by Eloisa James
“If I am not still hanging over a chamber pot,” Diana said gloomily. “I wrote to North and asked him to come to London. He should have to suffer along with me.”
“No gentlemen in your bedchamber until you are married,” Lady Knowe said.
“Too late for that rule,” Diana said, pushing away her egg and picking up a piece of dry toast. “I didn’t mention the baby in my letter to North.” She frowned at both of them. “I will tell him in person.”
Lady Knowe nodded. “I shall send a note to Parth and put off our visit to Vauxhall until North arrives. I’m sure North will want to meet Parth’s contessa, and Lord Jeremy is one of his closest friends.”
She nodded at a footman, who poured Diana some fresh tea. “You must drink sufficiently to make up for all those liquids you’re losing.”
“I don’t know if tea will agree with my stomach,” Diana said dubiously, eyeing the steaming cup.
“Why don’t I visit the tailor by myself?” Lavinia suggested. “This afternoon, we could meet at Felton’s Emporium and select fabric for both habits.”
Lady Knowe waved a toast finger at her. “Is that a Parisian morning gown you have on today?”
Lavinia smiled. “It began that way.” She looked down at her morning gown, a garment fashioned from silk the color of spring leaves. “It was serviceable but rather staid. Annie and I added these pink ribbons to the skirt.”
“Green and pink together.” Lady Knowe shook her head. “I’d never have considered it, but you look marvelous.”
“Au courant,” Diana agreed, then clapped a hand over her mouth and dashed for the door.
Lady Knowe picked up another toast finger. “There are times when I wish I’d had offspring, but I invariably come to my senses. Do you plan to wear that fabulous walking costume with the large buttons today, my dear? I saw a glimpse of it yesterday when Annie was taking it for pressing.”
Lavinia nodded. “It had a blue under-bodice, but we refashioned it in cream, which offers a more flattering contrast to the apricot skirts.”
“The buttons are very dashing.”
“They are covered in the apricot silk, edged with silver filigree.”
“I need a new walking gown, and I’d like the same design, though in a different color. Could you perhaps order me one from the tailor, and choose the fabric?”
“Of course!” Lavinia beamed. “Would you consider forest green?”
“Green?” Lady Knowe wrinkled her nose.
“Yes,” Lavinia said decisively, “to be worn with aubergine boots that lace in front.”
“Did you know that aubergines are called eggplants in other parts of the world?” Lady Knowe asked. “Purple and green? I already look like a string bean, Lavinia.”
“You will be the most fashionable bean in high society,” Lavinia teased, and then ran away before she was pelted with toast fingers.
By the time Lavinia left the tailor’s, the clear July sky had been replaced by a pelting rain that showed no sign of easing. Much as she would have loved to curl up at home with a good book, she had a job to do, and commissions to earn.
She was glowing with happiness: the tailor had heard from Mr. Felton about Diana’s trousseau and he promptly offered her a commission on every garment she ordered from him. Gathering her umbrella, she dashed across the muddy sidewalk into the hackney waiting to take her to Felton’s, where Diana was due to meet her.
The bell over the door rang as she entered, and Mr. Felton hastened to her side. “Miss Gray, what a pleasure to see you!”
Lavinia smiled at him. Odd though it might be, Mr. Felton was fast becoming one of her closest friends.
“You must have some tea immediately,” he said. “It’s not cold outside, but it is wretchedly wet.”
“That would be lovely,” she replied. “The weather is beastly, is it not?”
As Mr. Felton turned to order tea from an assistant, the bell over the door rang again. A lady ran into the shop squealing with laughter, the gentleman at her shoulder holding a large umbrella over her head.
The umbrella, Lavinia recognized immediately, was from Maison Antoine on rue Saint-Denis in Paris. No other umbrella makers made such clever use of striped fabrics, and the small bobbles hanging around the edge were delightful.
The gentleman turned away to shake the water from the umbrella, and said something over his shoulder as he did so.
Lavinia stiffened all over. She would know that voice anywhere.
The lady answered in an Italian accent—at least, Lavinia assumed it must be an Italian accent.
The contessa.
And Parth.
Lavinia gripped the edge of the counter so tightly her gloves were in danger of ripping. Mr. Felton had returned, and was talking about painted cottons. She watched as Parth helped his lady remove her pelisse. He took the garment from her, rather than allow the attendant to touch her.
Lavinia was appalled to find that she was baring her teeth, for all the world like a rabid cur. It reminded her of the time when Willa had almost poured a cup of tea over Alaric’s head. But Alaric had been wooing Willa at the time; Lavinia had no right to feel possessive of Parth.
Parth handed the contessa’s pelisse to Mr. Felton’s assistant, and surveyed the room as he removed his hat.
He looked straight at Lavinia—and his eyes skated past her, oblivious.
It was true that she had spent a good deal more time ogling Parth than he had her. If he’d ever ogled her.
But he hadn’t even recognized her! And he’d just seen her a few days ago with Prince Oskar.
She might have stopped breathing, just for a moment or two. What would she say to a friend who found herself in this situation? “Cheer up, buttercup?” No, because that would be unfeeling, and her hypothetical friend might be truly sad, as if she had lost something dear.
A stupid dream that she had treasured without ever letting herself believe it, because it was too impossible.
Feeling unsteady, Lavinia leaned against the long wooden counter and watched as Mr. Felton bustled over to greet his new customers.
Parth’s eyes snapped back to her face.
Ah. So he’d finally recognized the woman he’d met . . . oh . . . a hundred times. His brows drew together, and he started toward her, remembering that a lady had her hand in the crook of his elbow only when she protested.
They began walking in her direction, but Mr. Felton diverted them with an offer of tea. Lavinia resisted the impulse to check the tilt of her bonnet. A fluffy plume bobbed at the corner of her vision, quite as dashing as the one the contessa wore.
Parth nodded abruptly to Mr. Felton, then turned and strode toward her, leaving his lady talking to the shopkeeper. There was only one word for his expression.
Apoplectic.
In the time it would have taken to say the word softly, all those lovely syllables drawn out, Parth arrived in front of her.
“What the hell has happened to you?” he demanded in a low, furious voice. “You look even worse than last week.”
Marvelous.
She opened her mouth to defend herself, but Parth hadn’t finished. “It wasn’t a mere bout of influenza, was it? Damn it, Aunt Knowe lied to me.”
“How are you, Mr. Sterling?” she asked. “As a matter of fact, I am fully recovered from my illness, as you’ll remember inasmuch as you summoned a doctor to my side.”
“You didn’t allow him to listen to your lungs,” Parth said, his expression darkening still more.
Lavinia saw the contessa making her way toward them. Her conte must have left her a fortune. Her skirts glittered with gold thread, and five ropes of pearls graced her neck. She was outrageously beautiful, like a maiden in a painting waiting to be ravished by Jupiter, all luxuriant curves and skin like a flower petal.
No wonder Parth was in love with her.
There was nothing English about her whatsoever.
“Good afternoon!” the lady said, in the most delightful accent Lavi
nia had ever heard. “Parth!” she prompted. “Will you introduce me to your friend, caro?”
The woman addressed him as “Parth.” And “caro,” whatever that meant. Lavinia could guess.
A million years ago, in a fit of longing for a reaction from an uninterested gentleman, Lavinia had begun addressing Parth by his first name. It had exasperated him to no end.
Clearly, he and the contessa had a different understanding.
“By all means,” Parth said. “Contessa, may I introduce Miss Lavinia Gray? Miss Gray is a very good friend of Lady Alaric Wilde, whom you’ve met. Miss Gray, this is Elisa Tornabuoni Guicciardini, the Contessa di Casone, an acquaintance of mine from Florence, Italy.”
Lavinia dropped into a deep curtsy. When she straightened, the contessa was beaming. “Your bonnet is lovely, Miss Gray. That plume is incantevole, bellissima!”
“Your hat is also ravishing, and I couldn’t help noticing that your umbrella came from my favorite Parisian shop.”
They smiled at each other with the mutual pleasure of women recognizing a kindred spirit, at least as regards umbrellas—and umbrellas, to Lavinia’s mind, revealed a great deal about their owners.
“Are you unaccompanied?” Parth demanded, seemingly trying to find something wrong with Lavinia’s presence, as well as her health.
“I am waiting for Miss Diana Belgrave,” Lavinia said, including the contessa in her smile. “Diana is in the process of assembling her trousseau.”
“I have been visiting mantua-makers,” the contessa confided. “But this city is much larger than Firenze. There, everyone comes to me. Here, I am going in circles, very confused.”
“I told her that they would happily visit her, if she wished,” Parth growled.
“Parth, caro, you might return to the carriage and work on the notes you are making for that bank meeting,” the contessa said, giving him a sweet smile.
Many years ago, Lavinia had a nanny who sent her to the “naughty corner” when she misbehaved. Her lips twitched with amusement at the memory. Or, to be more precise, the similarity to the contessa’s suggestion.
Parth seemed indifferent to his dismissal, his face as imperturbable as ever. He bowed, took his hat from the attendant who magically appeared at his shoulder, and walked out. The contessa didn’t watch him go.
“Won’t you call me Elisa?” she asked. “I am to live in England, you see, so I am—how do you say?—embracing the ways of you Inglesi. So much less formal than we Fiorentini.”
Elisa was not just beautiful and elegant. She was clearly kind, probably a better person than Lavinia in every way.
“English is so difficult,” the contessa continued. “I have few people to talk to, except for Parth. I am starving for conversation!”
Lavinia could see that.
Elisa kept going without pausing for breath. “My husband was very old and quiet. I was in mourning for a year. Then I leaved.”
“Left,” Lavinia amended.
“Left. Thank you. These irregular conjugations are difficult.” Elisa’s face shone with delight. “Does your friend Miss Belgrave bring her fiancé with her?”
Lavinia couldn’t help from laughing. “North would flatly refuse.”
Elisa frowned. “Her fiancé is called North?”
“It is a shortened form of one of his given names,” Lavinia explained.
“North, as in, ‘north and south’?”
“It’s what he prefers to be called.”
“It would seem very peculiar to address one’s husband by a direction. Though”—Elisa giggled suddenly—“it might change one’s opinion of the North Pole!”
Lavinia felt a slow smile spreading across her face. “Contessa! You are wicked!”
“It is true,” Elisa said complacently. “It is for this that I come to England. Because I am not one of the Florentine matrons who are happy knotting lace and gossiping. I am too wicked. Is ‘wicked’ a very bad thing?”
“‘Naughty’ is more exact,” Lavinia amended.
“‘Cattiva’ in Italian.” And then, when Lavinia tried out the word, “You don’t speak Italian. French instead?”
“Oui,” Lavinia said. “I lived in Paris for two years.”
Mr. Felton joined them, and Elisa treated him to her blinding smile. His step hitched, but he managed to stay upright. “I should like to see material for a riding habit,” Elisa told him. “I saw a design that I liked, but the fabric samples offered by the modiste were of low quality. I decided to purchase my own fabric and have it sent to her.”
“I have a woolen superfine, from Norwich,” Mr. Felton said. “It is not for all tastes, as it is a cobalt blue with a large, pale yellow floral pattern.”
Elisa’s eyebrows flew up. “I should like to see that.”
Half an hour later, five more bolts of fabric had been laid over the counter to be fingered and assessed, and Diana had still not arrived. Lavinia paused in the middle of a spirited discussion of whether the cuffs of the contessa’s riding costume should be a dull gold or blue with gold braid, realizing that she liked Parth’s intended wife.
Truly liked her.
Elisa and Parth would be a wonderful couple. Their children would have loopy curls and giddy smiles. They would be able to babble in Italian and English.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, breaking into Elisa’s interrogation of Mr. Felton, “I’ll just pop out of doors for a breath of fresh air.”
“The rear door opens onto a portico that will shelter you from the rain, Miss Gray,” Mr. Felton said. “It faces a quiet street, whereas you might be splashed if you leave by the main door.” He signaled to an assistant.
Elisa’s mouth drooped slightly.
“I shall return directly,” Lavinia assured the contessa. She knew what loneliness looked like; she had felt it often after moving to Paris.
The rain had not diminished, and she hesitated in the doorway for a moment. Even a small amount of moisture could ruin her elegant hat. At length, she pulled out her hatpins, handed the hat to the assistant, and walked out under the portico. She motioned to the man to close the door behind her, and then she was alone.
Whereupon she gave herself a stern, albeit silent, lecture. She would be happy for Elisa and Parth, as she was for Diana and North—and had been for Willa and Alaric, for that matter. It was merely the shock. And, if she was completely honest, the disappointment.
Her old life seemed to lie in shards around her feet. Among other things . . . she had to make new friends.
She needed at least one friend who wasn’t buying a trousseau.
At the thought, she stepped out from under the shelter of the portico, closed her eyes, and tipped back her head, letting the warm rain fall on her face. Mr. Felton would be shocked when she returned inside, but she didn’t care.
She felt peaceful for the first time in weeks—at least, until large hands caught around her shoulders, gently shaking her back into the world.
“Lavinia, what in God’s name are you doing?”
She blinked open wet lashes. The cocked hat Parth had worn into Felton’s must have been left in his carriage along with his coat. Rain was splashing down on his thick hair and white linen shirt.
“I’m standing in the rain, just as you see.”
Parth was regarding her with familiar, simmering fury. She glowered back at him. “Remove your hands from my person, if you please.”
“You have been unwell,” he barked, as if she hadn’t said a word. “You should be in bed eating a warm chicken soup. Instead, you’re standing in a dirty London rain, which might make you even more ill.”
During those weeks together at Lindow, Lavinia had tried her best to provoke him, but she saw now that she’d missed a foolproof tactic: Get sick, get wet.
“I’m perfectly fine,” she told him, blinking more raindrops from her eyelashes.
A sound perilously close to a growl came out of him.
Lavinia’s gaze had drifted to his chest, because h
is wet shirt was clinging to every muscle, but she returned it to his face. He was scowling. Again.
She sighed. “I’m fine, Parth. It’s been a long day, and I needed a bit of fresh air. I shall return to Elisa, and ask Mr. Felton for a towel. She’s lovely, by the way.”
“You are tired? It’s only three in the afternoon.”
She’d been up at dawn making lists, but that was neither here nor there. “I’ve missed my nap,” she said instead. “There’s nothing better than cuddling up, falling asleep, losing the afternoon.”
Something flickered in his eyes and then died. “The anatomy of a lady’s day,” he said flatly. “When did you last eat?”
“Luncheon.” It was a lie, but lying was becoming easier by the day.
His mouth twitched.
“Very well, you caught me out,” she admitted. “I came straight from a tailor and had no time to eat a meal. But please don’t be preachy about it. I’ll go inside and say farewell to Elisa—did I tell you that I like her very much?—and return home.”
His jaw was clenched.
“Please, just return to your carriage and Elisa will join you presently.”
He ignored this. “Where is your carriage?”
“I took a hackney.”
“You took a hackney. You took a public carriage for hire, one that could be driven by anyone. Your driver could look at you and know that he had a gold mine. He could demand more than shillings.” His voice had gone quiet and even, and it turned out that Parth’s “quiet” voice was more fearsome than his bellow.
His fingers bit into her shoulders. She’d forgotten he was still holding her, evidence of how flustered she was.
She wriggled, trying to free herself. “Let go.”
He ignored this as well; his hands tightened even more. “Lavinia, something is wrong with you. You are gaunt. You must see a doctor.”
“For goodness’ sake,” she bit out. “We both know you don’t find me attractive, Parth, but you needn’t harp on the subject. Many, many people have told me that I look more beautiful than I did when I debuted!”
“They are wrong,” he said flatly.
Her stomach knotted. “Just what a woman wants to hear,” she managed.