“Perhaps Her Grace,” she indicated Mariana, “and the marchioness,” she waved one hand in the direction of the fitting room and Callie, “can help to repair the damage I have done.”
“Ha!” Mariana was still irate. “As though I would stoop to conversing with that—” She paused, rediscovering her manners. “But, of course, Madame, I will happily help.”
The dressmaker spoke. “There is nothing in need of repair. I’ve plenty of work, and I do not require the Duchess of Leighton to suffer my clientele.” Juliana blinked, and the modiste continued. “I’ve got the Duchess of Rivington in my shop, as well as the wife and sister of the Marquess of Ralston. I can do without the old lady.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She shall die soon enough. What are a handful of years without her business?”
The pronouncement was so brash, so matter-of-fact, that it took a moment for the meaning to settle. Mariana smiled broadly, and Juliana gave a bark of disbelieving laughter. “Have I mentioned how very much I love the French?”
The modiste winked. “We foreigners must stay together, non?”
Juliana smiled. “Oui.”
“Bon.” Hebert nodded once. “And what of the duke?”
Juliana pretended not to understand. “The duke?”
Mariana gave her a long-suffering look. “Oh, please. You are terrible at playing coy.”
“The one who saved your life, mademoiselle,” the dressmaker said, a teasing lilt in her voice. “He is a challenge, non?”
Juliana turned the egret feather in her hand, watching as the brilliant, hidden colors revealed themselves before meeting the dressmaker’s gaze. “Oui. But not in the way you think. I am not after him. I simply want to . . .”
To shake him to his core.
Well, she certainly couldn’t say that.
Madame Hebert removed the plume from Juliana’s hand. She moved to the wall of fabric on one side of the shop and leaned down to remove a bolt of fabric. Turning out several yards of the extravagant cloth, she looked up at Juliana. “I think you should allow your brother to buy you a new gown.”
The modiste set the feather down on the glorious satin. It was scandalous and passionate and . . .
Mariana laughed at her shoulder, low and wicked. “Oh, it’s perfect.”
Juliana met the dressmaker’s gaze.
It would bring him to his knees.
“How quickly can I have it?”
The modiste looked to her, intrigued. “How quickly do you need it?”
“He is coming to dinner two evenings from now.”
Mariana snapped to attention, shaking her head. “But Callie said he has not accepted the invitation.”
Juliana met her sister-in-law’s eyes, more certain of her path than ever before. “He shall.”
“It is not that I do not wish our military to be well funded, Leighton, I’m simply saying that this debate could have waited for the next session. I’ve a harvest to oversee.”
Simon threw a card down and turned a lazy glance on his opponent, who was worrying a cheroot between his teeth in the telling gesture of a soon-to-be loser. “I imagine it’s less the harvesting and more the foxhunting that you are so loath to miss, Fallon.”
“That, as well, I won’t deny. I’ve better things to do than spend all of autumn in London.” The Earl of Fallon discarded in irritated punctuation. “You can’t want to stay, either.”
“What I want is not at issue,” Simon said. It was a lie. What he wanted was entirely at issue. He would endorse a special session of Parliament to discuss the laws governing cartography if it kept visitors from turning up on the doorstep of his country manor and discovering his secrets.
He set his cards down, faceup. “It seems you should spend more time on your cards than on searching for ways to shirk your duties as a peer.”
Simon collected his winnings, stood from the table, and ignored the earl’s curse as he left the small room into the corridor beyond.
The evening stretched before him, along with invitations to the theatre and half a dozen balls, and he knew that he should return to his town house, bathe and dress and head out—every night he was seen as the portrait of propriety and gentility was a night that would help to secure the Leighton name.
It did not matter that he was coming to find the rituals of society tiresome.
This was how it was done.
“Leighton.”
The Marquess of Needham and Dolby was huffing up the wide staircase from the ground floor of the club, barely able to catch his breath as he reached the top step. He stopped, one hand on the rich oak banister, and leaned his head back, pushing out his ample torso to heave a great breath. The buttons on the marquess’s yellow waistcoat strained under the burden of his girth, and Simon wondered if the older man would require a physician.
“Just the man I was hoping to see!” the marquess announced once he had recovered. “Tell me, when are you going to speak to my daughter?”
Simon stilled, considering their surroundings. It was an entirely inappropriate location for a conversation that he would like to keep private. “Perhaps you’d like to join me in a sitting room, Needham?”
The marquess did not take the hint. “Nonsense. There’s no need to keep the match quiet!”
“I am afraid I disagree,” Simon said, willing the muscles in his jaw to relax. “Until the lady agrees—”
“Nonsense!” the marquess fairly bellowed again.
“I assure you, Needham, there are not many who consider my thoughts nonsense. I should like the match kept quiet until I have had a chance to speak directly to Lady Penelope.”