Regency Rogues and Rakes

Deception, thy name is Noirot.

Manipulative and elusive and not to be trusted.

If he had trusted her, he wouldn’t have set a spy on her, he wouldn’t have pursued her from Paris, and he wouldn’t be on this curst vessel in this hellish storm.

Yet not trusting was no excuse for his deranged behavior. He had no excuse. She wasn’t even beautiful, especially not now. In the murky light, she looked like a ghost. He found it hard to believe that this was the same vibrant, passionate creature who’d straddled him in the carriage and kissed him witless.

He smoothed the damp hair back from her forehead.

Dreadful, dreadful woman.

Marcelline awoke to a watery light.

At first she thought she’d died and was floating in another realm.

By degrees she realized that the ship was rocking, but not in the deranged way it had done before. The clamor had quieted.

It was over.

The storm had passed.

They’d survived.

Then she became aware of the weight and warmth pressing against her back. Her eyes flew open. In front of her was only blank wood. She remembered: her desperate visit to Clevedon’s cabin, the vicious seasickness that seized her…brandy…laudanum…his hands.

This wasn’t her cabin, her bed.

She was in his bed.

And judging by the size of the body squeezed alongside her in the narrow bunk, Clevedon was in it with her.

Oh, perfect.

She tried to turn over, but he was lying on the skirt of her dress, pinning her down.

“Clevedon,” she said.

He mumbled and moved, flinging his arm over her.

“Your grace.”

His arm tightened, pulling her closer.

How she wished she might snuggle there, her back curved against the front of his hard, warm body, his strong arm holding her safe.

But she wasn’t safe. When he woke up, he’d be in the state men usually were in when they woke, and she had no confidence in her powers to resist so much temptation.

She shoved her elbow into his ribs.

“What?” His voice was low, thick with sleep.

“You’re crushing me.”

“Yes,” he said. He nuzzled her neck.

She was desperately aware of his arousal, the great ducal phallus awake well before his brain was.

“Get off,” she said. “Get off. Now.”

Before it’s too late, and I decide to celebrate a narrow escape from death in the traditional manner of our species.

“Noirot?”

“Yes.”

“Then it wasn’t a dream.”

“No. Get off.”

He muttered something too low for her to hear, but he moved away. She turned over. Her head spun. She had to struggle to focus.

He stood at the side of the bunk, looking down at her. The shadow of a beard darkened his face, and he was scowling.

She started up from the bed.

Then fell back onto it, clutching her head.

“That wasn’t wise,” he said. “You’ve been sick. All you’ve had to eat was cold gruel and a little wine.”

“I ate?”

“You don’t remember.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t,” she said. “I’m having trouble sorting out what I dreamed and what happened. I dreamed I was in London. Then I wasn’t. I was at the bottom of the sea, looking up at the bottom of the boat.” For a moment she saw the dream clearly in her mind’s eye, and for that moment she felt the despair she’d felt then. I’ve drowned. I’ll never see Lucie again. Why did I leave London? “People hung over the rail, looking down at me. They were gesturing and seemed to be saying something, but I couldn’t make out what it was. You were there. You were very angry.” And that, strangely enough, had been the most reassuring part of the dream.

“That much was real enough,” he said. “You’ve tried my patience past all endurance. I’m not accustomed to playing nursemaid, and you didn’t make it easy, thrashing about like a lunatic.”

“Was that why you were lying on top of me?”

“I was not lying on top of you,” he said. “Not on purpose. I fell asleep. I was tired. I’d had very little sleep before the storm broke. Then you burst in and decided to be sick in my cabin.”

“I didn’t decide to be sick—though now I consider, it was a good idea,” she said. “I wish I had thought of it. But I didn’t. I came for help—for Jeffreys. I was only a bit queasy—but then…something happened.” She shook her head. “I’m never sick. I should not have been sick.”

“You’re very lucky I was here,” he said. “You’re very lucky I’m a patient man. You’re a deuced difficult patient. I would have thrown you overboard, but the crew had closed the hatches.”

She made herself sit up, but more slowly and carefully this time. Her head pounded. She clutched it.

“You’d better not get up,” he said.

She remembered his patience, his gentle touch. She remembered the feeling, so rare that she’d had trouble recognizing it: the feeling of being sheltered and protected and being looked after. When last had anybody looked after her? Not her parents, certainly. They’d never hesitated to abandon their children when the children became inconvenient. Then they’d turn up, months and months later, expecting those children to run into their open arms.

And we did, Marcelline thought. Naïve fools that we were, we did. Whether Mama and Papa were about or not, it was always Marcelline, the eldest, who looked after everybody, because one couldn’t rely on anyone else. Even after she was wed. But what could she expect when she wed her own kind? Poor, feckless Charlie!

Clevedon wasn’t her kind. He was another species altogether. She remembered his hand at her back, guiding her to the shelter of his well-appointed carriage. A woman could be spoiled so easily by a rich, privileged man. So many women were.

She couldn’t afford it.

“I…truly, I thank you for enduring the ghastliness of nursing me,” she said. ”But I must get back, before anyone realizes where I’ve been.”

“Who do you think will notice or care?” he said. “We sailed into the devil’s own storm. People have been running about screaming and puking and generally making nuisances of themselves for hours. I doubt most of them even know where they’ve been this night.” He looked about him. “Morning, rather. Since most of them were sick, they’ll be starved by now, and the only thing they’ll think about is getting something to eat. Your head is aching because you’re hungry.” He scowled again. “Or perhaps I gave you too much laudanum. I wasn’t sure what was the proper dose for a woman. You’re lucky I didn’t poison you.”

“Clevedon.” She winced. It hurt to speak.

“Don’t move,” he said. “You’ll make yourself sick again, and I’m tired of that.” He moved away from the bunk. “I’ll have one of the servants fetch you something to eat.”

“Stop taking care of me!”

He turned back to look at her. “Stop being childish,” he said. “Are you afraid I’ll ply you with food in order to seduce you? Think again. Have you looked in a mirror lately? And may I remind you that I was the one holding your head while you were sick last night. Not exactly the most arousing sight I’ve ever seen. In fact, I can’t remember what I ever saw in you. I only want to feed you so you’ll be well and get out of my cabin and out of my life.”

“I want to be out of your life, too,” she said.

“Right,” he said. “Until it’s time to pay my duchess’s dressmaking bills.”

“Yes,” she said. “Exactly.”

“Good,” he said. “That suits me very well.”

He went to the door, opened it, went out, and slammed it behind him.

By the time the packet docked at the Tower Stairs, Marcelline wanted to scream. The storm had blown the ship off course, and a trip that in good weather took about twelve hours had taken more than twenty. The advertised “refreshments” had run out, the ship’s servants were limp with fatigue, and the mood of the hungry passengers was vile, as was their smell. Even above deck, in the brisk sea air, it was impossible to escape the evidence of too many people confined with one another in too small an area for too long. Couples quarreled with each other and scolded their whiny children, who picked fights with their siblings.

Naturally, nobody could wait to get off the boat, and they all tried to disembark simultaneously, shoving and shouting and even kicking.

Though she longed desperately get off the vessel as well, Marcelline decided to wait. She fended off the packet’s servants, eager to help her with her belongings, telling them to come back later. While she felt a good deal better, she didn’t feel quite herself. Too, Jeffreys was still weak from her own far worse bout with sickness. It made no sense to endure the pushing and hurrying and ill temper—and above all, the whiny children.

Marcelline wanted her own child. Lucie was no angel, but she did not whine. and when her mama surprised her by returning home a week early, that mama would be smiling and happy.

She would be smiling and happy, Marcelline assured herself, once the crowd dissipated, and she could have a moment’s peace, to sort herself out.

Clevedon must be long gone by now. He wouldn’t have to shove people out of his way. His servants could do that for him—not that it would be necessary. Clevedon appeared, and people simply made way for him.

“Make way, make way!”

She looked up. A tall, burly footman was bearing down on her, another footman behind him. The livery was all too familiar.

The first one elbowed an indignant packet servant aside, strode to her, and bowed. “His grace’s compliments, Mrs. Noirot, and would you be so good as to let him see you and Miss Jeffreys home. He understands Miss Jeffreys was dire ill, and he dislikes to leave her to the public conveyances, let alone being jostled by this infern—this crowd. If you ladies would come with us, me and Joseph will take you along to the Customs officers and then in a trice we’ll have you in the carriage, which is only around the corner.”

Even as he spoke, he was collecting their things, hoisting one portmanteau under one arm and another under the other. His counterpart made easy work of the remaining bags, ignoring the protests of the packet servants they’d displaced and deprived of their tips.

It all happened so quickly that Marcelline had no time even to decide whether to object. She’d hardly taken in what they were about when Thomas and Joseph marched away with her luggage.

The drive to the shop on Fleet Street, silent for the most part, seemed interminable.

The first thing Jeffreys did when she settled into her seat, next to Marcelline and opposite the duke, was thank him for sending Saunders to look after her when she was ill.

He shrugged. “Saunders dotes on playing physician,” he said. “He likes nothing better than to make disgusting potions to cure the effects of overindulgence. It’s his subtle way of punishing us, no doubt, for getting wine stains on our linen.”

“He was very kind,” Jeffreys said.

“That would make for a change,” said Clevedon. “He isn’t, usually.”

And that was all he said, all the way from the Tower to Jeffreys’s lodgings.

From there it was an easy walk to the shop. The drive was not so easy.

Marcelline’s mind was working as always, looking for a way to turn matters to her account. He’d said…what had he said before he slammed out of his cabin?

He’d said something about paying the dressmaking bills. That it suited him very well.

But he’d been so angry, and he hadn’t come back.

His valet had appeared, though, with a bottle of wine and assorted cold meats and cheese that must have cost a king’s ransom in bribes.

A woman could, too easily, get used to such luxury.

She couldn’t afford to get used to it.

“I can’t decide,” she said, “whether you’re exercising forbearance or merely indulging your curiosity to see my lair.”

“Why should I do either?” he said. Seeming to make himself perfectly at ease, he stretched out his long legs, as he hadn’t been able to do when Jeffreys shared the seat with her. He rested one arm along the back of the richly appointed seat and looked out of the louvered panel, open at present to let him see out while shielding him from others trying to look in. Not that it was any secret who he was, when the crest emblazoned on the door shouted his identity to all the world.

The late afternoon light traced the smoothly sculpted lines of his profile.

Longing welled up. To touch his beautiful face. To feel that arm curl about her shoulders. To tuck herself into that big, warm body.

She crushed it. “Or perhaps you took pity on us,” she said.

“It was your maid or seamstress or whatever she is upon whom I took pity,” he said. “You can take care of yourself, I’ve no doubt. But Saunders told me the girl was prodigious ill. For a time, he said, he wasn’t sure she’d survive the voyage. She did not look well just now.” He paused briefly. “She doesn’t lodge with you?”

“She did, but that was only temporary. I can hardly lodge my seamstresses. For one thing, it isn’t good for them to do nothing but eat, drink, and live nothing but shop. For another, there isn’t room. Not that I should want half a dozen seamstresses about all day and all night. The working hours can be trying enough, what with their little jealousies and—”

“Half a dozen?” he said. He leaned forward. “Half a dozen?”

He was too astonished to pretend he wasn’t.

Yes, of course she’d babbled that advertisement for the corner of Fleet Street at Chancery Lane, and it was the direction she’d given the coachman. That didn’t mean her shop wasn’t squeezed into a passage or a cellar.

“Half a dozen girls at present,” she said. “But I’ll certainly be hiring more in the near future. As it is, we’re shorthanded.”

“Half a—Devil take you, what is wrong with you?”

“You’ve already pointed out any number of my character flaws,” she said. “To which do you now refer?”

“I thought…Noirot, you’re the damndest woman. Your dogged pursuit of me led me to believe you were in desperate straits.”

“How on earth did you come by that idea?” she said. “I told you I was the greatest modiste in the world. You’ve seen my work.”

“I imagined a dark little shop in a basement, drat you,” he said. “I did wonder how you contrived to make such extravagant-looking dresses in such a place.”

“I’m sure you didn’t wonder about it overlong,” she said. “You were mainly occupied with bedding me.”

“Yes, but I’m done with that now.”

He was. He truly was. He’d had enough of her. He’d had enough of himself, chasing her. Like a puppy, like the veriest schoolboy.

“I’m very glad to hear it,” she said.

“It’s only Clara I’m thinking of,” he said. “Much as it pains me to contribute to your vainglory, it was clear, even to me, that the women of Paris were besotted with your work. You’re the most aggravating woman I’ve ever met, but you make yourself agreeable to women, I noticed, and that and beautiful, fashionable clothes are what matter, I daresay. I should not hold a grudge, merely because I long to shake you until your teeth rattle.”

Her weary face lit up, her eyes most brilliantly of all. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew you’d see.”

“Still, I don’t trust you.”

Something flickered in her eyes, but she said nothing, only waited, her attention riveted.

She was riveted on him—for her business. He was merely the means to an end.

But he scorned to hold grudges, especially on such a petty account—his vanity, of all things!

“I wanted to see the place for myself,” he said. “To make sure it truly existed, for one thing—and to see what sort of place it was. For all I knew, you were toiling alone in a dark room in a cellar.”

“Good grief, what a mind a man has,” she said. “How could you imagine I should produce such creations in—But never mind. Maison Noirot is an elegant shop. Everything is of the first stare, exceedingly neat and clean and airy. It’s much more neat and elegant, I promise you, than the den of that dull-witted incompetent—but no, I will not foul the air with her name.”

He was done with her. He needed to be done with her. But now, when she spoke of her shop, she was so animated. So passionate.

“I smell a rival,” he said.

She sat straighter. “Certainly not. I have no rivals, your grace. I am the greatest modiste in the world.” She leaned forward to look out of the door window. “We’re nearly there. You’ll soon see for yourself.”

It wasn’t as soon as it might have been, the street being a tangle of carriages, riders, and pedestrians. But eventually they came to the place, and there it was, a handsome modern shop, with a bow window and the name in gold lettering over the door: Noirot.

The carriage stopped. The door opened. The steps were folded down.

Clevedon stepped out first, and put out his hand to steady her.

As she took his hand, he heard a cry behind him.

She looked up, looked past him, and the light he’d seen in her face before was nothing to this. Her countenance was the sun, shedding happiness and setting the world aglow.

“Mama!” the voice cried.

Noirot practically leapt from the last step, past him, forgetting him entirely.

She crouched down on the pavement and opened her arms, and a little girl, a little dark-haired girl, ran into them.

“Mama!” the child cried. “You’re home!”

Chapter Seven

The Dress-Maker must be an expert anatomist; and must, if judiciously chosen, have a name of French termination; she must know how to hide all defects in the proportions of the body, and must be able to mould the shape by the stays, that, while she corrects the body, she may not interfere with the pleasures of the palate.

The Book of English Trades, and Library of the Useful Arts, 1818

A child.

She had a child.

A little girl with dark, curling hair who ran at her, laughing. Noirot’s arms went around her and tightened to hold her close. “My love, my love,” she said, and the way she said it made a knot in his chest.

He was distantly aware of other feminine voices, but his attention was locked upon the scene: Noirot crouched on the pavement, crushing the little girl to her, and the child, whose face he could see so clearly over her mother’s shoulder, eyes closed, her face alight and dawn-rosy, her happiness radiating in almost visible waves.

He didn’t know how long he stood there, oblivious to all else about him: the busy street, the people detouring round the mother and child on the pavement. He scarcely noticed his own servants, carrying her things into the place, then returning to the carriage. He was only dimly aware of the two women who had come out of the shop behind the little girl.

He stood and watched the mother and child because he couldn’t turn away, because he didn’t understand and scarcely believed what his senses told him.

After some time, some very short time perhaps, Noirot rose and, taking her daughter’s hand, started toward the shop. The child said, “Who is that, Mama?”

Noirot turned around and saw him standing, like a man at the window of a peepshow, entranced by a foreign world, unable to look away.

He collected his wits and took a step toward them. “Mrs. Noirot, perhaps you’d be so kind as to make me known to the young lady.”

The child looked up at him, eyes wide. They were not her mother’s eyes, but b1ue, vividly blue. They seemed vaguely familiar, and he tried to remember where he might have seen those eyes before. But where could that have been? Anywhere. Nowhere. It didn’t signify.

Noirot looked from the girl to him and back to the girl, who said, “Who is it, Mama? Is it the king?”

“No, it isn’t the king.”

The child tipped her head to one side, looking past him at the carriage. “That is a very grand carriage,” she said. “I should like to drive about in that carriage.”

“I don’t doubt that,” said her mother. “Your grace, may I present my daughter, Miss Lucie Cordelia Noirot.”

“I beg your pardon, Mama,” the child said. “That isn’t my name, you know.”

Noirot looked at her. “Is it not?”

“My name is Erroll now. E-R-R-O-L-L.”

“I see.” Noirot began again. “Your grace, may I present my daughter—” She broke off and looked enquiringly at the child. “You’re still my daughter, I take it?”

“Yes,” said Erroll. “Of course, Mama.”

“I’m relieved to hear it. I had quite grown used to you. Your grace, may I present my daughter Erroll. Erroll, His Grace, the Duke of Clevedon.”

“Miss…erm…Erroll,” he said. He bowed gravely.

“Your grace,” the girl said. She curtseyed. It was nothing half so stunning as her mother’s style of curtsey, but it was gracefully done nonetheless. He wondered at it and at her remarkable self-possession.

Then he recalled whose daughter she was, and wondered why he wondered.

Then he recalled who it was who had a child.

A child, Noirot had a child!

How had she failed to mention such a thing? But what was wrong with him that he was so shocked? She was Mrs. Noirot—and while the title “Mrs.” was used, cavalierly enough, by unwed shopkeepers, actresses, and whores alike, he needn’t have assumed she wasn’t a married woman, with a family and…a husband…who did not seem to be in evidence. Dead? Or perhaps there was no husband, merely a scoundrel who’d fathered and abandoned this child.

“Do you ever take children for a drive in that carriage?” Erroll said, calling him back to the moment. “Not little children, I mean, but proper grown-up girls who would sit quietly—not climbing about and spoiling the cushions or putting sticky fingers on the glass. Not them, but well-behaved girls who keep their hands folded in their laps and only look out of the window.” The great blue eyes regarded him steadily.

“I—”

“No, he does not,” her mother said. “His grace has many claims on his time. In fact, I am sure he has an appointment elsewhere any minute now.”

“Do I?”

Noirot gave him a warning look.

“Yes, of course,” he said. He took out his pocket watch and stared at it. He had no idea where the hands pointed. He was too conscious of the little girl with the great blue eyes watching him so intently. “I nearly forgot.”

He put the watch away. “Well, Erroll, I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Yes, I’m glad to meet you, too,” she said. “Please come again, when you’re not so busy.”

He made a polite, non-committal answer, and took his leave.

He climbed into his coach and sat. As the vehicle started to move, he looked out through the louvered panel. That was when he finally took notice of the other two women, a blonde and a redhead. Even through the wooden slats, at this distance, he discerned the family resemblance, most especially in the way they carried themselves.

He had mistaken her. He’d formed an idea that was entirely wrong.

Her shop was not a little hole-in-corner place but a proper, handsome establishment. She had a family. She had a child.

She was not to be trusted. Of that he was quite, quite sure.

As to everything else—he’d misjudged, misunderstood, and now he was at sea again, and it was a rough sea, indeed.

“Well done,” Sophy said, when the shop door had closed behind them. “I know you, of course, and I should never underestimate you—”

“But my dear,” said Leonie, “you could have knocked me over with a feather when I saw the crest on the carriage door.”

“And then to see him spring out of the carriage—”

“—the prints don’t half do him justice—”

“—to see him hand you out—”

“—I thought for a minute I was dreaming—”