was not an average person.
She knew she’d waved a red cape in front of a bull. She’d done it as deliberately as an experienced matador might. Now, like the bull, he was aware of no one else but her.
“Confound you,” he said. “Now I can’t storm away.”
“I shouldn’t blame you if you did,” she said. “You’ve been greatly provoked. But I warn you, your grace, I am the most determined woman you’ll ever meet, and I am determined to dress your duchess.”
“I’m tempted to say, ‘Over my dead body,’” he said, “but I have the harrowing suspicion that you will answer, ‘If necessary.’”
She smiled.
His countenance smoothed a degree and a wicked gleam came into his eyes. “Does this mean you’ll do whatever is necessary?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, “and that will not be necessary. Pray consider, your grace. What self-respecting lady would patronize a dressmaker who specializes in seducing the lady’s menfolk?”
“Ah, it’s a specialty, is it?”
“You of all men must know that seduction is an art, and some practitioners are more skilled than others,” she said. “I’ve chosen to apply my talents to dressing ladies beautifully. Women are capricious and difficult to please, yes. Men are easy to please but far more capricious.”
To a discerning woman, his beautiful face was wonderfully expressive. She watched, fascinated, while a speculative expression gradually erased the lingering signs of temper. He was puzzling over her, revising his original estimation and, therefore, his tactics.
This was an intelligent man. She had better be very careful.
“Frascati’s,” he said. “You’re a gambler.”
“The game of chance is my favorite sport,” she said. Gambling—with money, with people, with their futures—was a way of life for her family. “Roulette, especially. Pure chance.”
“This explains the risks you take with men you don’t know,” he said.
“Dressmaking is not a trade for the faint of heart,” she said.
The humor came back into his green eyes and the corners of his mouth quirked up. On any other man that look would have been charming. On him it was devastating. The eyes, the sweet little smile—it stabbed a girl to the heart and then lower down.
“So it would seem,” he said. “A more dangerous trade than I’d supposed.”
“You’ve no idea,” she said.
“This promises to be interesting,” he said. “I’ll see you at Frascati’s.”
He made her a bow, and it was pure masculine grace, the smooth and confident movement of a man completely at ease in his powerful body.
He took his leave, and she watched him saunter away. she watched scores of elegant hats and bonnets change direction as other women watched him pass.
She’d thrown down the gauntlet and he’d taken it up, as she’d known he would.
Now all she had to do was not end up on her back with that splendid body between her legs.
That was not going to be easy.
But then, if it were easy, it wouldn’t be much fun.
London
Wednesday night
Mrs. Downes waited in a carriage a short distance from the seamstress’s lodgings. Shortly after half-past nine, the seamstress passed the carriage. She glanced up but didn’t stop walking. A moment later, Mrs. Downes stepped down from the carriage, continued down the street, and greeted the young woman as though theirs was an accidental encounter of two old acquaintances. They asked after each other’s health. Then they walked a few steps to the door of the house where the seamstress lived. After a moment of conversation, the seamstress withdrew from her pocket a folded piece of paper.
Mrs. Downes reached for it.
“The money first,” the seamstress said.
“Let me see what it is first,” Mrs. Downes said. “For all I know, it’s nothing out of the way.”
The seamstress stepped closer to the street lamp and opened the folded sheet of paper.
Mrs. Downes gave a little gasp, and hastily covered it up with a disdainful sniff. “Is that all? My girls can run up something like that in an hour. It’s hardly worth half a crown, let alone a sovereign.”
The seamstress folded up the paper. “Well, then, let them do it if they can,” she said. “I’ve made notes on the back about how it’s done, but I’m sure your clever girls don’t need any help working out how to keep those folds the way she has them, or how to make those bows. And you don’t need to know which ribbon she uses and who she gets it from. No, indeed, you don’t want any of that. So I’ll take this in with me, shall I, and throw it on the fire. I know how it’s done, and Madame knows how it’s done, and one or two of our less clumsy girls know the trick.”
This particular seamstress spoke dismissively of the others, deeming herself superior to them and not half-properly appreciated. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been standing in the street, late at night, when she was hungry for her supper. She certainly wouldn’t be talking to the competition if Some People valued her as they ought to do.
“No, madam, you don’t need a bit of it,” she said, “and I wonder at your coming out at this hour, wasting your valuable time.”
“Yes, I’ve wasted quite enough,” Mrs. Downes reached into her reticule. “Here’s your money. But if you want more, you’d better bring me something better.”
“How much more?” the seamstress said as she pocketed the money.
“One can’t do much with scraps. One dress at a time. The book of sketches, now that would be worth something.”
“It certainly would,” said the seamstress. “It would be worth my place. It’s one thing to copy a pattern. But the book of sketches? She’d miss it right away, and they’re sharp, those three, you know.”
“If she lost her book of sketches, she’d lose everything,” Mrs. Downes said. “You’d have to find another place then. And I daresay seeking new employment would be a more agreeable experience, were you to have twenty guineas to ease the way.”
A lady’s maid in a noble household might earn twenty guineas per annum. That was a great deal more than an experienced seamstress was paid.
“Fifty,” the seamstress. “It’s worth fifty to you, I know, to have her out of your way, and I won’t risk it for less.”
Mrs. Downes drew in a long, slow breath while she did some quick calculations. “Fifty, then. But it must be everything. You’d better note every last detail. I’ll know right away, and if I can’t make an exact copy, you
