him very close to her; close enough to see that his lashes were quite ridiculously long and dark for such a masculine-looking man, close enough to smell a peppery cologne with a hint of limes and certainly close enough to see a flash of wicked amusement in his dark grey eyes as he looked at her flustered and indignant face.
‘Madame Phanie’s establishment?’ he enquired.
‘No, Madame d’Aunay’s.’
‘Ah. Five guineas, then.’
This was so accurate that Tallie was betrayed into speech. ‘How on earth do you know that, sir?’
She was answered with another lift of that expressive brow. ‘One receives bills from time to time, my dear,’ he drawled.
‘Oh!’ Tallie was furious with herself for asking and even more so for blushing hectically again. Even if he was merely referring to hats bought by his wife or sisters, her response to the remark showed clearly that she thought he meant he had been buying hats for a mistress. ‘Well, I made it and it took hours and now it is quite ruined—and if you had not stopped me I could have saved it.’
‘So it is all my fault?’ he enquired drily. ‘In that case I had better pay for it.’ Before Tallie could respond he reached into his pocket, drew out a handful of coins and counted five bright guineas into her hand. Then he set the lid back on the ruined bonnet, stooped to pick up the remaining hatboxes and placed them carefully in her arms. ‘Good day, my dear. And next time, ask your employer to send you in a hackney.’
Chapter Three
The man called Nick strode off up the street towards Berkeley Square without a backward glance, leaving Tallie standing staring after him. Then she realised that she was attracting no little attention. A kitchen maid, her head just visible through the area railings, stopped shaking out a rug to stare open-mouthed; a footman in livery raised supercilious eyebrows as he strode past bearing his employer’s messages; a hackney carriage driver called out something that was mercifully unintelligible to Tallie and a very smart matron, her maid at her heels, fixed her with a look of scandalised outrage.
With a gasp Tallie clenched her fingers around the coins and walked on as fast as she could with her unwieldy burden. To be seen on the street taking money from a man! No wonder people stared—she must have appeared no better than a common prostitute. Tallie almost turned tail, then realised she must at least call upon Lady Parry and apologise for her tardiness and for the damaged hat.
Feeling that everyone was staring at her and expecting at any moment to be accosted, either by some buck with a proposition or an outraged householder ordering her from his respectable street, Tallie finally reached Lady Parry’s door. It was opened with merciful promptness by Rainbird the butler. He allowed a faint expression of surprise to cross his thin face at the sight of the flushed and flustered milliner standing before him with her pile of soiled hatboxes.
‘Miss Grey! Have you been in an accident? Please, step inside at once.’ He stood aside to let her in and snapped his fingers imperiously to the footman, who hurried forward. Tallie relinquished her boxes gratefully and regarded the butler with an expression of rueful apology.
‘I am sorry to arrive in such a state, Rainbird, but I dropped the boxes in the street.’
‘I will ring for the housekeeper, Miss Grey. You will want to wash your hands and have your gown brushed before you see her ladyship, I make no doubt.’ Rainbird approved of Miss Grey, and had so far unbent as to remark on one occasion to Henry the footman, ‘A milliner she might be now, my lad, but she’s a lady for all that she has come down in the world. You just observe her manners: always easy and polite to staff. That comes from breeding and consideration and there are many with a hundred times her income who will never manage that naturally.’
Tallie was just gratefully accepting his offer when a small dark lady wearing a most fetching cap with floating ribbons and a jonquil morning dress, which almost made Tallie forget her woes, emerged into the hall. ‘Miss Grey, good morning. I thought I heard your voice.’
‘Good morning, my lady.’ Tallie bobbed a neat curtsy, conscious of the snapping brown eyes assessing her appearance. ‘I must apologise for arriving in such a state, ma’am, but I had an accident with the boxes.’
‘I was just about to send for Mrs Mills, my lady.’
‘Excellent, Rainbird. You run along with her, Miss Grey, and come down when you feel quite comfortable again. There is no hurry.’ Lady Parry vanished as abruptly as she had appeared and Tallie surrendered herself into the care of the housekeeper who, despite tutting about ruinous mudstains, restored the tired old gown to as good a condition as Tallie could hope for with sponge and badger-bristle brush.
Her cheeks cooled by a splash of water, her hands rinsed and her hair tidied, Tallie hurried downstairs and tapped on Lady Parry’s morning-room door.
‘Come in, Miss Grey, and let me have a look at you.’ Kate Parry was a widow on the wrong side of forty with a son of twenty, a tidy personal fortune and apparently boundless enthusiasm for whatever took her fancy. ‘Sit down and have a glass of Madeira. No, show me no missish reluctance, you have obviously had a shock and coddling your insides with tea or ratafia will not help at all.’
She peered closely at Tallie’s face. ‘Have you been crying, my dear? Were you hurt?’
‘Oh, no, ma’am, only I had the breath knocked out of me for a moment.’ Tallie took a sip of the strong wine, choked a little, then took another. It was certainly soothing to her nerves. ‘It made my eyes water, you see.’ She hesitated. Rainbird had placed the two hatboxes for Lady Parry upon a side-table, having first carefully spread a sheet of the morning paper to protect the polished surface from the mud. ‘I am afraid I dropped your new hats.’
‘How provoking for you! And has your handiwork been spoiled? I do hope not. Never mind, it is more important that you were not hurt. We will look at the hats in a moment: you drink your wine and tell me all about it.’
Thus encouraged by Lady Parry’s warm interest, and perhaps rather more by the unfamiliar glow of the wine, Tallie began her tale.
The foolish decision to walk was easily enough admitted to, and, although Lady Parry shook her head, she did not lecture. She was quite well aware of Tallie’s circumstances, having taken care to draw her out, little by little, during the year that she had been visiting Bruton Street. As a matter of course Kate Parry took considerable interest in most people who came her way, but she found herself particularly in sympathy with the reserved young woman who created such elegant hats for her.
Tallie was as discreet about her own affairs as she was about her other clients, but from the little she did let drop, careful study of the Landed Gentry and a thorough gossip with her old friend Miss Gower, Kate had a clearer picture than Tallie would ever have suspected. Tallie would have been even more surprised to discover that Lady Parry had a scheme in mind for her, but it was not something of which she had the slightest inkling since, for it to come about, something had to happen first to which Lady Parry looked forward with sadness.
She thought about it now and gave a little sigh before fixing her attention on Tallie’s misadventures once again. ‘So you were attracting some unwelcome attention?’ she prompted as Tallie broke off.
‘Yes, but by the time I realised how foolish it was to be walking I was
