the environs of White’s famous bow window, where Beau Brummell had presided some decades earlier, a sudden buzz of excitement broke in upon a dull, drizzly afternoon. The noise gradually increased in volume sufficiently to obtain Lord Longmore’s attention.
He’d settled in the morning room with Foxe’s Morning Spectacle to review Sophy’s story about last night’s debacle. As regarded breathlessly dramatic style and fanatical attention to every boring inch of Clara’s dress, Sophy had outdone herself. Clara had been “innocence cruelly misled,” Longmore had appeared as a paragon among avenging brothers, and the dress description—dripping with an arcane French known only to women—took up nearly two of the front page’s three columns. Her account had routed from said page virtually all the other gossip Foxe called news.
Longmore had read it this morning after breakfast. He saw no more in it now than he had then. It was unclear what good the piece would do Clara—unless it was simply the first step in a campaign. If so, he looked forward to seeing where it would lead.
After chuckling over Sophy’s world’s-greatest-collection of adjectives and adverbs, he moved on to the other gossip and sporting news. Thence he proceeded to the advertising pages at the back.
There Maison Noirot had taken over prime real estate, squeezing into obscure corners the notices for pocket toilets, artificial teeth, and salad cream.
That was when he discovered Mrs. Downes’s announcement.
He was wondering about the connection between Sophy’s need to be taken to her rival’s shop and the advertisement when someone at the bow window said, “Who is she?”
“You’re joking,” someone else said. “You don’t know?”
“Would I ask if I knew?”
Other voices joined in.
“Hempton, you innocent. Have you been in a coma during the last month?”
“How could you not have heard about the Misalliance of the Century? They talk of it in Siberia and Tierra del Fuego.”
“But that can’t be Sheridan’s new bride.”
“Not the elopement, you slow-top.”
“You mean Clevedon?” said Hempton. “But he married a brunette. This one’s a blonde.”
Longmore flung down the Spectacle, left his chair, and stalked to the bow window.
“What now?” he said, though he could guess.
The men crowding the window hastily made room for him.
Sophy Noirot stood on the other side of St. James’s Street. A gust of wind blew the back of her pale yellow dress against her legs and made a billowing froth of skirt and petticoats in front. The wind made a complete joke of the lacy nothing of an umbrella she held against the rain. The previous downpour had diminished to a light drizzle, and the misty figure glimpsed between the clumps of vehicles, riders, and pedestrians seemed like something in a dream.
The commentary at the bow window, however, made it clear she was not a dream, except in the sense that she was, at the moment, the starring player in every man’s lewd fantasy.
Ah, she was real enough, wearing a scarf sort of thing that dangled to her knees—or where one assumed her knees must be, under all those yards of lace and muslin. Atop the golden hair perched a silly hat, dripping lace and ribbons and feathers. Longmore could see a sort of Dutch windmill arrangement of lace and feathers at the back of the hat when she bent to talk to a scruffy little boy. She gave him something, and he dashed across the street, dodging riders and vehicles.
Then she looked up, straight at the bow window and straight at Longmore.
And smiled.
Then all the men at the bow window looked at him.
And smiled.
And he smiled right back.
Longmore took his time. He finished his glass of wine, reread the advertisement, then called for his things.
He donned his hat and gloves, grasped his walking stick, and went out. The drizzle had dwindled to a fine mist and the wind had died down somewhat.
She had walked a little way up the street. She was watching the passing scene on Piccadilly. Every passing male was watching her.
He coolly descended the steps and strolled across the street to her.
“I should have thought you’d find an urchin nearer the shop to carry the message that my sister was ready to go home,” he said. “Or why not send a servant or a seamstress? You had to come yourself? In the rain?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I collect you had something particular to say to me, then,” he said.
“I daresay I could have said it elsewhere,” she said. “But this was a fine opportunity to show off my hat, which is my own design. I’m not a genius with dresses, like Marcelline, but my hats are quite good.”
He eyed the hat, with its lace and windmill and whatnot. “It strikes me as demented,” he said. “But fetching.”
She dimpled, and his heart gave a lurch that astonished him.
“I sincerely hope it’s fetching enough to weaken your resistance,” she said.
“What resistance?” he said.
“To my scheme.”
“Oh, that. Taking you to Dowdy’s.”
“I need to find out what they’re up to.”
“I should think that was obvious,” he said. “They’re out to crush the competition, as any self-respecting rival would do.”
He started walking down St. James’s Street, wondering what devious means she’d contrived to persuade him to do what he was going to do anyway.
She walked alongside him. “I know that,” she said. “But I need to see exactly what we’re up against: the old Dowdy’s or something new, something we hadn’t reckoned on. I need to see whether the place is the same and the clothes are the same.”
“I suppose you’ll be shocked if I say that all women’s clothes look the same to me,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be shocked at all,” she said. “You’re a man. And that’s the point of my asking you. I need a big, strong man in case I’m discovered, and run into difficulties with Dowdy’s bullies.” She paused briefly. “While we were fitting your sister, she happened to mention Lady Gladys Fairfax, and what a pity it was that we couldn’t take her in hand,” she said.
“Cousin Gladys,” he said. “Don’t tell me she’s coming to the wedding.”
“I don’t know who’ll be invited,” she said. “But when Lady Clara spoke of her, I got the idea for a way to manage this.”
They’d reached the corner of
