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

B enjamin Cooper felt heartily sorry for himself.

Here it was, the day before Christmas Eve, and he was stuck at Meyer’s finishing work he was given late that afternoon.

He would so much rather be at the tavern near his lodgings sat before a roaring fire with a pint of porter.

That’s no doubt where most of the other tailors already were.

But as he was relatively new and still being tested by the crotchety Mr. Meyer, he agreed to whatever anyone asked of him without complaint in order to retain his position—or one day rise from men’s waistcoats to more challenging garments.

He’d just about finished the final seam on the last silk waistcoat on his pile and thought he'd be ready to leave in at most half an hour when a peremptory knock on the back door interrupted his ruminations. As the supercilious doorman had left some time ago—and Cooper’s workroom was closest to the tradesmen’s entrance—Cooper realized he would have to see who it was.

Just my luck, he thought. Probably some drunk baronet had sent his servant with a torn coat that needed mending.

He gave an exasperated huff, put down his work and, grumbling, went to find out who could possibly want anything at that hour.

He flung the door open and prepared to give whatever urchin or delivery boy had disturbed his peace a flea in his ear.

But all remonstrations died on his lips. To his great astonishment, he found himself confronted with someone he had been thinking about ever since his first, disastrous meeting with her a few weeks after he started working at Meyer’s

Miss Pauline Dawkins, the proprietor of Madame Pauline’s.

He hadn’t seen her since then, but he would have recognized her anywhere.

Her face was pink from the icy wind and she breathed little puffs of steam as though she’d dashed there in a panic, just as she had months ago.

Yet as far as Cooper knew, none of the orders from the modiste were due until well after Christmas.

Once he recovered his composure he said, “Mr. Meyer is not here, nor is Mr. Baker, but you might’s well come in as stand there?—”

“I don’t need to see either of them.” She interrupted him and strode in. “I’d close the door if I was you.”

Cooper quickly did as she said, although the room had already cooled by at least ten degrees, he thought.

“Then, how may I be of… Miss, service. I mean, Ma’am.

I mean, Madame.” He was so tongue-tied, his effort to adopt the polished voice he’d been cultivating in imitation of Mr. Gordon was rendered completely ineffectual.

Miss Dawkins pressed her lips together, whether in vexation or to suppress a smile, he couldn’t tell. “I believe Aloysius—Mr. Gordon is here?” She began stripping off her gloves and unwinding a long gray muffler from around her neck as if she intended to stay for a while.

“Y-yes,” Cooper said. “I’ll tell him you’re here. Please sit. Have a seat. If you want to. Of course, you don’t have to. It’s not a very comfortable chair …”

“I’ll stand,” she said, with an enchanting lift of her chin that made her look both commanding and vulnerable at the same time.

I’ve done it again, Cooper thought after a brief bow to Miss Dawkins. She’ll think me a simpleton without a sensible thought in my head. Which is exactly what she must have thought after the first time he saw her.

Every detail of that previous unfortunate day ran through his mind as he hurried through the warren of corridors and workrooms that led to Mr. Gordon’s office.

It had been a fine, bright October Wednesday about a month after he’d started working at Meyer’s.

Miss Dawkins had come without an appointment in a state of high agitation because the riding habit ordered by the Duchess of Hartland hadn’t been delivered as it should have been, and the duchess wanted it before she and the duke left for his hunting box in Leicestershire.

Cooper happened to have walked into the fitting room to find a petite lady standing straight and proud in the middle of the floor.

She was obviously trying very hard to preserve her dignity.

But her diminutive stature, along with the fact that her brown hair was starting to come loose from its pins—under a hat that clearly had been hastily fixed to her head—presented a picture of such delightful contradiction that he wanted to laugh out loud .

Cooper had been so surprised that he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

Later, he tried to figure out what it was that had so captivated him.

Perhaps it was the saucy upward tip of her nose and her eyes that flashed with indignation.

It might have been the way she tapped the toe of her little foot impatiently on the floor, or cast her gaze around quickly and appraisingly at the coats, breeches, and pelisses on display in the fitting room.

Whatever it was exactly, in that moment, he fell instantly, hopelessly in love.

Oh, he’d loved before, even had a few women, but that was different.

It had never taken him quite like that. No other woman of his acquaintance had ever affected him in a way that made his insides turn themselves upside down and kindled warmth in the center of his body.

He recalled with painful accuracy how he’d stopped dead and stared at her, incapable of moving.

“Don’t just stand there gawking!” she’d said that time, her eyes glancing all around the room.

“Fetch Baker, and tell him he’d better be about to snip the last thread on Her Grace of Hartland’s habit or—” She interrupted herself when her eyes met his at last, and a wash of delicate pink rose from under the collar of her pelisse into her face.

She continued with a slight catch in her voice, “Or I’ll have to consider taking our business elsewhere. ”

By then, Cooper had figured out that this must be Miss Dawkins, having heard through the workshop gossip about the luxurious pale-blue velvet riding habit for the duchess.

But nothing had prepared him for the feeling that came over him standing there.

It completely upended him, severing the connection between his brain and his mouth.

At least, that’s how he explained it to himself later.

He said something to fill the silence, without thinking.

What was it? Oh yes. Some nonsense like, “I doubt you’d do any such thing without Lady Bridlington’s say so.

She’s the brains they say. Yer just a common seamstress.

Or you was, anyway. Though I don’t know what you are now.

Sit yerself down. I’ll fetch Mr. Baker.” His voice had come out clipped, sharp, nervous—not at all as he intended.

He'd berated himself over and over again since that day, wishing for an opportunity to apologize to her, to explain himself. He hadn’t meant it at all. He meant to simply say, “Of course, Madam.” But instead, he’d landed himself right in it.

Miss Dawkins only came to Conduit Street once more after that. Cooper tried to find an excuse to go into the front of the shop on some errand when he heard she was there, but by the time he’d managed it, she’d gone.

He sighed and shook his head just as he reached Mr. Gordon’s office.

The cutter’s office was at the end of a long hallway near where the pressers worked.

It seemed an odd place to choose when Mr. Gordon’s privileged position might have secured him a much more congenial location.

The fires that heated the irons and kettles of steam often kept that part of the building uncomfortably warm.

The sound of hushed voices filtered out from behind Mr. Gordon’s door, so he knocked rather than simply entering. The voices stopped, and a moment later Gordon opened the door. “Yes Cooper, what is it?” he said, as if he’d been interrupted in the middle of something very important.

“It’s Miss Dawkins, Sir. She’s ‘ere. In the back.”

“Pauline?” Mr. Gordon tugged at his immaculate neck cloth to straighten it a fraction, and Cooper saw that Kenton, one of the younger pressers, stood behind him. “What could she want? We’ve done all her work.”

He shook his head. “I dunno. She’s all thorns, though.”

“What are you planning to do with that vest?” Mr. Gordon said, suddenly noticing the striped satin garment that Cooper had been carrying around with him ever since he went to answer the door.

“I … uh …”

“Never mind! I’ll go to her.”

Cooper followed Mr. Gordon’s slender, elegant form back the way he’d come.

Miss Dawkins was facing away from them, leaning close to examine a coat of Bath superfine that had been draped over a chair. She turned and rushed up to grasp Mr. Gordon’s outstretched hand. “Oh Aloysius! I need your help.”

Figuring he’d run out of reasons to hover, Cooper was about to leave Mr. Gordon alone to speak to Miss Dawkins when she pointed at him. “You—have you finished all your work for the evening?”

He turned to Gordon and lifted his eyebrows questioningly. Gordon pursed his lips and nodded, and Cooper said, “Why, yes, just this minute.”

Miss Dawkins addressed Gordon again. “It’s the most annoying thing. I have an urgent commission which must be completed by Christmas morning, and I’ve sent all my seamstresses home for the holiday. I can sew the gowns with your help as well Aloysius, if Mr….”

“Cooper,” he said. “Benjamin Cooper.”

“If Mr. Cooper can manage the two pelisses—also perhaps with some help from you. Of course, there are the cloaks. We’ll need a presser too. Is anyone still here?” At this, she drew the letter and list out from her reticule and handed them to Gordon.

Gordon perused them each in turn with a frown puckering his forehead. When he looked up, he said, “Who is this for?”

Miss Dawkins pressed her lips together, shooting a quick glance in Cooper’s direction before apparently coming to a decision. “Well, I suppose if you’re going to be involved in this you may as well know all. Can you keep your mummer buttoned?”

The coarse language was so at odds with Miss Dawkins’ ladylike appearance that Cooper had to stifle a laugh. “Yes, I mean, Miss Dawkins?—”

She didn’t wait for him to finish, turning back to Mr. Gordon. “The trick of it is I don’t know who. But I can’t take the risk of ignoring it, not with her ladyship’s reputation on the line.”

Cooper’s curiosity temporarily overcame his awkwardness. “What does Lady Bridlington have to do with it?”

Mr. Gordon handed the letter and list to Cooper. “It seems someone is desperate to have these four gowns, two cloaks and two pelisses made by Christmas morning, and threatens Madame Pauline with damaging gossip if they are not ready.”

Who would do that? he thought, reading quickly through the letter.

“It’s a bit rich, i’nnit. And impossible, I reckon.

Who’d be fool enough to attempt something like this?

” Cooper glanced at Miss Dawkins’s face and immediately regretted his words.

Apparently she herself was fool enough to attempt it, and he’d managed to make a mull of it again.

Gordon said, “Your opinion is of no importance. If you do not object to being employed by Miss Dawkins for the next…” He took his pocket watch out and looked down his nose at it, “…thirty-six hours, then I shall ask you to aid us in this endeavor. If you do, well then…”

Object! Cooper couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do.

I would be an excuse to possibly bask in the company of this extraordinary woman, to have her notice him.

At least to gain her good opinion of his work, to redeem himself from his stupid blunders every time he opened his mouth.

And he might also be able to do himself a favor in Mr. Gordon’s eyes at the same time.

A lady’s pelisse would be as good a place to prove himself capable of more challenging tasks than gentlemen’s waistcoats. “When do we start?”