“This had better not be a trick,” she said.
He gave her an exasperated look.
“What?” she said.
“Trickery is your department, Miss Noirot,” he said. “Mine is knocking people about. But I’m flattered that you imagine I’m clever enough to trick you.”
He gave a short laugh and left.
“Tell my sisters I’m back,” Sophy said, moving quickly past Mary, the maidservant who’d finally opened the door.
She hurried up the stairs and on to her room. She needed to wash and change. She needed to wash in cold water.
She tore off the ugly cloak and the ugly dress and then had a struggle with the corset strings. The struggle reminded her of that endless, tormenting time while Longmore had been working on her dress hooks.
She didn’t need reminders.
She stomped to the chimneypiece and pulled the bell cord.
She moved away and filled a bowl with water. She peeled off the mole and scrubbed her face.
She hadn’t time to wash her hair. That was a time consuming project. But she needed to get out of these clothes. Where the devil was Mary?
The door flew open. It wasn’t Mary but Marcelline.
“My dear, are you all right?”
“No. Undo me, will you? I hate these clothes. They’re nothing but trouble. When I get them off, I want them to go straight into the fire.”
“Sophy.”
“I need to get out of this corset,” Sophy said. “I’ve three extra layers underneath and I think I’m going to suffocate.”
“Sophy.”
“I’ll talk when I get these blasted clothes off,” Sophy said.
Marcelline went quickly to work on the corset. A moment later, Sophy flung it to the floor.
“I take it that matters didn’t go well,” Marcelline said.
“Matters went beautifully,” Sophy said.
She told herself not to be a nitwit. Longmore didn’t matter. He was a means to an end. What mattered was the shop.
She started pulling off her clothes. While she removed layer after layer with Marcelline’s help, she told her sister how splendidly Longmore had been himself: the thickheaded, overbearing aristocrat. She explained how, thanks to him, she’d had a good look at the pattern as well as the silk Lady Warford had selected. She told Marcelline about Dowdy’s refurbishment and the French modiste.
“That’s not good,” Marcelline said.
“It isn’t what I’d hoped for, but it could be worse,” Sophy said. “Our furnishings are still superior to Dowdy’s. All we need to do is make them even more beautiful and exciting. Maison Noirot needs to look different. It needs to look ten steps ahead of Dowdy’s. People don’t notice subtle differences.”
That would take money they didn’t have. But Leonie would think of something. She had to. Sophy couldn’t think of everything.
“And the patterns?” Marcelline said. “Lady Warford’s dress?”
“We’d give it to the girls at the Milliners’ Society to pick apart and remake,” Sophy said. “Of course, Lady Warford won’t see its flaws.”
“How can she stand next to her daughter and not see the difference?”
“She’s the way Lady Clara was before we took her in hand,” Sophy said. “Her eye is untrained. And at the moment, I don’t see a way to train her. I’m thinking I need to give my attention to Lady Clara’s problem first. Right now, she’s all that stands between us and failure. If she continues to shop with us, we have a prayer. If she marries Adderley, she can’t shop with us.”
Marcelline paced for a few minutes.
“Leonie would say we need to set priorities,” Sophy said. “We’ve three problems, and rating them from simplest to hardest, I’d put Lady Warford as the hardest nut to crack, Lady Clara’s difficulty as next hardest, and Dowdy’s as the most manageable. Do you agree?”
Marcelline nodded, still pacing.
“We know what to do about Dowdy’s—at least for the moment,” Sophy said. “So I’m tackling Lady Clara next.”
Marcelline paused in her pacing. “It would help to know what’s going on in her head.”
Lady Clara had come by on Wednesday, to order another riding dress and two more hats, but Sophy had been busy with Lady Renfrew, one of their earliest and most loyal customers of rank.
“Can we bring her in for a fitting tomorrow?” Sophy said. “If I can get her to myself, I’ll get her to talk.”
“We can send a seamstress with a message,” Marcelline said. “But I hate to remind anybody at Warford House that she’s patronizing her mama’s enemies.”
“We can ask Lord Longmore to take the message,” Sophy said. “He’s supposed to come back in an hour or so.”
Marcelline’s eyebrows went up.
Sophy told her sister about Fenwick, and about Longmore’s attempt to make off with him.
“How sweet of him!” Marcelline said with a laugh “He’s trying to protect you from the dangerous criminal. If only he knew.”
Fenwick was a little innocent, compared to them. Not that they’d ever picked pockets. But there wasn’t a game or a trick of the streets they didn’t know. In Paris, they’d had to deal with every sort of knave and villain, from minor to major. For a time, during the cholera, Paris had been almost completely lawless. But they’d survived.
“I wasn’t thinking of that,” Sophy said. “I was too furious with his highhandedness. So angry that for a moment I couldn’t even think what to do. But it was only for a moment. Then I made a scene, and fainted. Unfortunately, I had to faint on the pavement, which is vile.”
Marcelline smiled. “I can picture it. But couldn’t you have thought of a less disgusting measure?”
“Maybe, but I hadn’t time. I was afraid he’d get away. He drives like a drunken charioteer, headlong, and never mind what might be in the way.”
Marcelline kicked to one side the heap of ugly clothing on the floor. “I agree we’d better burn them. And I’ll send Mary to run you a proper bath.” She eyed Sophy’s stringy tresses. “We ought to wash that mess out of your hair.”
“That will have to wait until tonight,” Sophy said. “I’ve left you and Leonie on your own all day, and I have a customer expecting to see me this afternoon. I’ll pin it up tight and put on a pretty lace cap, and
