pulled open the door to the music room. Bright sunlight burst upon him, blinding him for a moment and making lightning bolts in his head.
“Clara, are you—”
“Clevedon! What on earth—”
But Clara was gaping at him, astonished, and his gaze shot to the other woman.
Noirot stood, eyes wide and mouth slightly parted. She closed it promptly, and her face closed down into her playing-cards look.
“What are you about?” he said. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Look at her,” Clara cried. “That’s my favorite dress—the one I was wearing when Lord Herringstone composed an ode to my eyes.”
Look at her. At Noirot. Look at her.
He looked, his gaze sliding down from the slightly disordered coiffure, loose strands of dark, silken hair clinging to her neck…down over her dark, brilliant eyes…down over her dangerous mouth while he remembered the taste of her, the feel of her mouth against his…down over the firm bosom while he remembered the velvet of her skin under his hand and against his mouth…and down at last to the dress she was holding.
Clara crossed to her and snatched the dress away.
“She says we must give it away,” Lady Clara said. “She objects to everything. Nothing is right—even this, my favorite.”
“The dress is jade green,” Noirot said. “Your eyes are blue and very beautiful, and that’s what prompted Lord Herringstone to compose an ode. Had you been wearing a more suitable color, you would have inspired him to compose an epic. Very few women can wear this color successfully. You may not wear very many shades of green. I should recommend against it—”
“That woman—Lady Renfrew—you made her a beautiful dress, exactly this color.”
“It was not exactly this color,” Noirot said. “It was an entirely different shade of green—and one that would suit you no better. It would seem that your ladyship cannot distinguish hues. Whether it was your governess or your painting master, whoever failed to train your eye ought to be pilloried. You must give me the dress, my lady.”
“Oh, you are horrible, cruel! You’ve taken all my favorite things!”
Noirot pulled the dress away from her and threw it on the floor and kicked it aside.
Clara clapped her hand over her mouth.
Noirot folded her arms.
A dangerous glint came into Clara’s blue eyes.
Noirot regarded her with the same cool lack of expression she would have bestowed on a promising hand of cards.
The fool! She could not treat a marquess’s daughter like a temperamental child, even if she was behaving like one. Noirot would lose any hope of a commission—she’d lose Clara forever—and she’d be lucky if Lady Warford didn’t have her driven from London.
“If I may interpose a—”
“No, Clevedon, you may not,” Clara said. “I told her to come. I made her come. She left me no choice. Nothing she’s proposed bears the smallest resemblance to what I normally wear, and I can’t believe I am such a provincial, so lacking in taste and discernment—but you know I’ve never cared very much, and Mama always advises me. But now I’m told to throw everything out, and what am I to tell Mama? And I am not to have a green dress!”
She stamped her foot. Clara actually stamped her foot.
“It must be blue-green,” Noirot said. She put the tip of her index finger to her chin and regarded Clara with narrowed eyes. “I envision embroidered poult de soie, the corsage decorated with a mantilla of blond lace.” Her finger came away from her chin to lightly glide over her shoulder. As she indicated the fall of the mantilla she imagined, her finger lingered at the place where he’d touched her, on that night when they’d played cards, when he’d helped her with her shawl. He remembered the tiny hitch in her breath and the heated triumph he’d felt, because finally, finally he’d affected her.
“But that is for later,” she went on. “For the present, as your ladyship has reminded me repeatedly, we are wearing white. And as I have reminded your ladyship repeatedly, it must be a soft white. No ivory.” She made a dismissive gesture at a dress draped over a chair. “Too yellow. And not that blinding white.” She indicated another dress, hanging over the back of a small sofa.
“Speaking of blinding,” Clevedon said. “Might we have the curtains drawn? I’ve the devil of a headache—”
“I wonder where you got it,” Clara said. “The same place Longmore gets his, I daresay. Well, you must grin and bear the light. Madame can’t work in the dark.”
“I thought she could do anything,” Clevedon muttered, retreating to the darkest corner of the room. “She told me—more than once—that she’s the greatest modiste in the world.”
“Beyond a doubt she’s the most exacting modiste in the world,” Clara said. “She’s been showing me how colors affect one’s complexion. We came to this room because it has the best light at this time of day.” She paused, frowning. “If you have a headache, why are you here?”
“You were screaming,” he said.
“It’s upsetting when someone takes one’s clothes away,” Clara said. “I find I’m not as philosophically detached as I had supposed. But why are you here, at the house, I mean? You know Papa is never at home on Tuesdays, and you would never come to see Mama, even if she were at home, which she isn’t, else Mrs. Noirot wouldn’t be here. She’s my dark secret, you know.”
“I came to take you for a drive,” Clevedon said. Had she always used to be so talkative?
“But you can see I’m not at liberty. Why did you not tell me you meant to come?”
“I did, on Saturday.”
“You did not. You did not spare me above five minutes on Saturday, and if you uttered ten words to me, that’s all you did. Today, obviously, is inconvenient.”
“We’re nearly done,” Noirot said.
“Hardly,” Clara said. “Now we must decide what to tell Mama.”
Noirot didn’t roll her eyes, which he considered evidence of superhuman self-control. Clara was driving him mad, and he’d only been here for a few minutes. Noirot must be wanting to throttle her.
But her expression only became kindly. “Tell her, my lady, that one can’t expect a fashionable gentleman—who has spent time in Paris—to come up to scratch—”
“Come up to what?” Clevedon said.
“—when one looks like a dowd and a fright and elderly to boot,” Noirot continued past the interruption. “Be sure to hold your head high when you say it, and make it sound like a fact that ought to be obvious to the meanest intelligence. And if there’s a difficulty, throw a tantrum. That’s what high-bred girls generally do.”
“But
