, back to the dust-colored dress with its red bows and black lace. “This is…rather daring, is it not?”

      “I know nothing of these matters,” he said. “I only know that every lady at the Comtesse de Chirac’s ball wanted this dress—and those were the leaders of Parisian Society. I shall not be at all surprised if one of them at least sends to London—Ah, but here she is.”

      He’d done a creditable job, in the circumstances, of pretending not to be watching Noirot out of the corner of his eye, while all his being was aware of her every movement. He’d been aware of her stepping out from behind the counter and approaching them, seeming not at all in any hurry. She brought with her a light haze of scent, so familiar that he ached with recollection: her scent swarming about him while they waltzed, and when she’d kissed him, and when she’d climbed onto his lap in the carriage. He tried to make his mind call up images of her sick on the boat, but those only made him ache the more. For a time she’d been vulnerable. For a time, she’d needed him. For a time, he’d been important to her—or at least he’d believed himself to be.

      Meanwhile, she wore a smile, a professional smile, and her attention was on Clara, not him.

      He introduced her to Clara, and at the words “Lady Clara Fairfax,” a sharp little gasp emanated from the troublesome customer, who’d evidently been handed off to the blonde.

      Noirot curtseyed. It was nothing like the outrageous thing she’d done at the ball, but light and polite and graceful, exactly the proper amount of deference in it.

      “I thought Lady Clara would like to be among the first to view your ball gown,” he said, “before the curious hordes descend upon your shop.”

      “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Clara said.

      “We wonder whether one ought to call the gown ‘daring,’” he said.

      “It’s daring compared to the usual run of English fashion, admittedly,” said Noirot. “The color combination is not what English ladies are accustomed to. But pray keep in mind that I designed this dress for an event in Paris, not London.”

      “And you designed it to attract attention,” he said.

      “What was the point of attending that ball if not to attract attention?” she said.

      “Indeed, I do wish you had been there, Clara,” he said, turning back to her. But she wasn’t there. She was circling the dress, warily, as though it were a sleeping tiger. He went on doggedly, “I thought it would be amusing, to discover whether Mrs. Noirot and I should be admitted or ejected. But the joke was on me.”

      “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Clara said. “How pretty it must have been, when you were dancing.” She looked at Clevedon, then Noirot, then quickly looked away, toward the counter. “Oh, what a beautiful shade of green!”

      The troublesome customer laid her hand protectively over the dress. “This is mine,” she said. “It only wants…alterations.”

      But Clara assured her she simply wanted to look at it, and in a minute or less, three heads were bent over the dress, and a conversation proceeded, in murmurs.

      “Thank you,” Noirot said in an undertone.

      “You hardly needed me to bring her,” he said, in the same low tone. He was hot, stupidly hot. “You’ll have half the beau monde on your doorstep by tomorrow, thanks to your stunning piece of puffery in the Morning Spectacle.”

      She looked up at him, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know you read the Spectacle.”

      “Saunders does,” he said. “He brought it to me with my coffee.”

      “In any event, while I’m happy to accommodate half the beau monde, your bride-to-be is the prize I covet.”

      “I promise nothing,” he said. “I’ve only made the introduction—much as I did at the countess’s ball. As you see, I hold no grudges, though you’ve used me abominably.”

      “I told you I was using you, practically from the beginning,” she said. “I told you as soon as I was sure I had your full attention.”

      She was incorrigible. She was the most hard-hearted, calculating, aggravating…

      And he was a dog, because he wanted her still, and there was Clara, the innocent, who’d been worried—worried!—because he hadn’t written to her for a week.

      He had meant to get it over with, to put his life in order, and make his offer of marriage in the park, while it was yet quiet, before the ton descended. But they’d hardly left Warford House when she’d said, “What on earth happened to you, Clevedon? A week without a letter? I thought you’d broken your arm—for when do you not write?”

      And so he’d told her, shaving very near the truth, and instead of driving to Hyde Park, he’d taken her here.

      “I thought it best to tell Clara the truth, though not every everlasting detail,” he said. “I told her that you’d waylaid me at the opera, determined to use me to further your own mercenary ends, that you were the most provoking woman who ever lived, otherwise I should not have taken leave of my senses and dared you to attend the ball with me. And the rest was more or less as you put it in your clever little piece in the Morning Spectacle.”