a man,” she said. “Men are readily forgiven what women are not.”
“I’ve promised myself I won’t do anything I’ll need to be forgiven for,” he said.
“You won’t be the first man to break a promise,” she said.
Still holding the bonnet by the strings, she looked at him, capturing his gaze. She hid nothing. All her heart was in her eyes and she didn’t care if he saw it.
She’d fallen in love, and she’d love for once, openly, without disguise or guile. That was the one last gift she’d give him, and herself.
He came to the bed and sat, his face taut.
She let the ribbons slide through her fingers. The bonnet dropped gently to the rug he’d chosen for her bedroom.
He watched it drop. “Damn you,” he said.
“It’s all right,” she said. “This is goodbye.”
“Noir—”
She set her index finger over his lips. “I thank you for all you’ve done,” she said. “I thank you from the very bottom of my cold, black heart. There are some things I can repay but more that I can never repay. I want my gratitude—its depth and breadth—to be clear, perfectly clear…because after tonight, you must never come back here. You must never come to my shop. When your lady wife or your mistress comes to Maison Noirot, you’ll stay far away. You will not speak to me in the street or anywhere else. After this night, you become the man I always meant you to be, the man whose purse I plunder—and no more than that man. Do you understand?”
His eyes darkened, and she saw heat there: anger and disappointment and who knew what else? He started to rise.
“But for this night,” she said, “I love you.”
Something flashed in his eyes, and he flushed, and a brief spasm contorted his beautiful face. It was so quick, come and gone in the blink of an eye. But it was hard to mistake sorrow, however brief the glimpse. Then she knew she hadn’t made the wrong decision.
She began to undress. It was the same dress she’d been wearing on the night of the fire. Though his maids had cleaned and ironed it, it was no longer up to her usual standards. However, she and her sisters had agreed that completing their most crucial orders was more important than replenishing their own wardrobes.
This dress fastened up the back, naturally, but that presented no difficulty. She’d been dressing and undressing herself since she was a little girl. She unbuttoned the sleeves. Then she unhooked the hooks at the back of the bodice, from top to bottom. With the hooks undone, the narrow slit below the waist—invisible when the top was fastened—sagged open and the bodice did, too. Under it she wore an embroidered muslin chemisette that tied at the waist. She untied it and took it off, and let it drop from her hand, in the same way she’d dropped the bonnet.
She heard his breathing quicken.
The top undone, she eased her arms from the sleeves. She pulled the dress over her head, and dropped it.
She unfastened the sleeve puffs and dropped them onto the growing heap of clothing at her feet. She stood before him in her chemise, petticoats, corset, stockings, and shoes.
She stood for a moment, letting him drink her in. She couldn’t be sure what he felt, apart from what men always felt in such cases, but perhaps, just perhaps, he was trying, as she was, to imprint this moment in his memory.
Then she knelt.
“Marcelline,” he said. It was the first time he’d ever uttered her Christian name, and the sound was a caress.
Oh, she’d remember that: his voice, like a caress.
“You made my home,” she said. “Let me make our last time together. Leave it to me. Do I not make everything exactly as it ought to be?”
She tugged off one boot, then the other. She stood them neatly next to her heap of clothing.
She rose. She drew nearer now, and she looked down at him, at his black hair, gleaming like silk in the lamplight. He was looking up at her, his eyes dark, his mouth slightly parted, his breathing faster.
She bent over him, and unbuttoned his coat. She eased it off, as smoothly as his valet might have done. She folded it and laid it gently on a chair. She took off his waistcoat in the same way, only pausing for a moment to let her hand slide over the fine silk embroidery. She untied his neckcloth.
His head was at a level with her bosom. She could feel his breath on her skin above the lace of her chemise. She heard him inhale.
“The scent of you,” he said so softly. “Heaven help me, the scent of you.”
For a moment She paused, her hand trembling on the fine muslin. She remembered the first night, when she’d taken his diamond stickpin and set her pearl pin in its place. She smoothed the muslin lightly before she began to unwrap it from his neck. She slid it away and tossed it onto his coat.
She unfastened the button of his shirt, and it fell open. She laid her palm against his neck and slid it down over the skin bared, over the hard contours of his chest. While her hand rested on his chest, she bent her head, and laid her cheek against his. She remained there for a moment and let herself feel her face touching his while she breathed in the scent of him, the scent of a man, this man, warm and as heady as hot cognac.
Then she stepped back and untied her shoes and stepped out of them. She reached behind and untied the corset string. She quickly drew it through the eyelets, until it was loosened enough to slide down over her hips. Her chemise, released from the corset, slid down from her shoulders, baring one breast. She heard him suck in air. She shed the corset and tossed it aside. She untied her petticoats and let them slide down her legs. She reached under the chemise and untied her drawers and let them fall. She stepped out of them.
She stood now in chemise and stockings. She let him look, let herself enjoy his looking, the heat in his eyes, the pleasure at the sight of her, the excitement.
“You’re killing me,” he said, his voice rough. “You’re killing me.”
“You’ll die beautifully,” she said.
She set her foot on the edge of the bed, near his thigh. She threw back the hem of the chemise, baring her knee. He made a choked sound.
She untied her garter and dropped it on the rug. Then she rolled her stocking down, slowly, over her knee, down her calf to her ankle and down over her instep, and tugged it off. She heard his breath hitch. She dropped the stocking, but she left her leg as it was for a moment. She let him look and let herself watch him look while she planted in her memory the expression on his beautiful face.
Then she drew her leg down and removed the other stocking in the same way. By this time, the chemise had slid nearly to her waist. Only the sleeves, caught in the crook of her elbows, kept it on.
She let her arms relax at her sides and gave a little shake. The chemise slithered down and off her and made a little puddle of muslin on the floor.
That left her with nothing at all, not a stitch.
His breathing
