He heard, from a distance, a shriek. Lady Warford.
Then he heard the buzzing of a crowd excited by scandal. The music started up again, and people drifted back into the ballroom.
He did not.
He made his way across the terrace, past the couples returning to their shadowy corners. He walked out into the garden, through the garden gate, on through a passage, and into the street.
Then, finally, he paused and looked about him. That was when he realized he was shaking.
He lifted his hands and stared at them, wondering.
The thing inside, the thing he’d strangled and knocked down, bounded up again, and danced happily about.
The Duke of Clevedon stood, dragging in great lungfuls of the cool night air, as though…as though…
Then he realized why he trembled.
He felt like a man who’d climbed the steps to the gallows, felt the rope dropping over his head and onto his shoulders, heard the parson pray for his soul, felt the hood pulled over his head—
—and at the last minute, the very last minute, the reprieve had come.
It was near dawn before Sophy came home.
Marcelline, who’d been lying in her bed staring into the darkness, got up when she heard her come up the stairs.
Sophy had gone to the ball. Clevedon was going to propose, and the world needed to know exactly what Lady Clara was wearing, along with who had made it. Sophy hadn’t gone to find out what Lady Clara was wearing, of course. They already knew every detail, not only of the dress but of the accessories as well. Sophy had gone because, in exchange for the large amount of column space she wanted in tomorrow’s—today’s, actually—Morning Spectacle, Tom Foxe would want inside information. From an eyewitness.
It was by no means the first time Sophy had entered a great house for this purpose. Hosts often needed to hire additional staff for larger events. Reputable agencies existed to meet the need. Sophy was registered, under another name, of course, with all of the agencies. She knew how to wait on her betters. She’d been doing it since she was Lucie’s age. And she knew how to blend in. She was a Noirot, after all.
“It’s all right,” Sophy said as she took off her cloak. “It didn’t go exactly as planned, but I’ve taken care of it.”
“Didn’t go exactly as planned,” Marcelline repeated.
“She refused him.”
“Mon dieu.” Marcelline’s chest felt tight. It was hard to breathe. She was in knots. Relief. Despair.
“What?” came Leonie’s voice from behind her.
Marcelline and Sophy turned that way. Leonie stood in the open doorway of her bedroom. She hadn’t bothered to pull on a dressing gown, and her nightcap—a wonderful froth of ribbons and lace—hung tipsily to one side of her head. She had the owlish look of one barely awake.
At least someone had slept this night.
“Lady Clara refused him,” Sophy said. “I saw it all. He wooed her so beautifully. It was as though he was seeing her for the first time and he couldn’t see anybody else. It was so romantic, like something in a novel—really, because we all know that men, generally speaking, are not very romantic.”
“But what happened?” Leonie said. “It sounds perfect.”
“It looked perfect. I was in a prime position, by the open French windows, and the wind carried their voices beautifully. When she said no, I vow, my mouth actually fell open. I don’t know where she found the strength to refuse him, but she did, in no uncertain terms. They all heard it. The music had happened to stop at that moment, and others near the terrace heard, and word spread at a stunning rate. In a moment, you could have heard the proverbial pin drop. Everyone was straining to hear—and some of them were shoving to get to the windows.”
Marcelline’s shoulders sagged. “Oh, no.”
“No need to worry,” Sophy said briskly. “I saw at once what to do, and I’ve done it, and everything will work out very well. Please go back to bed. There’s nothing on earth to fret about. I expect to have proof in the morning, and then you can see for yourselves. But for now, my loves, I must have some sleep. I’m ready to drop.”
If, some years ago, our neighbours in sneer, called us a nation of shopkeepers, we think that they must now give us the credit of being shopkeepers of taste: we apprehend, no place in the world affords so great a variety of elegant amusement to the eye, as London in its various shops.
The Book of English Trades, and Library of the Useful Arts, 1818
Eight o’clock, Saturday morning
Despite having gone to bed only a short time before, Sophy hurried in to breakfast only minutes after her sisters. She had a copy of the latest edition of Foxe’s Morning Spectacle in her hand, and she was grinning.
“I told you I did it,” she said. “Column inch after column inch, all about the gown Lady Clara Fairfax—or ‘Lady C’ as Foxe so delicately puts it—wore to the Brownlows’ ball.” She sat down and read aloud, “‘A white satin or poult de soie under-dress, a low corsage, the front square.’”
Marcelline paused, her coffee cup halfway to her lips. She needed coffee. She hadn’t slept. “Clearly you gave Tom Foxe what he wanted.”
“And he gave me columns of space,” Sophy said triumphantly.
Leonie snatched the paper from her. “Let me see. ‘Open robe of rose noisette crepe…corsage…descends in longitudinal folds on each side.’” She looked at Marcelline. “It goes on and on, like a fashion plate description. Down to the shoes. Good grief, what on earth did you do for him, Sophy? No, never mind. It’s none of our business.”
“I told you I’d take care of everything,” Sophy said. “Never mind the rest of the description. You know what she was wearing.” She pointed. “Start there.”
Leonie read, “‘The reader will wonder at our entering into minute detail regarding the fair attendee’s attire. But no lesser tribute, we feel, would suffice for a dress that inspired its wearer not only with the confidence to decline the addresses of a duke but with the fire of poetry, for no lesser description could properly characterize the speech with which she so unequivocally rejected his offer of matrimony.’”
Thence followed Lady Clara’s rejection speech. In this context it read like a scene from one of Lady Morgan’s novels.
Marcelline put down her coffee cup and rubbed her head. “He’s the Duke of Clevedon. She loves him. He’s the world’s foremost seducer of women—and
