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MADAME CLAROT’S MODISTE SHOP

Madame Clarot’s Modiste Shop

Bond Street, Mayfair

M adame Clarot gave her assistant a measured look. “The opera singer, Miss Constantia Villeneuve, is coming in today for a final fitting on a gown I designed and began work on for her last month.”

Her partner Marie nodded, but there was a question in her eyes.

Annalise acknowledged what she assumed her partner was thinking. “Yes, Miss Whitcombe is the very image of Miss Villeneuve, but we mustn’t even whisper a word of comment about the extreme likeness.”

“Surely Miss Villeneuve would know if Miss Whitcombe were her daughter.”

“Perhaps, but that is none of our business.” Annalise raised an index finger in warning.

“Not a word…to anyone. Our business depends on discretion in all things. If our clients suspect we are revealing on dits about their private lives, we would have to wave good-bye to all of this.” She swept her arm around the elegant surroundings of the shop they’d worked years to build with the custom of the wealthiest women of the ton.

“Of course,” Marie assured her, but later that day she paid a hack driver to deliver her to Monmouth Street where all the most successful gossip sheets were printed.

A pril 17, 1830

Covent Garden Theatre

London

Constantia Villeneuve frowned and handed over a fistful of five-pound notes to a well dressed man who visited her every Thursday afternoon at her dressing room at the Royal Opera.

She had no idea how much longer she could appease the bastard before she’d have to confess all to her current protector, Lord Brantford, and throw herself at his mercy.

Even though she played most major parts that became available in London for coloratura sopranos, the pay she earned was barely enough to fulfill the blackmailer’s never-ending demands.

At the moment she was playing the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflote at the Covent Garden Theatre.

Without the support of Brantford, she wouldn’t be able to keep a roof over her head in her tiny cottage in St. John’s Wood.

She gave her chin a stubborn tilt. “When will I be able to see my child?”

“I’m afraid that would not be wise at this particular time.”

“Why? Is there something wrong with her?” A note of panic crept into her voice.

“Oh, no, no, no. You fret for nothing, Miss Villeneuve.” His mocking tone implied he knew full well that was not her real name.

“She’s been taken in by a highly placed family of the ton.

Now that she’s launching into her first Season, I don’t think you’d want to raise a hue and cry that she’s your by-blow with a former lover. ”

“And I suppose you’re taking my last bit of money to ensure that no one learns she’s a bastard?”

He reached out and touched her bare shoulder with a familiarity that made her want to cast up her accounts. “That, my dear, is up to you.”

When he finally left her alone, she stretched out on her rose-silk-covered chaise longue and sobbed noiselessly into a pillow.

A pril 18, 1830

Duke of Chelmsford’s Mansion

Berkley Square, Mayfair

Olivia listened so intently to the dance master the duke had hired, she feared she’d have a fit of the megrims. She’d never had the need, or desire, to dance the intricate steps required of ballroom dancing. Why had she let her dratted brother talk her into this charade?

“…and then all couples allemande in the opposite direction until they meet their original partners in the center of the line,” he droned on.

Directly across from her Dickie tried to make her laugh by faking a cross-eyed look.

Will stared woodenly at the dance master, deep in concentration, looking as flummoxed as she felt.

Thank the goddess she didn’t have to face this alone.

The duchess had insisted that Dickie, Will, and His Grace stand in as dancing partners, since they were always hanging around anyway.

They might as well earn the copious amounts of food they managed to put away whilst haunting the ducal kitchen.

Her dearest female friend, Lady Alice Perriton, had joined them, along with her toddler, P.D., and her husband, Sinjin. P.D. had recently learned to climb up on his plump, shaky legs and race about the house, causing everyone to scatter to help keep him safe from committing mayhem.

Olivia had met Alice several Seasons earlier when her friend had been suffering through her third wallflower Season.

They’d become fast friends almost immediately.

In fact, Olivia had helped Alice wreak revenge on two young bucks who had been making her life miserable.

Who knew how easily itching powder could be introduced into men’s linen shirts with no clues leading back to the perpetrators?

At the moment, the duke had bowed out of dance partner duties to take P.D.

to the library where he insisted he and the boy would read something together.

Her Grace and Alice had rolled their eyes as one, but everyone breathed more easily after the two had disappeared behind Uncle Percy’s library door, followed by a long, blessed silence.

Olivia watched Alice and her handsome husband perform the first couple’s maneuvers with admiration.

They made dancing look so easy. They didn’t even need to mind where their feet were.

They stared instead into each other’s eyes.

Olivia had to swallow a lump in her throat.

Alice and Sinjin were clearly in love. The dancing was easy because they didn’t worry about the steps.

They had eyes only for each other. When they reached the far end of the ballroom, they stopped and clasped their hands high in the middle.

Alice motioned with a nod of her head for the others to follow their lead.

Mrs. Miller, the housekeeper, had been pulled into dance practice as Will’s partner.

Olivia wondered if Her Grace had paired him with the silver-haired woman on purpose.

Had servants’ gossip reached the duchess about out how jealous Olivia got when Will hung out with the pretty, young housemaids?

She reddened at the thought but took a deep breath and met her brother in the middle to mimic the steps down the long ballroom to meet the others.

Her Grace had dragged a tall footman into the ballroom to make up for the missing duke who was probably asleep along with the baby by now. They brought up the final steps to complete the set.

Once Olivia was surrounded by friends determined to make sure she didn’t make a fool of herself at her own coming-out ball, she relaxed a bit.

She found herself whirled momentarily in Will’s arms several times as the dancers moved through the set and took entirely too much pleasure from the brief encounters.

By the time they’d finished the complicated dance several times, she was not only exhausted, but ready to take on the judgment of the ton.

W ill followed Dickie and Olivia into the library where, as suspected, they found the Duke of Chelmsford with the Perritons’ baby P.D.

asleep in his arms. Since the duke appeared to be sound asleep as well, Olivia carefully extricated the child to carry him back to his mother who was now resting in the family sitting room with her feet up on an ottoman whilst her husband cosseted her with a hot cup of tea and some of Nathaniel’s raspberry macarons.

Olivia had shushed him and Dickie several times whilst they’d followed obediently in her wake.

There was something he couldn’t quite identify that happened as he watched Olivia’s fierce protectiveness of P.D.

whilst carrying him down the vast marble hallway in her arms. She paused several times to snug the boy’s blanket around his arms before hoisting him onto her shoulder and jiggling his sleeping form as she walked.

When Will reached forward to steal a soft touch atop the baby’s head, P.D.

’s light brown curls were damp from having shared the duke’s warmth as he slept.

The warmth and moisture on his fingers brought an unbidden scene where a boy of his own was being dandled on Olivia’s shoulder.

He nearly slapped himself at that sudden thought and dug his nails hard into his hands instead. What the hell was he thinking?

The minute a footman opened the door to the sitting room and they entered, everyone quieted as one.

It seemed the general consensus was the small Perriton tyrant would be better to remain sleeping and soothed.

Olivia gently placed him in Alice’s lap.

After kissing his curls, Alice handed him off to Sinjin for a trip up to the duke’s nursery.

A burning sensation hit Will squarely on his breastbone.

He’d always assumed he’d never have a family of his own, because of all the years he’d focused on nothing more than survival.

Now he wanted that family. He wanted to be the one carrying a warm, slumbering babe up to a nursery of his own.

He wanted to share that nursery with Olivia.

At that moment, he turned to his old friends. “I have to leave.”

“Wot?” Dickie seemed so surprised at his abrupt departure, he reverted to his old speech of the rookeries.

“I’m expected back at the station.”

“No, you’re not.” Olivia gave him a skeptical look.

“You said it yourself. I’m nothing but a saunterer.

It’s time I returned to somewhere I’m needed.

” With that, he rushed out of the family sitting room, clattering down to the front entrance of the mansion, not even bothering to make the longer side trip to exit through the tradesmen’s entrance by way of the kitchen.