Loretta Chase - Regency Rogues and Rakes - Silk is for Seduction / Scandal Wears Satin / Vixen in Velvet / Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed / A Rake's Midnight Kiss / What a Duke Dares

“You ought to change the date of opening, too,” Clevedon said. “You can’t afford to lose another day. Make it tomorrow. You won’t have time to paint it exactly as you like, but it was painted only a short time ago for our absconders. With everything cleaned and polished, and with new fixtures, it will look brand-new.”

The younger sisters burst out at the same time:

“We can’t possibly do this!”

“How on earth can we have everything ready in less than twenty-four hours?”

Noirot put up her hand. The sisters subsided. “We’ll need to borrow most of your servants to do it,” she told Clevedon. “And carriages again. We’ll need materials, yes, beyond what we purchased for the emergency.”

“I understand,” he said.

“We can’t do it without your help,” she said.

“I’d planned on helping,” he said. “It’s a small enough sacrifice to have the lot of you out of Clevedon House forthwith.”

That would quiet Lady Warford. And the other cats. For himself, he cared nothing about talk or scandal. But he knew he was making matters very difficult for Clara. He couldn’t do as he pleased without causing her embarrassment at the very least.

In any event, he lacked the moral fortitude to resist temptation. The longer Noirot lived under his roof, the greater the likelihood he’d behave in his usual way.

“A small sacrifice,” Miss Sophia said with a laugh. “Oh, it’s good to be a duke.”

“It’s good to know a duke,” Miss Leonie said. “This place may give Marcelline’s genius scope, but it’s going to be deuced expensive to furnish, never mind the materials.”

Noirot was already beginning a circuit of what he supposed would be the showroom. “The drawers and counters will do,” she said, “but everything must be cleaned and polished within an inch of its life. All else must be purchased. Working our way down from the ceiling—chandeliers, wall sconces, mirrors…”

Clevedon took out his little pocket notebook and started making notes.

They had no trouble dividing responsibilities. Marcelline and her sisters had been at this long enough to know who did what best.

Sophia returned to Clevedon House to compose her deathless prose and supervise the seamstresses. Leonie remained at the shop to accept deliveries and supervise the servants and workmen who, they were told, Halliday had already begun organizing, and would be arriving shortly.

Clevedon was to take Marcelline shopping.

She saw no alternative. She needed him. She’d simply have to suppress her lust and longings and other inconvenient feelings and be stoical. She’d had plenty of practice with that.

“If we’re to get this done by the end of the day, you must come with me,” she told him at the end of her inventory of the place. “I’ve no time to waste while a clerk dithers or tries to sell me something I don’t want. I haven’t time for dickering about prices. I need prompt, preferably obsequious attention. Entering with the Duke of Clevedon is a sure way to get that and more.”

“I assumed I’d come with you,” he said. “Did you not notice how diligently I took notes?”

She had noticed and wondered at it. She held her tongue, though, until they were in his carriage. And then it wasn’t the notebook she asked about.

“I thought you loathed shopping with women above all things,” she said, remembering what he’d said to Lady Clara.

“That was before,” he said. “Now you’ve made it interesting , curse you.”

“Interesting?”

“All the bustling about,” he said. “All the drama. All that naked ambition coupled with passionate belief in the rightness of your vision. All that…purpose. It amuses me to catch the occasional stray bit of purpose by trailing in your wake.”

“What nonsense!” she said. “I found a way to make a living that doesn’t require me to drudge endlessly for someone else—and one that offers an avenue for advancement as well. If I weren’t obliged to work, I shouldn’t. I should be happy to have no purpose but to enjoy myself and occasionally bestow some generosity upon lesser mortals.”

“You’re the one talking nonsense,” he said. “You live for what you do. You live and breathe your work. It isn’t employment. It’s your vocation.”

“I look forward to the day when I can live in idleness,” she said. “That’s my goal.”

“The day will never come,” he said. “No matter what heights you achieve, you won’t be able to stop doing what you do. You can’t see yourself. I can. I saw you throw down Clara’s dress and kick it aside. It wasn’t merely unsatisfactory. In your view, it was criminal . You tore those clothes from her hands as though they’d do her grievous bodily harm. You made that dress overnight because it was a matter of life and death to you. It would have killed you if she’d gone to Almack’s wearing one of her old dresses.”

She looked out of the carriage window. “Talk of drama,” she said. “‘Life and death’…‘killed’ me.” She was uncomfortable. She’d never thought of herself in that way. She was stubborn, hardheaded, practical, mercenary. Everything she did was for gain, for ambition. Yet now he’d said it, she realized he wasn’t wrong. And she had to wonder at his noticing such a thing. She’d thought he noticed mainly what weakness or unguarded moment of emotion could get her on her back or against a wall…or onto a worktable.

“Oh, very well,” she said. “It wouldn’t have killed me—but it might have made me a little sick.”

He laughed.

The carriage stopped. They climbed out, the conversation ended, and the shopping commenced.

It was one of the most hectic days Clevedon had spent in his life—with the exception of the day he’d raced across France after her.

They went quickly from one shop to the next: linen drapers and furniture warehouses, shops specializing in lighting and shops specializing in mirrors.

He and Noirot received all the prompt, obsequious attention she’d wanted and more. The shop owners themselves came out to wait upon his grace, the Duke of Clevedon. They were prepared to move heaven and earth to get him precisely what he needed and to have it delivered that very day. If they hesitated, he had only to say to Noirot, “We had better try the next shop—Colter’s, is it?” As soon as a competitor’s name was mentioned, what had been impossible a moment ago became “the easiest thing in the world, your grace.”

Once the shopping began, there was no more personal conversation. Noirot hadn’t time to debate about what to purchase or wait to be shown the latest this or that. When she entered a shop, she had to know exactly what she wanted. And so, in those short intervals while they were traveling in the privacy of his carriage, the talk was purely practical, all about furnishings and what size was best, and what colors set off what.

He should have been bored witless. He should have been frantic to get away, to his club, to a card game, to a bottle or two or three with Longmore.

The Duke of Clevedon was so far from bored that he never noticed the time passing. At some point, they’d stopped to eat from a basket his cook had prepared for them. He couldn’t say when that was, an hour ago or five.

Then they left a warehouse, and when they reached the pavement she said, “Mon dieu , it’s done. I think. I hope. That’s everything, isn’t it?”

He took out his pocket notebook, and it was only when he had to squint at it that he realized evening had fallen. He’d stepped out of the shop and joined the flow of activity on the street without noticing that it had grown dark. He’d been too intent on his own plans and calculations. While she was occupied with choosing articles for her shop, he hadn’t been idle.