Regency Rogues and Rakes. Anna Campbell

wear out the shop bell.

      …a dress that inspired its wearer not only with the confidence to decline the addresses of a duke but with the fire of poetry…

      The impudence of it passed all bounds.

      Typical. The impudence of those Noirot women was beyond anything. And like all else they did, the article was well done, indeed. He would have liked to hug Sophia for it, but Sophia wasn’t the first person on his mind.

      It wasn’t Sophia who’d kept him awake all night.

      It wasn’t Sophia who’d got him up to pace and argue with himself. A futile argument.

      From the time he’d escaped the party, from the time he’d stood on the pavement and realized why he was shaking, he’d seen there was only one way to put an end to this farce.

      And so he waited until the afternoon waned and the ladies had gone home to dress for the ritual promenade in Hyde Park.

      Then he crossed to the other side of St. James’s Street and entered Maison Noirot.

      The shop bell tinkled, and Marcelline thought, Will they never go home?

      She was happy, of course. This had been a day like no other—not even the day after she’d returned from Paris and the ladies had come to stare at the poussière dress. Today, though, herds of women had come. Their old shop could never have contained them all. As it was, she needed to find at least six more seamstresses in no time at all, otherwise they would never complete all the orders by the dates promised.

      All this went through her head in the instant before she lifted her gaze from the tray of ribbons she was sorting, and looked toward the door.

      Her heart beat painfully.

      The gentleman stepped inside, and stopped and looked about. He did it exactly in the way all gentleman did when entering a shop for the first time: gazing coolly about them, evaluating what they saw, deciding whether it was worth their notice, and taking no notice of the lowly shopkeeper behind the counter.

      But this wasn’t the first time he’d been here and this wasn’t any gentleman.

      This was Clevedon, tall and arrogant, his hat tipped precisely so, his black hair curling under the brim. He carried a gold-tipped walking stick, and as he paused to examine the shop, he set both hands on it. His tan gloves fit like skin. She could see the outlines of his knuckles.

      His hands, his hands.

      She remembered his hand stroking down her back. Cupping her face. Sliding over her breast. Gliding between her legs.

      Had this been any other gentleman, any shopkeeper would have stepped out from behind the counter, prepared to give him personal and exclusive attention.

      She stayed where she was, bracing her hands on the counter. “Good afternoon, your grace,” she said.

      “Good afternoon, Mrs. Noirot.” He took off his hat and bowed.

      She dipped a quick curtsey.

      He set his hat on a chair, then walked to the mannequin and inspected her dress.

      It was a dark grey tulle, a color called “London Smoke,” which the lavish pink satin bodice trim set off beautifully. Richly embroidered roses and twining leaves adorned the skirt.

      “That looks very…French,” he said.

      “I always dress the mannequin more dashingly and flamboyantly than I would dress my customers,” she said. “After seeing what the mannequin is wearing, they’re less likely to become hysterical when I propose something rather more exciting than they’re accustomed to.”

      He smiled a little and came to the counter. “How fitting,” he said. “You are something rather more exciting than some of us are accustomed to.”

      “Not some,” she said. “All of you. Maison Noirot is not the usual thing.”

      “I couldn’t agree more,” he said. “I was glad to see that Miss Sophia turned last night’s debacle to good account. But of course, I should have expected no less.”

      “I expected a good deal more from you,” Marcelline said. “You bungled it.”

      “Yes,” he said. “What else could I do? I was asking the wrong woman to marry me.”

      Her heart seemed to stop beating altogether. She felt dizzy.

      He moved to the door and turned the sign to Closed.

      “We are not closed,” she said. Her voice seemed to come from miles away.

      “You’ve had enough business for one day,” he said.

      “You do not determine how much business is enough,” she said.

      He came back to the counter. “Come out from behind there,” he said.

      “Absolutely not.”

      He smiled. That was all he did. But to say smile conveyed nothing. Anybody could smile. What he did—only Sophy could have words for it.

      His beautiful mouth turned up, a little crookedly, and his green eyes regarded her with an amused affection that went straight to her pounding heart, and left her disarmed and weak and wanting.

      “I need all the customers I can get,” she said. “I’m not at all sure that Lady Clara will return—”

      “You know she will. For more dresses to give her the strength to contend with stupid men.”

      “—and since there’s to be no Duchess of Clevedon in the immediate future, I’ll have to make up for it with lesser mortals.”

      “I was thinking,” he said, “that you ought to be the Duchess of Clevedon.”

      She stood for a moment, speechless for once in her life, though she’d sensed trouble coming. Even so, as fine-tuned as her instincts were, she couldn’t take it in. She thought her ears must be playing tricks. Or he was playing tricks.

      She was tired. It had been a long, very busy day, after a sleepless, wretched night—after hearing the news from Sophy and not knowing whether to laugh with relief or weep with despair, for all her plans and all she’d borne. All for nothing. She’d done her best, and she’d paid a price higher than she’d ever imagined. Then, when Sophy came home and told them what had happened, Marcelline had looked around at all her hopes and dreams for their future, smashed to pieces.

      She took a steadying breath. Breathing wasn’t enough. She needed to sit down. She needed a strong drink.

      She said, “Have you lost your mind?”

      He said, “I don’t know about my mind. My heart, yes.”

      She scrambled for her wits. “I know what this is. You had a shock to your sensibilities. There was that beautiful girl, the one you’ve loved all your life—”

      “Like a sister. She was right. You were right.”

      “You’re still in shock,” she said. “Angry, I dare say. She humiliated you. In front of everybody. People applauded her, I understand.”

      “Did Miss Sophia tell you that? I deduced, from today’s Morning Spectacle, that she’d been there. Her style is unmistakable.”

      She couldn’t let him distract her. “The point is, you’re striking back.”

      “At Clara? Don’t be absurd. She was absolutely right. she knew my heart wasn’t in it. She knew I was acting. I followed your instructions to the letter. Exactly as one follows instructions. That isn’t how it ought to be. It ought to happen of itself, because nothing else is bearable.”

      “Stop,” she said. “Stop right now.” She needed to run far away, the way her forebears ran from difficulties. She needed to run because with every fiber of her being she longed to say yes. And that was