Scandal Wears Satin by Loretta Chase Read Free Book Online

set out to capture Lady Clara and we succeeded—although not quite in the way we intended. We wouldn’t be who we are if we acted like normal women. I don’t see why we should start acting normal now, just because our best customer made a mistake with a man, as most women do, or because her mother holds grudges. I for one am not going to lie down and surrender merely on account of a little setback.”
    Marcelline looked up from her sketching and smiled, finally. “Only you would call impending ruin ‘a little setback.’ ”
    “The trouble with you is, you’re in love, and you feel guilty about it, which is perfectly ridiculous in a Noirot,” Sophy said.
    “She’s right,” Leonie said. “You married a duke. You’re supposed to be thoroughly pleased with yourself. It’s a great coup. No one else, on either side of the family, has done it, to my knowledge.”
    “Not only a duke, but stupendously rich,” Sophy said. “Your daughter has actual, genuine castles to play in.”
    “So stop brooding,” Leonie said.
    “I’m facing failure,” Marcelline said. “A gigantic, catastrophic failure—which that horrid Dowdy reptile will laugh at. That entitles me to brood.”
    “No, it doesn’t,” Sophy said. “She isn’t going to laugh, and we’re not going to fail. We’ll think of something. We always do.”
    “We merely need to think fast,” Leonie said. “Because we’ve less than a month until quarter day.”
    Midsummer: 24 June. When rents were due and accounts were settled.
    Someone tapped at the door.
    “What is it?” Marcelline called.
    The door opened a crack, revealing a narrow slice of Mary Parmenter, one of their seamstresses. “If you please, Your Grace, mesdames. Lady Clara Fairfax is here. And Lord Longmore.”

Chapter Three
     
There is certainly some connexion between the dress and the mind, an accurate observer can trace some correspondencies; and the weak as well as the strong-minded never cease to be influenced by a good or bad dress.
— Lady’s Magazine & Museum , June 1835
     
    I t was sort of a brothel for women, Longmore decided.
    The shop even had a discreet back entrance, reserved, no doubt, for high-priced harlots and the men who kept them.
    A few minutes earlier, a modestly but handsomely dressed female had let them in that way and led them up a flight of carpeted and gently lit back stairs. Small landscape paintings and fashion plates from earlier times adorned the pale green walls.
    He’d been in Maison Noirot’s showroom, but this was another world altogether.
    The room into which the female had taken them looked like a sitting room. More little paintings on the pale pink walls. Pretty bits of porcelain. Lacy things adorning tables and chair backs. The very air smelled of women, but it was subtle. His nostrils caught only a hint of scent, as though a bouquet of flowers and herbs had recently passed through. Everything about him was soft and luxurious and inviting. It conjured harem slaves in paintings. Odalisques.
    He was tempted to stretch out on the carpet and call for the hashish and dancing girls.
    The door opened. All his senses went on the alert.
    But it was only the elegantly dressed female carrying a tray. She set it upon a handsome tea table. Longmore noticed the tray held a plate of biscuits. A decanter stood where the teapot ought to be.
    When the female went out, he said, “So this is how they do it. They ply you with drink.”
    “No, they ply you with drink, knowing you’ll be bored,” Clara said. “Although I shouldn’t mind a restorative.” She flung herself into a chair. “Oh, Harry, what on earth am I going to do?”
    Her face took on a crumpled look.
    He knew that look. It augured tears.
    He was taken completely unawares. She’d seemed perfectly well on the way here. Chin aloft and eyes blazing. He hadn’t been surprised when she told him to take her to Maison Noirot. The meek act with their mother hadn’t fooled him.
    Clara was so