A Reckless Desire (17 page)

“Daughters are always welcome among the Di Rossis, because daughters will always earn more than sons as dancers,” she said. “Unless they're me. But what if your wife has a son? Could he become Duke of Breconridge?”

“He would,” Rivers said. “As heir, he'd jump right over all those little lady cousins of his, and claim the coronet for himself. But since I have neither a wife nor a son, it is all moot for me.”

“Doesn't your father press you to marry?” she asked. “I'd think he would, just to better his odds of a grandson.”

Rivers sighed, some of his enjoyment in the afternoon fading at that unwelcome reminder. “Oh, he does, he does. That mythical parade of doxies is nothing compared to the very real legion of eligible and presumably fertile young ladies of good families that are trotted beneath my nose on a regular basis. I am a long odds ever to be a duke, but there's plenty of mamas ready to roll the dice that I will, and push their darlings toward me for a match.”

“But you won't be pushed, will you?” she asked, with more than a tinge of hope in her voice that was very much in sympathy with his own wishes.

“No, Mrs. Willow, I shall not,” he said, “no matter how firmly my father pushes his hands upon my back. Besides, I've perfect faith in my brothers and sisters-in-law that they will eventually produce the heir between them. Gus is with child again, and by every law of nature and averages she must be carrying a boy.”

“Poor lady!” she said, sighing in commiseration for the unfortunate Countess of Hargreave. “That would be dreadful, having everyone staring at your belly and laying wagers about whether it would be another daughter.”

He nodded, not really wanting to discuss this further. Lucia was right: the lack of a male heir was a great stress within his family, leading to short tempers, raised voices, and general ill-feeling whenever they gathered together.

He glanced from the window, noting that they were only a few streets away from Mrs. Currie's shop. “Are you willing to carry our lessons into the mantua-maker's?”

“How?” she asked curiously. “So you wish me to play at Ophelia there for the seamstresses?”

“Not quite,” he said. “But I do want you to be Mrs. Willow in all her glory whilst you are being served and fitted.”

She nodded eagerly, ready for the challenge. “Oh, yes, Rivers,” she said. “If the mantua-maker asks who I am, might I tell her my story of Mrs. Willow's adventures?”

“What, with the tiger and all?” He couldn't begin to imagine what Mrs. Currie would make of that. “Perhaps a less, ah, dramatic tale. You are a longtime friend of mine whose coach was attacked by a highwayman. Your trunks were stolen, and you lost all your belongings, reducing you to wearing clothes borrowed from one of my servants.”

“I like that!” she exclaimed with relish. “I was stripped naked by a rapacious highwayman, and left to wander, naked as Eve, on the public road until you in your great kindness rescued me from my peril.”

“You needn't go into such detail,” he said quickly. Perhaps they'd been better off with the man-eating tiger after all. “If you spin too lurid a tale, then it's sure to sound false.”

“Oh,” she said, crestfallen. “Could not the highwayman at least be a handsome rogue?”

“Let us do away with the highwayman altogether,” Rivers said. “We'll say you were returning to Dover from Calais, and your trunks were mislaid by the boatmen.”

She sighed mightily. “How boring,” she said. “But if that is what you believe they will believe, then I shall give up my dashing highwayman.”

“It is for the best,” he said, thinking of how narrowly they'd again avoided her overreaching imagination. “But there's one other thing. No one is a better judge of a lady's true rank than her milliner and her mantua-maker.”

“That is true,” she said quickly. “It vexed Magdalena no end that they always knew what she was, no matter how she tried to impress them.”

That
was
true enough; even when he'd escorted her cousin to one of the London shops, the women had smirked and simpered, recognizing Magdalena as his mistress.

“Well, then, you will understand,” he said. “I want you to speak as you did this morning, copying me, and see if you can convince Mrs. Currie into believing you are as we wish you to be: a genteel young lady, tossed cruelly about by the vagaries of life, who has turned to the stage to earn her living. There cannot be so much as a breath of Madame Adelaide, or of your cousin, either. Can you do that?”

She nodded so eagerly her hat nearly slipped from her head. “You'll see, Rivers. I can do this. I'll trick them all, the cullies.”

“Act, don't trick,” he said firmly, trying to ignore his misgivings. “And don't you dare call anyone in the shop a cully.”

He wouldn't have suggested this if they'd been in London, where the mantua-makers were as sharp as the needles they wielded when it came to appraising their customers. But here in Newbury, he was counting on the favor his family and the occasional custom that his stepmother brought to Mrs. Currie to help convince her to see Lucia as a member of the gentry of the middling sort who'd fallen on unlucky times.

Unless she began calling the shop women cant names.

“I shall prove it to you, my lord,” she promised. She'd already adapted his accent, and she was also sitting straighter, her shoulders back and pressed inward in the manner of a true lady's posture, her ankles neatly together, and her hands folded, not clasped, on her lap. “You shall be
amazed.
”

Even those long AYs were perfect. Damnation, perhaps she really was going to amaze him, and the rest of the world besides.

“Then come, Mrs. Willow,” he said as the carriage came to a stop before the mantua-maker's shop. He smiled, and offered her his hand. “Amaze me.”

The footman opened the carriage door and folded down the steps, and Rivers stepped out first. Lucia leaned forward to look past his broad shoulders and black cocked hat to the mantua-maker's shop. Mrs. Currie must have prospered in her trade, for her shop was elegantly presented, with a curving bow window picked out with glossy black paint, a signboard with gold letters, and a green door with a shining brass plaque engraved with the proprietor's name. To keep all this from being too sober, a ribbon-tied bouquet of silk flowers hung from the plaque, beckoning customers to the feminine delights within.

Lucia had never so much as looked in the window of such a shop. Now she was not only to enter and be served as a customer, but in the process make her first true performance as an actress, before an audience (albeit an unknowing one) that wasn't Rivers. She must remember everything he'd told her about being a lady, and make every gesture, every word count to convince the tradeswomen that she was whom she claimed. Anything less and she'd instantly fall to the status of those infamous doxies, and though because of Rivers the women would treat her well enough, she knew that as soon as she left they'd be laughing and ridiculing her.

She didn't want to fail at this first real test as an actress, and she didn't want to fail Rivers, either. The enormity of this moment was daunting, and despite her excitement, she hung back in the carriage. She told herself sternly that she
could
do this and wasn't a coward, that she
was
ready, and yet her heart was racing and her palms were damp as she sat riveted to the carriage seat.

“Mrs. Willow?” Rivers had turned and was holding his hand out to help her down. “I know this establishment is not of the quality to which you are accustomed, but there is no need for reluctance. I'm certain you shall be treated with the utmost civility and will find many items to your taste.”

She realized he was speaking loudly for the benefit of the curious passersby, and offering a reasonable explanation for her reluctance. She couldn't keep him waiting any longer. Her performance had to begin
now.

She glanced down at his offered hand, and then back to his face.

“Amaze me, madam,” he said again, softly and so only she could hear. “Take your place, and let the curtain rise.”

And then he winked.

That was enough. She lifted her chin, striving to be an imposing, even regal, Mrs. Willow, took his hand, and swept down the steps and into the shop. A round-faced older woman in a ruffled cap with many ribbons stepped from behind the counter to greet them, with two fashionably dressed younger women in ruffled caps and sheer aprons, pin-balls and scissors hanging from their waists, following closely behind.

“Good day, Mrs. Currie,” Rivers said. “As I wrote, I have brought to you a dear friend, a lady who is in need of a new wardrobe. Mrs. Willow, Mrs. Currie.”

All three of the tradeswomen curtseyed in unison. It was the first time Lucia had ever been honored this way, and she had to fight the automatic impulse to curtsey back in return.

“Good day, Mrs. Currie,” she murmured, taking special care to round her vowels. “Lord Rivers speaks only the highest praise in regard to your work.”

The mantua-maker nodded graciously, and to Lucia's relief there wasn't so much of a hint of suspicion or scorn. She'd tricked them royally—or as Rivers would say, she was winning them with her performance.

“Thank you, ma'am,” Mrs. Currie said. “We are most grateful for your custom. How may we serve you? What would it please you to see first?”

“She needs everything, because she has nothing,” Rivers declared. “A half-dozen gowns for day, two for evening, a habit or Brunswick for travel, hats, stays, hoops, stockings, muffs, and all the rest. You know better than I what is required, Mrs. Currie.”

“Oh, indeed, my lord,” the mantua-maker said, her smile warm at the potential of such a sizable sale. “We will be honored to oblige Mrs. Willow in every way. Shall this be on your account, my lord?”

Rivers waved his hand with studied nonchalance. “Of course, of course, send the reckoning to me,” he said. “What matters most is that this dear lady be clothed as befits her, and swiftly, too. I should like everything delivered to Breconridge Lodge the day after tomorrow.”

Mrs. Currie gulped. “It can be done, of course, my lord—anything for his lordship!—but pray be aware that such speed must come at a price.”

“I understand completely,” Rivers said, smiling. “All that concerns me is that this lady is accommodated as she requires.”

But Lucia understood, too, and his nonchalance stunned her. From her work among the costumes, she knew that anything made as quickly as he was requesting came at a dear price indeed. Extra seamstresses—likely every skilled one in Newbury—would need to be hired and set to working by the expensive light of candles instead of the free light of day.

“Very well, my lord, very well.” Mrs. Currie exchanged a few meaningful glances with her assistants, who at once began producing lengths of fabric and trimmings. “If you please, Mrs. Willow, let us begin with one of the gowns for day, so that I may learn your tastes. May I suggest a round gown, or one gathered up in the Polish manner?”

She swept a length of shimmering green silk—lustring, she called it—over her arm while one of the assistants held up a fashion plate of the Polish-style gown, with a close-fitting, pointed bodice, skirts looped up over contrasting petticoats, and pert small bows at the gathers and along the stomacher for accents. Forgetting to act, Lucia made a wordless sigh of admiration, for she'd never seen such a deliciously charming gown.

“It is a very cunning choice, ma'am,” the mantua-maker said, noting Lucia's reaction. “A
très belle robe à la mode,
as the ladies say in Paris.”

Lucia smiled, automatically shifting to French.
“Les dames françaises savent tout sur la mode, non?”

“As you say, ma'am.” Mrs. Currie flushed and looked down at the silk over her arm, smoothing it with her palm to hide her confusion. Too late Lucia realized she'd gone beyond the limits of the mantua-maker's grasp of French, and that her single sentence of French had unwittingly made the other woman feel foolish and discomfited.

“The French ladies do know everything about fashion, don't they?” she repeated in English, not wanting the other woman to feel ill at ease on her account. She'd been ridiculed often enough herself never to wish to inflict the same misery on anyone else. “If you say a
Parisienne
would wear this gown, then surely it's as fashionable as it is lovely.”

“Oh, yes, ma'am,” Mrs. Currie said quickly, nodding in eager agreement. “The Paris ladies are most wise in setting the fashions. I can tell you have traveled widely, ma'am, and recognize quality and style. You possess such a dainty figure, ma'am, very much like the ladies at the French court, that you would wear such a gown to perfection.”

But Rivers was not nearly as impressed, or susceptible to the mantua-maker's flattery.

“I suppose that will do for one of the day dresses,” he said with a shrug as he sat on one of the leather-covered benches for customers. “But first I would like you to provide a gown for this evening, when Mrs. Willow shall be dining with me.”

“But it is already two, my lord,” Mrs. Currie protested. “Not even my girls could make a gown—a gown worthy of this lady's beauty—in so short a time.”

“Surely something can be arranged,” Lucia said, wondering if he truly had planned some special dinner that required a new gown, or if this was only another part of Mrs. Willow's role. “His lordship has been so kind to me that I could not disappoint him and appear again in
this.
”

She held her worn skirts out to one side and looked beseechingly at the mantua-maker, and tried to focus on being Mrs. Willow, and not think of whatever it was Rivers was planning for her this evening.

Mrs. Currie dolefully shook her head. “I am sorry, madam, but as much as I regret disappointing you, I do not wish to promise what I cannot deliver.”

“Then perhaps there is another gown, nearly complete, here in your shop that could be made to fit my form?” she asked with her most winning smile. From her own experience as a tiring-girl, she knew that an even-tempered request would work much better for a favor than imperiously raging about like Magdalena would have done. “I know it shall be a great inconvenience to you, Mrs. Currie, but if there is any possibility, I shall be very grateful, and so shall his lordship.”

The mantua-maker hesitated, studying Lucia so closely that Lucia feared the worst. She must have somehow given herself away, and the woman had seen she was an imposter, and the whole thing a ruse. Perhaps it was the lapse into French, or perhaps some intangible droop to her posture that betrayed her humble, unladylike origins. And oh, if only she'd paid closer attention to her infernal vowels!

“I may be able to oblige you, Mrs. Willow,” Mrs. Currie said at last, and thoughtfully, too. “You are such a pleasant lady, I only desire to please you.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Currie,” Lucia said as graciously as she could, somehow managing to keep her relief from showing. She hadn't failed, or given herself away. She'd played the lady, and won her audience.

“It is my pleasure, ma'am,” Mrs. Currie said, beaming. “There is a gown in the workroom at present—a splendid gown of silk taffeta in the deepest shade of scarlet that would be most becoming to you—that could be made to suit. Miss Jenny, fetch the scarlet gown for Mrs. Willow's consideration.”

“I like a lady in red,” Rivers said, which as much as sealed the scarlet gown's fate as far as Lucia was concerned. If he liked it, then she would, too.

But when Miss Jenny reappeared with the gown, there was no need for compromise, no need to be obliging. It was simply beautiful, the silk taffeta rich and the color subtly changing with the light. There was ruching trim around the neck and down the front, and more in serpentine borders along the edges of the open petticoat. Tiny gold silk flowers were scattered over it, as if they'd grown there of their own accord, and the entire effect was both charming and elegant.

The most difficult part for Lucia of playing Mrs. Willow was pretending, as grateful as she was, that she'd already owned gowns like this one by the score. She let herself be whisked to a dressing room behind the shop, where Mrs. Currie herself fitted the gown to her small figure, smoothing and pinning and taking a pleat here and narrowing a seam there before the gown was taken off to the seamstresses for finishing.

What followed was a whirlwind of choices and purchases made, of Italian silks and Indian cottons spread across the counter, of ribbons unfurled, and trimmings considered. Dimities and dresdens, camlets and calamancos and cherryderrys, laylocks and broglios and siamoises: even the names of the fabrics were like an exotic foreign language to Lucia. While Rivers would occasionally offer his opinion, for the most part he retreated into the book he'd brought along for the purpose of diversion, and left the decisions to Lucia herself in what was for her a heaven of unimaginable, indulgent beauty and luxury.

Yet by the time the last ribbon had been chosen and the final fitting made, the afternoon had begun to fade into evening, and Lucia was thoroughly exhausted. It was not simply the challenge of being Mrs. Willow, but also the stress of choosing so many new things for herself in an elegant lady's shop. She had never purchased so much as a length of ribbon from a place such as this. Instead she'd always worn jackets and petticoats that had been passed down from others in the company, plus the rare plain linen gown that she'd bought for herself from one of the peddlers and small shops that sold secondhand (or third-, or fourth-, or fifth-hand) clothing in Whitechapel.

She'd no experience with costly silks and precious lace and other trims, or having a small flock of seamstresses and apprentices hovering about her, ready to obey her every suggestion or whim. While she knew Rivers had meant this as a treat, a pleasurable indulgence, she'd been unable to shake the uneasy feeling that she didn't quite deserve such luxury, and beneath the smiling façade of Mrs. Willow, her inexperience had made her uncertain and anxious. If only she'd had written lines to memorize so she'd be certain to say the right thing!