gaze traveled over the three sisters, and lingered on Sophy. He thought hard and fast and picked his words carefully. “Very well. A man can think more clearly when he isn’t surrounded by women, and I need to create an alibi.”
She took the bait, her gaze sharpening. “Why?” she said. “Are you planning to murder somebody?”
“Not yet,” he said. “You won’t let me murder the bridegroom. No, I want an alibi for Clara, who isn’t supposed to be here.”
“Mama said I must go to Downes’s,” Clara said, “but Harry took pity on me.”
“I took pity on me,” he said. His gaze returned to Sophy. “I brought her here to prevent scolding, ranting, and sobbing, that’s all.”
“Then the least I can do in gratitude is give you an alibi,” Sophy said.
He could think of any number of pleasing acts of gratitude, but this would do for a start.
“Not too complicated,” he said.
She rolled her great blue eyes. “I know that.”
“I’m a simple man.”
“This is so simple, even a dolt could remember it,” she said. “When Lady Clara returns home, she’ll say that you were intoxicated and drove her here instead of to Downes’s, drunkenly insisting this was the place.”
“Oh, that’s perfect!” Clara said.
“That will do admirably,” he said. “She can say I stood over her and made her order sixty or seventy dresses, and a gross of chemises and …”
His mind went hazy then, and images of muslin and lace underwear strewed themselves about his brain, and somewhere in that dishevelment was a blue-eyed angelic devil, mostly unclothed. He waved a hand, waving the images away. Now wasn’t the time. He was only beginning his siege, and he knew—he could always tell—he faced a very tricky fortress. All sorts of hidden passages and diversions and booby traps.
But then, if it were easy, it would be boring.
He continued, “ … and all those other sorts of trousseau things. And when our mother regains consciousness, and demands that Clara cancel the order, Clara will appeal to our overly conscientious sire, who’ll say one can’t simply cancel immense orders on a whim.”
Sophy folded her arms. Something flickered in her blue eyes. Otherwise, her expression was unreadable. “Good,” she said. “Keep with that. Don’t embellish.”
“No danger of that,” he said. “At any rate, it’s easy enough to make it partly true. I’ve only to toddle into my club and drink steadily until you’ve finished bankrupting my father. Then, when I return Clara to Warford House, no one will have any trouble believing in my inebriated obstinacy.”
He sauntered out of the sitting room.
He walked to the stairs and started down.
He heard hurried footsteps and rustling petticoats behind him.
“Lord Longmore.”
She said his name as everybody else did, not precisely as spelled but in the way of so many ancient names, with vowels shifted and consonants elided. Yet it wasn’t quite the same, either, because it carried the faintest whisper of French.
He looked up.
She stood at the top of the stairs, leaning over the handrail.
The view was excellent: He could see her silk shoes and the crisscrossing ribbons that called attention to the fine arch of her instep and her neat ankles. He saw the delicate silk stockings outlining the bit of foot and leg on view. His mind easily conjured what wasn’t on view: the place above her knees where her garters were tied—garters that, in his imagination, were red, embroidered with lascivious French phrases.
For a moment he said nothing, simply drank it in.
“That was a beautiful exit,” she said.
“I thought so,” he said.
“I hated to spoil it,” she said. “But I had an idea.”
“You’re a prodigy,” he said. “First an alibi, then an idea. All in the same day.”
“I thought you could help me,” she said.
“I daresay I could,” he said, contemplating her ankles.
“With your mother.”
He lifted his gaze to her face. “What do you want to do to her?”
“Ideally, I should like to dress her.”
“That would be difficult, considering that she hates you,” he said. “That is, not you, particularly. But you as a near connection to the Duchess of Clevedon, and your shop as harboring same.”
“I know, but I’m sure we can bring her round. That is, I can bring her round. With a little help.”
“What do you propose, Miss Noirot? Shall I drug her ladyship and carry her, senseless, to your lair, where you’ll force her into dashing gowns?”
“Only as a last resort,” she said. “What I have in mind for you at present is quite simple—and no one will ever know you aided and abetted the Enemy.”
“This is London,” he said. “There’s no such thing as ‘no one will ever know.’ “
“No, really, I promise you—”
“Not that I care what anybody knows,” he said.
“Right,” she said. “I forgot. But I must not be recognized.”
“Does that mean a disguise?” he said.
“Only for me,” she said. “I need to visit Dowdy’s, you see, and—”
“And Dowdy’s is …?”
“The lair of the reptile, Horrible Hortense Downes, the monster who puts your mother into those dreary clothes. I need to get into her shop.”
In her world, he knew, clothes were the beginning and the end of everything, and worlds were lost on the wrong placement of a bow.
“You’re proposing a spying expedition behind enemy lines,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “That’s it exactly.”
“Are you going to blow up the place?”
“Only as a last resort,” she said.
He was quite happy to take her, even if she didn’t blow the place up. He’d be happy to take her anywhere. But his promptly agreeing meant her prompt departure and he wasn’t yet tired of looking at her ankles.
He pretended
