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

They’d reached Bedford Square. “Look here, Fenwick,” she said. “There’s the shop his lordship and I mean to visit.” She nodded toward Dowdy’s. “Do you know the place?”

“They makes clothes for the nobs,” he said. “A girl I know used to work there, but they was all let go for no reason.”

Sophy hoped the girl had gone to the Milliners’ Society. She and her sisters had better look into what had happened to Dowdy’s discharged seamstresses.

But one thing at a time.

“While his lordship and I visit the shop, you’ll mind the horses as well as the business of everybody about you,” she said briskly. “Give a long, sharp whistle to let us know if we’re about to be interrupted. Do the job satisfactorily, and I’ll do as I promised. Have we a bargain, Fenwick?”

“No tricks?” the boy said.

“No tricks?” Longmore echoed. “The brass of the brat!”

“Do I look like the tricky sort to you?” Sophy said.

The boy gave her a long, searching look. He spent some time peering into the tinted lenses. “Yes,” he said. “Not to mention you got a grip like a manacle.”

She smiled. “There, I knew you were a sharp one. But no tricks.”

She released his arm. He made a great show of massaging it, and checking for broken bones. He muttered about “mad gentry morts” and “bruiser lordships.”

“Never mind the grumbling,” Longmore said.

“I don’t mean to spend all day shopping with a female. Either you’ll do it or you won’t. Make up your mind. I don’t have time to dawdle here, palavering about it, all day.”

“Be yourself,” Sophy told Longmore when he joined her on the pavement after a lengthy conversation with Fenwick—about the horses, she supposed, and what would happen to the boy if he failed his assignment.

“Myself?” he said. “Are you sure?”

“I need you to be you,” she said. “Lord Longmore, Lady Warford’s eldest son. The son of Dowdy’s favorite customer.” That was why she’d had to pursue and enlist him. She had to save her shop, and that meant going into enemy territory, to find out what Maison Noirot was up against. The easiest and most effective way was to use him as part of her disguise. “No pretending required. Simply be you.”

“I need to pretend you’re Gladys.”

“I’ll seem so like her, you won’t have to pretend. Leave everything to me.”

“And if they chuck you out?”

“Be yourself,” she said. “Laugh.”

“If you were you, yes,” he said. “But Gladys is another story.” He frowned. “This is going to be confusing.”

“Not at all,” she said. “All you have to do is be you. Don’t think about it. It doesn’t need thinking.”

She marched toward the door in the determined way certain gauche misses did.

He moved smoothly ahead and opened it for her.

In her mind she became Cousin Gladys—plain and awkward and sensitive to slights. She marched inside. Mouth set, she looked about her, making it plain that she wouldn’t be easy to please. At the same time, though, she was still Sophy Noirot, evaluating her surroundings with an expert eye, and more than a little surprised … and troubled … at what she discovered.

Though no one could match Maison Noirot’s flair, someone had tried. The walls had been freshly painted pale peach, the trim a creamy yellow, and someone had given thought to a variety of colorful accents. That someone had taken the trouble to arrange the fabrics artistically. Some hung on large rings near the display windows. Others lay on counters, looking as though they’d only a moment ago been unfolded for a customer. A book of fashion plates lay open on a table, inviting perusal. Comfortable chairs stood in small clusters about the room, giving it the snug air of a private parlor. Tables next to them held men’s as well as ladies’ magazines.

The showroom, while not as obsessively clean as Maison Noirot’s, was much neater and less dingy than it used to be.

The explanation, Sophy saw, stood behind the counter.

Dowdy had hired a Frenchwoman. She was pretty and elegant and graceful. Her fair hair was arranged becomingly under a splendid lace cap.

Her poise didn’t falter although her welcoming smile did, a little, as she took in Sophy/Gladys. The woman’s light brown gaze turned with obvious relief to Longmore.

Subtle as the rebuff was, it wouldn’t be too subtle for a sensitive soul, as Sophy imagined Gladys to be. The Frenchwoman shouldn’t have given any sign of dismay. She should have looked as delighted to see her as she would be to see Queen Adelaide.

Many specimens as unpromising as the faux Gladys came into dressmakers’ shops. How one served them made all the difference in the world. The Frenchwoman seemed to see Lady Gladys Fairfax as an ordeal to endure, rather than as an exciting challenge, as Sophy and her sisters would view her. Their faces would have lit up when she stepped through the door.

“Mrs. Downes?” Sophy said.

“I am Madame Ecrivier, mademoiselle,” the Frenchwoman said. “Madame Downes is occupied at the moment, but I—”

“Occupied!” Longmore said, startling Sophy as well as Ecrivier. “Where in blazes would she be occupied if not in her own shop? This is her shop, I presume? It had better be. I had the devil’s own time getting here. Accident on Oxford Street and everybody stopping to gawk and slowing travel in three directions.”

Sophy was too experienced in deceit to show her feelings. She didn’t gawk at him, except in her thoughts. He’d said he was confused, and she’d had a moment’s alarm, that subterfuge was beyond his intellectual abilities.

But whether by accident or not, he’d created a beautiful opening, and she knew how to play along.

“Did Lady Warford not tell Mrs. Downes to expect family members this week?” she said. “Her daughter, Lady Clara—my cousin, you know—is getting married. Surely my aunt must have informed you. I don’t see how she could have failed to do so. She told me she’d ordered a dress to wear to the wedding. She ordered it from this shop. On Monday, I believe.”

And she’d thrown a spectacular fit, according to Lady Clara, when she learned that the latter hadn’t gone to Dowdy’s.

“Oui, mademoiselle—milady. And most certainly—”

“Here’s my cousin, come to be fitted out for my sister’s wedding,” Longmore said. “The first wedding in the family, I might add. And where’s the proprietress? I say, this is a fine way to treat clients. Well, Gladys, we’d better be off. Who was that other milliner Clara mentioned? French name, wasn’t it? On St. James’s Street. If I’d known we’d get the cold shoulder here, I could have saved myself a bothersome journey.”

Madame Ecrivier was all but dancing with panic. “Oh, no, oh, no, milord. There is no coldness of the shoulder. Only a moment, if you please. I will send someone to inform Madame. A thousand apologies. Certainly Madame will attend the young lady. If you will pardon me for a moment, I will arrange this.”

The Frenchwoman glided away and vanished through the door behind the counter. Though she closed the door behind her, Sophy could hear her voice, high, communicating via the speaking pipe to somebody somewhere.

Longmore strode to the window and looked out. “The carriage is still there,” he said in a low voice. “Fenwick hasn’t sold the horses yet.”

When he lowered his voice, it became husky, and the sound made Sophy go still, like an animal catching the scent of danger. It took her a moment to shake off the feeling.

“Your cattle couldn’t be safer,” she said. “He’s thrilled.”

“It doesn’t show.”

“He’s learned to hide important feelings,” she said.