Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Caldwell, Christi Page 0,16
give you five days to reflect, and then we’ll speak further on these terms.”
The moment the duke sailed out with the man-of-affairs close at his heels, Dare swiped a hand over his face.
Remaining here in the fancy end of London and squiring a shrewish sister about Polite Society would be a hell all its own.
But producing . . . a wife?
That didn’t pose a problem. It proved a damned catastrophe.
Chapter 4
The six-o’clock hour was a seamstress’s favorite.
It didn’t mean that was when the day ended and rest came. For there really wasn’t rest for the seamstress. It was, however, a time when one was spared the misery of an endless stream of thankless patrons and customers.
And then after the shop was tidied came the next set of work—constructing the most recent orders.
It was a harsh profession that left women with bloodied fingers and aching backs and strained necks.
And yet it was one Temperance gave thanks for each day.
Because having lived in the most ruthless ends of London with a drunkard for a father and a washerwoman as a mother, she’d witnessed firsthand the options that existed for the masses.
And at least with her own hands, she was in charge of her fate.
And when she was working, she wasn’t allowed to think.
About the past.
About the regrets.
And there were so many of them.
All of them revolving around one.
Over the years, she’d managed to organize her past, to break it up into neat little compartments which she then divided into drawers within her mind that she kept firmly shut.
But sometimes a thought wedged its way in, and the memories slipped around.
And it had taken nothing more than a parting statement from her brother to Gwynn at their last meeting.
Someday, we’ll be together. Forever . . .
I cannot promise you forever . . .
Different words. Such a different vow.
“Are you all right?” Gwynn asked.
Temperance started. “Fine.” It was a lie . . . one that she’d make true. Eventually. Soon. When she managed to make herself forget him—Dare Grey, a perfectly bold name for a man who’d commanded the Rookeries . . . and her heart.
I will not think of him . . . I will not think of him . . .
Quickening her steps, Temperance noted the bolts of blue fabric that had been hastily pulled and left upon the wrong table. She gathered them up and started across the room. Work was good. Work helped. It brought exhaustion and escape.
It had to.
It always had.
The shop clean once more, Temperance dusted her palms together.
“You’re not done,” Natalie Forde, the eternal pessimist of the shop, pointed out from the other end of the table.
No, she wasn’t. But this was, despite the fatigue and toil of the day, the moment Temperance lived for. The joy she found in creating. It was some small measure of control she had. There, she could lose her mind in another task.
Temperance found her way to her neat worktable . . . and came to an abrupt stop. A groan escaped her. “Noooooo.”
“What was that?” Natalie asked.
Temperance ignored the question, her gaze locked on the sight before her, one that remained unchanging: three swaths of heinous pink fabric.
Madame Amelie was testing her. There was nothing else for it.
Muttering a litany of frustrated curses under her breath, she sank onto the edge of the stool, and lowering her forehead onto the table, she knocked it lightly against the surface. And in the greatest of ironies, that garish fabric softened each little, deliberate blow.
“Is there something the matter, Mrs. Swift?”
Temperance gasped and jerked herself upright so quickly her already strained muscles screamed their protest.
Madame Amelie swept deeper into the room, the curtains fluttering at her back.
Temperance forced herself to focus on her work. “No, of course not, Madame Amelie.” Everything was the matter. It was this gown and this client, but she knew better than to say as much.
“Because it sounded as though you were cursing and banging your head.” The woman ignored those false assurances she’d given.
Temperance forced a laugh. “Of course not. Whyever would I be cursing?” Between the resurfaced memories of her greatest mistake and the pink disaster before her, she couldn’t even force any believability into that lie.
“I don’t know,” the tall, statuesque proprietress said dryly. “But why would you challenge Mrs. Marmlebury’s choice of pink? There’s no explanation for these things.”
And it was that underlying droll humor that sometimes reared itself and left Temperance wondering about the stern, driven proprietress.