a recovery, Madame Emilie handed him a hatbox. “Please convey to Lady Cheverley my gratitude for the great honor of her patronage. Good day, my lord.”
She curtseyed, then nudged him toward the door. The touch of her gloved hand seemed to sizzle through the layers of cloth, leaving him once again speechless.
When coherency returned, he found himself standing beside Brent on the street outside the shop. An elaborately painted iron hat with the words Madame Emilie swung gently from its bracket above him.
“Bouleversé, were you?” Blakesly looked him up and down and chuckled. “Can’t recall seeing you so thrown off your stride by a woman since that ballet dancer years ago, when we first came down from Oxford.”
Evan shook his head, not sure himself what had just transpired. His hands and feet tingled, as if he’d been in the proximity of lightning. “The dancer couldn’t hold a candle.”
“No, indeed.” Brent gave a wistful sigh. “But come. To recover, I recommend a strong liquid restorative.”
Though his feet moved in the direction of St. James, Evan’s glance kept straying back to the shop. “What does Willoughby know of her? Tell me!”
“Aye, your lordship!” Brent snapped a mock salute. “But ’tis little enough. She’s a fairly recent widow, to judge by the half-mourning she wears.”
“Half-mourning?”
“You didn’t notice?” Brent laughed. “I expect you were too busy envisioning her undressed. Though I must warn you, based on the bit Willoughby knew, if you’ve seduction in mind, you’re likely to be disappointed. Seems St. Clair discovered her first, and his whole set of bucks started dropping by her shop on the slenderest of pretexts.”
“St. Clair?” Evan sniffed derisively.
“Indeed. Knowing St. Clair, the hints were probably none too subtle, but she apparently turned down every invitation to tea or dinner or the theater. In fact, Willoughby says, no one got more from her than civil words about ordering bonnets for their womenfolk. He concluded she must be middle-class and hopelessly virtuous.”
Evan gave him a sharp glance. “You seem to have listened closely. Rather unusual for you to display so much interest in a woman.”
Brent returned a hard stare. “And you? Surely you’re not considering setting up a new flirt, after just ridding yourself of La Tempestina. Besides, I thought when Richard left to rejoin Wellington you promised to drag Andrea to town. Didn’t you two have some sort of…understanding?”
“Nothing formal. You know how shy she’s grown since her accident. I just assured her that if she didn’t find anyone else to her fancy by the end of the Season, she could always marry me. But—” he waved a hand dismissively “—that’s a long way off. Have you an interest in Madame?”
“I’d hardly have much of a chance.” Brent twisted his lips into a wry smile. “If she wouldn’t consider St. Clair and all his blunt, she’s not likely to grant her favors to an untitled younger son with a modest competence. Now you, on the other hand—” he made a sweeping gesture “—might breach the citadel. Rich, handsome, society’s darling—”
“Stubble it,” Evan growled. “I must find some reason to return—oh, blazes, what a sapskull!” He halted abruptly.
“What is it?”
“I was supposed to tell her Mama wanted to commission another bonnet, but I was so busy making a cloth-headed cake of myself, I forgot. Nor did I settle the account.” His irritation dissolved in a grin. “Well, I’ll just have to go back immediately to rectify that. And redeem myself as well. At the moment, she must think me a mutton-headed idiot. I’ll meet you at White’s.”
He paced off so swiftly, Blakesly had to run to catch up. “Wait, Ev! The shop’s probably closed by now.”
Evan shrugged off his friend’s hand. Not even to himself could he explain his irresistible compulsion to see Madame Emilie again, now, immediately. “She can’t have left yet. We’ve only just departed, and she had other customers. Go on—I’ll see you shortly.”
Brent fell behind, chuckling. “Don’t need to tell me when I’m de trop. All right, I’ll see you later,” he called after Evan. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you if you encounter nothing more amorous than a bolted shop door!”
Emily Spenser sighed after the figure of her last departing customer. Mrs. Wiggins might be a nouveau riche, name-dropping mushroom, but at least her closeness to her middle-class roots led her to pay her bills on time. Unlike most of the Upper Ten Thousand who frequented her shop.
Emily dropped into the chair behind her small desk and pulled out a bag, inserting Mrs. Wiggins’s money. She could hear Francesca bustling about overhead, singing softly in Portuguese as she fixed her mistress’s tea. Maybe a warm drink would soothe her jangled nerves.
Not as much as a few dozen more clients with ready cash would, she thought ruefully. She much preferred hard coin to the heated glances of that last titled gentleman. Indeed, she wished fervently that Lady Cheverley herself had collected the purchase. Her ladyship, though of impeccable ton, always paid upon delivery.
He’d surprised her, though, Lady Cheverley’s son. Given the still-youthful beauty of the mother, Emily had been expecting a mere stripling. Certainly not the tall, broad-shouldered gentleman who’d seemed to fill her little office, dwarfing her and his surroundings, while his smoky gaze hinted at far-from-juvenile pleasures.
An altogether arresting man, she admitted, assuming one was susceptible to that sort of thing. Which, of course, she was not. Nonetheless, a sudden vision of the fiery sparkle in a pair of dark blue eyes sent a little chill skittering down her spine. One that was but a faint echo of the…she refused to put a name to the sensation that had seized her when he’d first gazed at her, when she’d casually touched his sleeve.
In any event, she should mistrust such looks. What she required was honest payment for her labors, not another dose of the degrading innuendo she’d already endured from others of Lord Cheverley’s ilk. Though she’d mastered the art of masking her outrage and gracefully turning such remarks aside, the insult of those veiled offers still rankled.
Resolutely she looked back to the ledger. Neat figures recorded the sums demanded for buckram padding, felt stuff, straw and lace, trims of feathers, silk tassels, satin and cording. When she’d calculated the amount necessary to run her millinery business, she’d not envisioned a clientele of fashionables who seemed more willing to wager their blunt on silver loo and faro than to pay their haberdashers.
Well, she’d simply have to retrench. She’d not survived long bitter months in that Portuguese village watching Andrew die by inches, then a year of painting aristocratic portraits across the length and breadth of Spain, only to succumb to despair a few bare months after returning to England.
Somehow they would earn enough to pay Drew’s tutor and save for his eventual tuition at school. Drew, the best and most beautiful reminder of her life with Andrew. The image of her son’s face, mischievous light glowing in green eyes so like his papa’s, warmed her troubled heart and sent the gray tide of grief and worry receding. A bittersweet backwash of longing followed.
With resignation she quelled it. Having him here with her was impossible, she knew. An aristocrat’s son who would one day return to an aristocrat’s
