The Scoundrel and I - Katharine Ashe Page 0,14

premier modiste in London,” Minnie exclaimed. “Madame Couture complains of her stealing all the most elite customers. Why, Elle, she is famous!”

Elle looked into the astonished eyes of her friend, a seamstress at the modiste’s shop three doors down the street, and then at Esme and Adela’s astonished faces too.

“I should lock up the shop.”

The carriage was as impressive on the inside as on the exterior, with velvet cushions and satiny black tassels. Peering through the glass window, she offered her friends a little wave, and the carriage started off.

When the door opened again it was not Mr. Cob’s hand that appeared to assist her but Captain Masinter’s.

“How’d you enjoy the ride? Don’t have a carriage in town myself. A bachelor don’t need one, of course. I supposed you’d prefer a private vehicle to a hackney, and my cousin’s rig is bang up to the nines, ain’t it?”

“Isn’t it,” she murmured. The street was exceedingly fashionable and entirely residential, with birches heavy with leaves lining the clean-swept avenue. The stoop he gestured her toward was elegant and understated. This was no love nest to which he had conveyed her. This was the home of a gentlewoman of means.

The naval hero, however, was the most attractive part of the scene. Wearing a dark coat and buff trousers, without a hat, he seemed perfectly at ease in the summer sunshine that glimmered in his eyes, and she had no trouble whatsoever imagining him atop the deck of a great ship.

“Your cousin?” was all she could manage.

“You’ll meet her inside.” He offered his arm.

She placed her fingertips on his elbow and a slight smile creased his cheeks.

“Thank you for sending the carriage,” she said.

“There now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“What was not?” she said warily.

“Accepting help.” His crooked smile showed a wedge of white teeth. “I suspect that you, Miss Gabrielle Flood, are unaccustomed to allowing others to help you.”

“I do not trust many people.” Especially men.

“Trust me,” he said so simply, so peacefully, it felt as though she had come in from the cold and he led her to a crackling fire and tucked a cup of tea into her hands.

Then the door was closing behind them and a young woman in flowing robes of every jewel tone imaginable was gliding down the stairs toward them.

“She is just as lovely as you said, Anthony!” she exclaimed in a voice of rich honey. Gliding to Elle, she grasped her hands, spread her arms wide, and her eyes that were as dark as coffee perused Elle from tip to toes. “Oh, yes. Yes,” she said. “You will do magnificently.”

“Miss Flood,” he said, “allow me to present to you my cousin, Madame Étoile. Seraphina, this is the lady whose employment I carelessly put in danger.”

“It is a delight to make your acquaintance, Miss Flood,” the beauty said. For beautiful the modiste most certainly was, with wide dark eyes, thick hair fixed away from her face with jewel-studded combs and tumbling in soft curls down her back, and skin as tan as the captain’s but not, Elle thought, from exposure to sun.

Cousin was far too convenient a term, and he had addressed her familiarly. She was probably his mistress.

The sinking sensation in Elle’s stomach made her furious. A fine carriage and a knee-weakening smile were not sufficient grounds upon which to trust a man.

“Magnificently?” she said.

“Magnificently suited for the gown I have been preparing for you since yesterday, of course.” She tucked her hand into Elle’s arm and guided her toward the stairs. “We shan’t need you, Tony,” she threw over her shoulder. “Not for hours yet.”

“Happy to wait,” he said in the same easy tone in which he said everything.

Elle allowed the beauty to lead her up the stairs, casting one swift glance back at the captain. He stood at the base of the staircase, watching her thoughtfully.

In a chamber furnished in pure feminine luxury, with draperies and upholstery of shimmering pink- and cream-colored satin and plush pillows corded in gold, the modiste bade her recline on a divan fit for a queen and tugged on a bellpull. From an adjoining chamber appeared two women garbed elegantly, if not as ostentatiously as Madame Étoile. They proceeded to undress Elle to her shift and spirited her clothing away.

“To be cleaned and pressed while we work,” her hostess said, leading her to a tea table laid with the most beautiful porcelain Elle had ever seen—bone white limned in gold with tiny pink flowers—and cakes iced in