Page 2 of Miss Pauline’s Perfect Present (Double-Dilemma #3)

The threat in the final sentences made Pauline gasp.

The letter was not signed. Who would say such a thing?

Then she cast her eye down the list on the other sheet.

Two silk evening dresses, velvet evening cloaks to match, two winter day dresses and matching pelisses.

Each of the dresses included measurements, although surely whoever was destined to wear them would have to come for a fitting.

“ Blimey!” Pauline shrieked before she could stop herself.

It was folly for someone to think they could order such garments so close to Christmas and have them ready for the holiday.

No one could do so much work in so little time.

She wondered if whichever lady had commanded this order—for the handwriting could only belong to a lady, and the note was worded more like a command than a request—knew that Madame Pauline’s would be bereft of seamstresses until the day after Christmas.

Aside from that, even with a fully populated workshop her seamstresses wouldn’t be able to do the tailoring necessary for the outer garments.

These, although designed at Madame Pauline’s, were normally constructed at Jonathan Meyer’s, one of the ton’s most prestigious tailors.

The whole idea of such a request was utterly preposterous.

Pauline read the letter over and over. She couldn’t place where she’d seen the handwriting before.

Who among their customers would make such an unreasonable demand?

No one she could think of had any cause to be dissatisfied, or would be likely to hold such retribution over her head. Perhaps it was some kind of a joke?

No. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t imagine that anyone would be so cruel as to toy with an honest tradesperson at Christmas.

Whether or not the lady who wrote the note knew it, only Pauline herself was left to do any sewing.

Even when she was at her most productive, she would never have been able to manage so much.

At best she might accomplish a single day dress.

A momentary image of Augusta—before she was Lady Bridlington—bending over her work at Madame Noelle’s just after she’d fled to London from Devonshire flashed into her mind, and she smiled.

For someone brought up fine, Gussie could sew with the best of them.

And Lady Mariana—Lord Bridlington’s sister—had certainly put her through her paces.

Those were exciting days, even if Madame Noelle treated her seamstresses more like servants than skilled artisans.

Thinking of those times wouldn’t do any good in her present predicament.

If she were a different kind of employer, she might summon all the seamstresses back under threat of losing their positions if they did not come.

She was not such a one. No, she would have to decide whether to simply ignore the order and trust that its threat was an idle piece of mischief or find some other way to fill it.

“I’ll just ignore it. Sure it’s only some mischief to scare me,” Pauline muttered.

But should she? And was it? She really wanted to pretend she never received such a note.

The truth was, she was tired. She needed the rest as much as anyone after working harder for Lady Bridlington than she ever had for Madame Noelle.

After all, she was working for herself as much as for Augusta, who, with little more than blind faith, trusted Pauline to see that the business ran perfectly.

If she failed her now—and at Christmas—Pauline would never forgive herself.

Come Miss Pauline, no time to be blue deviled!

You wasn’t put on this earth to give up so easy she admonished herself.

So after taking no more than a moment and a deep, steadying breath, she stood tall—or as tall as her diminutive stature would allow—and resolved to fulfill the order, one way or another. Or at least try. Not try! Succeed!

Pauline rang the bell for Sally, who came running up the stairs and into Pauline’s parlor wearing her nightcap and dressing gown and a concerned frown.

“I shall be going out,” Pauline said. “You needn’t wait up for me, but keep a candle lit downstairs and try not to let the fires go out.”

“Ma’am?” she said, frowning and stifling a yawn.

But Pauline was already off to her bedroom where she pulled her warmest pelisse, muff, and woolen scarf out of the wardrobe and donned them as quickly as she could.

Within a few moments, she locked the door of the shop behind her and hastened as fast as the icy flagway would allow to the nearest hackney stand.

“Conduit Street!” she ordered the jarvey, and suddenly what had threatened to be an idle, depressing evening full of shadows from her past became something completely different.

She had a mission now—and no time to feel sorry for herself.

A mission! A challenge! She was not one to be fooled into failure. She would find a way to complete the garments—and complete them to the high standard patrons had come to expect from Madame Pauline’s. Just see if she wouldn’t.

Except there was still that niggling little question of how.