One Good Earl Deserves a Lover (11 page)

Chase grinned, all white teeth. “One hundred pounds says she’s the woman who breaks you of your curse.”

His curse.

It took everything he had not to react to the words. To the taunt in them.

One golden brow rose. “Not willing to take it?”

“I don’t wager in the book,” Cross repeated, the words coming out like gravel.

Chase smirked, but said nothing, instead standing, limbs unfolding with an uncanny grace. “Pity. I thought for sure that would make me a quick hundred.”

“I did not know you were short on blunt.”

“I’m not. But I do like to win.”

Cross didn’t reply as his partner left, the sound of the large mahogany door closing softly the only sign that Chase had been there at all
.

Only then did Cross release the long breath he’d been holding.

He should have taken the wager.

Chase might know more than most about the secrets of London’s elite, but there was one fact that was beyond doubt.

Cross would not touch Philippa Marbury again.

He couldn’t.

P
ippa, it’s time to try your dress.”

The Marchioness of Needham and Dolby’s words—part excitement, part scolding—drew Pippa’s attention from where she’d been watching the mass of bodies weaving in and out of the shops on Bond Street. While Pippa liked the window of Madame Hebert’s shop very much—it afforded a rather spectacular view of the rest of the London aristocracy going about their daily business—she did not particularly care for dressmakers. They, like dancing, were not her preferred way of spending time.

But wedding dresses required modistes. As did trousseaus.

And so, here she was, at what would most certainly be the longest trip to the dressmaker in the history of dress shopping.

“Philippa!” She snapped her attention from the group of men across the street at the entrance to Boucher & Babcock’s Tobacconist and toward her mother’s sharp, excited cry from the inner fitting room of the shop. “Come see your sister!”

With a sigh, Pippa turned from the window and pushed her way through the curtains, feeling as though she were steeled for battle. The velvet drapes hadn’t returned to their place when she came up short, taking in Olivia, petite and perfect on a raised platform at the center of the room, in what had to be the most beautiful wedding dress ever made.

“Olivia,” Pippa said quietly, shaking her head. “You are . . .”

“Gorgeous!” the marchioness exclaimed, clapping her hands together in maternal glee.

Olivia fluffed the skirts of the lovely ivory lace and grinned. “Absolutely stunning, aren’t I?”

“Stunning,” Pippa agreed. It was the truth after all. But she could not resist adding, “And so modest.”

“Oh, tosh,” Olivia said, turning to look more carefully in the mirror. “If you cannot tell the truth in Hebert’s back room, where can you? Dressmaker’s shops are for gossip and honesty.”

The seamstress—widely acknowledged as the best in Britain—removed a pin from between her lips and pinned the bodice of the gown before winking at Pippa from her position behind Olivia’s shoulder. “I could not agree more.”

Olivia was unable to take her eyes off her reflection in one of the score of mirrors placed around the room. “Yes. It’s perfect.”

It was, of course. Not that Olivia needed a dress to make her beautiful. The youngest, prettiest Marbury sister could wear a length of feed sack fetched from the Needham Manor stables and still look more beautiful than most women on their very best days. No, there was little doubt that two weeks hence, when Olivia and Viscount Tottenham stood in St. George’s in front of all of London society, she would be a stunning bride—the talk of the
ton.

Pippa would no doubt pale in comparison as she played her part in the double wedding.

“Lady Philippa, Alys is ready for you.” The dressmaker pulled her from her thoughts with a wave of one long arm, adorned with a scarlet pincushion, in the direction of a young assistant standing near a tall screen on one end of the room, a mass of lace and silk in her hands.

Pippa’s wedding gown.

Something turned deep within, and she hesitated.

“Go on, Pippa. Put it on.” Olivia looked down at the dressmaker. “It’s very different, I hope. I wouldn’t like us to be thought to wear the same dress.”

Pippa had no doubt that, even if the dresses were an exact copy, there would be no mistaking the two brides on the fast-approaching day.

Where the four older Marbury daughters had been landed with flat, ashy blond hair, skin either too ruddy (Victoria and Valerie) or too pale (Pippa and Penelope), and bodies either too plump (Penelope and Victoria) or too lean (Pippa and Valerie), Olivia was perfect. Her hair was a lush, sparkling gold that shimmered in the sunlight, her skin was clear and pink, and her shape—the ideal combination of curved and trim. She had a body that was made for French fashion, and Madame Hebert had designed her a dress to prove it.

Pippa doubted the dressmaker—best in London or no—could do the same for her.

The gown was over her head then, the sound of fabric rustling in her ears chasing away her thoughts as the young seamstress tightened and fastened, buttoned and tied. Pippa fidgeted through the process, keenly aware of the harsh lace edging against her skin, of the way the stays threatened to suffocate.

She had not yet seen herself in it, but the dress was remarkably uncomfortable.

When Alys had completed her work, she waved Pippa out into the main room, and for one small moment, Pippa wondered what would happen if, instead of emerging to the critical gaze of her sister and mother and the finest dressmaker this side of the English Channel, she fled into the rear of the shop and out the back door.

Perhaps then she and Castleton could forgo the entire wedding and simply get to the marriage bit. That was, after all, the important part of it all, wasn’t it?

“This shall be the wedding of the season!” Lady Needham crowed from beyond the screen.

Well . . . perhaps marriage was not the most important part for mothers.

“Of course it shall,” Olivia agreed. “Didn’t I tell you that, Penny-disaster or no, I would marry well?”

“You did, my darling. You always achieve that which you set your mind to.”

Lucky Olivia.

“My lady?” The young seamstress looked confused. Pippa gathered that it was not every day that a bride was so hesitant to show off her wedding gown.

She stepped around the screen. “Well? Here I am.”

“Oh!” Lady Needham nearly toppled from her place on a lavishly appointed divan, tea sloshing from her cup as she bounced up and down on the sapphire fabric. “Oh! What a fine countess you shall make!”

Pippa looked past her mother to Olivia, who was already back to watching the half dozen young seamstresses on their knees, pinning the hem of her gown, lifting flounces and moving ribbons. “Very nice, Pippa.” She paused. “Not as nice as mine, of course . . .”

Some things did not change. Thankfully. “Of course not.”

Madame Hebert was already helping Pippa up onto her own raised platform, pins lodged firmly between the dressmaker’s teeth as she cast a disparaging gaze along the bodice of the gown. Pippa turned to look at herself in a large mirror, and the Frenchwoman immediately stepped into her line of vision. “Not yet.”

The seamstresses worked in silence as Pippa ran the tips of her fingers over the bodice of the gown, tracing the curves of lace and the stretches of silk. “Silk comes from caterpillars,” she said, the information a comfort in the odd moment. “Well, not precisely caterpillars—the cocoons of the silkworm.” When no one replied, she looked down at her hands, and added, “The
Bombyx mori
pupates, and before it can emerge as a moth—we get silk.”

There was silence for long moments, and Pippa looked up to discover everyone in the room staring at her as though she had sprouted a second head. Olivia was the first to reply. “You are so
odd.
”

“Who can think of
worms
at a time like this?” the marchioness chimed in. “Worms have nothing to do with weddings!”

Pippa thought it was rather a perfect time to think of worms. Hardworking worms that had left the life they’d known—and all its comforts—and spun cocoons, preparing for a life they did not understand and could not imagine, only to be stopped halfway through the process and turned into a wedding gown.

She did not imagine that her mother would care for that description, however, and so she said nothing as the woman began to pin, and the bodice of the gown grew tighter and tighter. After several long moments, Pippa coughed. “It’s rather constricting.”

Madame Hebert did not seem to hear her, instead pinching a quarter of an inch of fabric at Pippa’s waist and pinning it tight.

“Are you sure—?”

Pippa tried again before the modiste cut her a look. “I am sure.”

No doubt.

And then the dressmaker stepped away and Pippa had a clear line to the looking glass, where she faced her future self. The dress was beautiful, fitted simply to her small bust and long waist without making her look like any kind of long-legged bird.

No, she looked every inch a bride.

The dress seemed to be growing tighter by the moment. Was such a thing possible?

“What do you think?” the dressmaker asked, watching her carefully in the mirror.

Pippa opened her mouth to respond, not knowing what was to come.

“She adores it, of course!” The marchioness’s words came on a squeal. “They both adore them! It shall be the wedding of the season! The wedding of the
century
!”

Pippa met the modiste’s curious chocolate gaze. “And the century has barely begun.”

The Frenchwoman’s eyes smiled for the briefest of instants before Olivia sighed happily. “It shall indeed. And Tottenham shan’t be able to resist me in this dress. No man could.”

“Olivia!” the marchioness said from her place. “That is entirely unladylike.”

“Why? That is the goal, is it not? To tempt one’s husband?”

“One does not
tempt
one’s husband!” the marchioness insisted.

Olivia’s smile turned mischievous. “You must have tempted yours once or twice, Mother.”

“Oh!” Lady Needham collapsed back against the settee.

Madame Hebert turned away from the conversation, waving two girls over to work on Pippa’s hem.

Olivia winked at Pippa. “Five times, at least.”

Pippa could not resist. “Four. Victoria and Valerie are twins.”

“Enough! I cannot abide it!” The marchioness was up and through the curtains to the front of the shop, leaving her daughters to their laughter.

“That you might some day be wife to the prime minister worries me not a small amount,” Pippa said.

Olivia smiled. “Tottenham enjoys it. He says the European leaders will all appreciate my increased character.”

Pippa laughed, happy for the distraction from the unsettling view of the bride in the looking glass. “Increased character? That is a kind way of putting it.”

Olivia nodded, waving the dressmaker over. “Madame,” she said, quietly, “now that our mother is gone, perhaps we could discuss the particulars of tempting one’s husband?”

Pippa’s brows rose. “Olivia!”

Olivia waved away the scolding and pressed on. “The trousseaus my mother ordered . . . they’re filled with cotton and linen night rails, aren’t they?”

Madame Hebert’s lips twisted in a wry smile. “I would have to pull the orders, but knowing the preferences of the marchioness, there is little designed to tempt in the collections.”

Olivia smiled her sweetest, brightest smile. The one that could win any man or woman in creation. The one that made her the favorite Marbury girl Britain-wide. “But there could be?”

“
Oui.
The bedchamber is my specialty.”

Olivia nodded once. “Excellent. We both require your very best in that area.” She waved a hand at Pippa. “Pippa most of all.”

That set her back. “What does that mean?”

“Only that Castleton seems the type to require guideposts along the way.” Olivia looked to the seamstress, and added, “I don’t suppose guideposts are an option?”

The Frenchwoman laughed. “I make certain they find their way.”

Guideposts.
Pippa recalled her hand on Castleton’s the prior evening. The way he’d smiled down at her, and she’d felt not a twinge of temptation. Not a hint of the knowledge that she sought.

Perhaps Pippa required guideposts.

How was one to know?

“I’m not worried,” Olivia said, her eyes flashing with a knowledge beyond her years, rubied hand tracing the edge of her gown. “Tottenham has no difficulty finding his way.” Pippa felt her jaw go lax. The words called to mind thoughts of much more than kissing. Olivia looked at her and laughed. “You needn’t look so shocked.”

“You’ve—?” She lowered her voice to a bare whisper. “More than the kissing? With the tongues?”

Olivia smiled and nodded. “Last night. There was still kissing, though. And a lovely amount of tongue. In intriguing locations.” Pippa thought perhaps her eyes would roll from her head. “You did not have a similar experience, I gather?”

No!

“How?
Where
?”

“Well, there’s the answer to
my
question,” Olivia said dryly, inspecting one long lace sleeve. “I should think the ordinary way. As for when and where, you’d be surprised by how resourceful an intelligent, eager gentleman can be.”

Little Olivia, the youngest Marbury. Deflowered.

Which made Pippa the only Marbury to remain . . . flowered.

Olivia lowered her voice, and added, “I hope for your sake that Castleton discovers his resourcefulness. It’s a
very
rewarding experience.”

Pippa shook her head. “You—” She didn’t know what to say.

Olivia gave her a look of surprise. “Really, Pippa. It’s perfectly normal for betrothed couples to . . . experiment. Everyone does it.”

She pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “
Everyone?
”