Page 115 of Silk Is for Seduction

She didn’t doubt it. She didn’t doubt that he meant every word.

“I have ideas,” he went on eagerly. “We can do this together. Other noblemen have business interests. I can write, and I’ve the resources to create a magazine. Like La Belle Assemblée, but better. I’ve other ideas about expanding the business. You said you were the greatest modiste in the world. I can help you make all the world realize it. Marry me, Marcelline.”

It wasn’t fair.

She was a dreamer, yes. All of her kind were. They dreamed impossible dreams. Yet she and her sisters had made some of them come true.

It was a beautiful dream he offered. But he saw only the beautiful part.

“Other noblemen’s business interests have to do with property,” she said. “And great schemes. They own mines and invest in canals and the new railways. They do not open little shops and sell ladies’ apparel. The Great World will never forgive you. These aren’t the old days, Clevedon. These aren’t the days of the Prince Regent and his loose-living set. Society isn’t as tolerant as it used to be.”

“Then Society is a great bore,” he said. “I don’t care whether they approve of my going into trade. I believe in you and in what you do. I want to be part of it.”

He didn’t know what he was saying. He didn’t understand what it meant to lose Society’s regard and his friends’ respect, to be barred from the world to which one ought to belong. She knew all too well.

Even if he could understand that and accept it, there remained the nasty little business of who she really was.

She had no choice. She had to be the sane one. This was one dream she couldn’t dream. He was watching her, waiting.

She unfolded her arms.

She put her hands together, like one offering a prayer, and said, “Thank you. This is kind and generous, and, truly, you do me a great honor—I know that’s what one is supposed to say, but I mean it, truly—”

“Marcelline, don’t—”

“But no, your grace, no. I can never marry you.”

She saw his face go white, and she turned away, quickly, before she could weaken. She walked to the door that led to the back rooms, and opened it, and walked through, and closed it, very, very gently, behind her.

Clevedon walked blindly from the shop, down St. James’s Street. At the bottom of the street he paused, and gazed blankly at St. James’s Palace. There was a noise in his head, a horrible noise. He was aware of misery and pain and rage and the devil knew what else. He hadn’t the wherewithal to take it apart and name its components. It was a kind of hell-brew of feelings, and it consumed him. He didn’t hear the shout. He couldn’t hear above the noise in his head.

“What the devil is wrong with you, Clevedon? I’ve been shouting myself hoarse, running down the street like a damn fool. One damn fool after another, obviously. I saw you come out of that shop, you moron.”

Clevedon turned and looked at Longmore. “I recommend you not provoke me,” he said coldly. “I’m in a mood to knock someone down, and you’ll do very well.”

“Don’t tell me,” Longmore said. “The dressmaker doesn’t want you, either. By gad, this isn’t your day, is it? Not your week, rather.”

The urge to throw Longmore against a lamp post or a fence or straight into the gutter was overpowering. The guards would probably rush out from the palace gates—and there Clevedon would be, in the newspapers again, the name on every scandalmonger’s lips.

Hell, what was one more scandal?

He dropped his walking stick and grasped Longmore by the shoulders and shoved him hard. With an oath, Longmore shoved back. “Fight me like a man, you swine,” he said. “I dare you.”

A moment later, they’d torn off their coats. In the next instant, their fists flew, as they tried, steadily and viciously, to pummel each other to death.

Marcelline sent Sophy out into the showroom to close the shop.

Though she was so tired, tired to death and heartsick, she knew better than to go to bed. Lucie would think she was ill, and she’d get panicky—and very possibly do something rash again.

In any case, Marcelline knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She needed to focus on making beautiful clothes. That would calm her.

She was trying to redesign the fastening for a pelisse when Sophy came in. Leonie trailed after her. Sophy hadn’t said anything before, but she’d given Marcelline a searching look. Even wearing a card-playing face, it was hard to hide one’s emotions from one’s own kind.

The two younger sisters had come to find out the trouble and comfort her as they always did.

“What happened?” Sophy said. “What’s wrong?”

“Clevedon,” Marcelline said. She jammed her pencil into the paper. The pencil broke. “Oh, it’s ridiculous. I ought to laugh. But I can’t. You won’t believe it.”

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