Betina Krahn (11 page)

“How is the work coming, Roscoe?” Madeline asked with a smile.

Before they could answer she turned to Cole. “Let me introduce Roscoe Turner and Algernon Bates, your lordship. We were fortunate to catch them between jobs. They were with Lord Aisencot’s gardens at Quincy before moving to London to work in Kensington Garden. It was a pure stroke of luck that their previous project ended just as I was looking for someone to put in the gardens here.”

“Roarin’ fine to make yer acquaintance, yer lordship,” Roscoe declared as the pair snatched off their headgear for a moment, then replaced it. One looked for all the world like a beanpole that had sprouted ears and the other like a shifty-eyed radish in a silk-lined bowler. Their ferret-quick gazes were sizing up him and the Thoroughgood women with a shrewdness that owed nothing to planting periwinkles or trimming topiaries.

If this pair had worked Kensington Garden at all, it was more likely as a file and his stall than as gardeners
.

“I’m glad ye come, miss, on account of we run into a bit of a hitch here,” Roscoe declared, motioning to the hole at their feet. “We got us a
rock
. Show Miss Duncan, Algy.” Algy dutifully plunged his shovel into the dirt beside the rock visible at the bottom, and it resounded with a minerallike “chunk.” He tried it a second time, on the other side, with the same result.

Roscoe rocked back on his heels and tucked his chin, looking grave indeed. “What we got here is a two- or a three-man rock smack in the middle o’ what should be yer cursantheemums. Can’t grow no cursantheemums on bare rock.”
He looked at his partner. “There’s but one thing fer it, right, Algy?”

Algy nodded, his eyes wide and earnest. “Right.”

“Dig it out,” Roscoe said in tones somber enough to be a declaration of war.

Madeline Duncan frowned at that innocuous bit of stone. “What did you call it—a ‘three-man rock’?”

“ ’At’s the way rocks is measured, miss,” Roscoe said with an indulgent smile. “By th’ number o’ blokes it takes to heft ’em. A two-man rock takes two blokes to heft. A three-man rock takes three, an’ so on. Algy an’ me, we’ll have ’er shifted out o’ here soon enough. But added diggin’ will slow us down a mite.”

Madeline sighed, contemplating that information. “Well, do what you must. I’ll check in with you tomorrow and see how it is coming along.” As she led them inside, Cole looked back over his shoulder and caught sight of the pair stealthily slipping back toward the base of that tree.

A bespectacled middle-aged fellow in a vest and sleeve garters met them on the rear stairs of the factory. Madeline Duncan introduced him as her head clerk, Beaumont Tattersall, and asked him to conduct the Thoroughgoods to their new residence and see them settled. Cole did not miss the way the fellow looked at her, as if he’d walk through fire for her if she asked it.

Madeline then led Cole up the rear stairs to the top floor, describing the expected schedule of repairs and renovations and emphasizing how much had already been done. But Cole’s attention drifted once more to what would have been the swing of her skirts—if she had been wearing skirts. Then his gaze slid to her combination of mannish trousers and high-buttoned shoes. A novel pairing. A rather intriguing one. What, he found himself wondering, did she wear beneath those imitation male garments? He became intensely aware of his own trousers and how they rode against his most sensitive skin. Did her trousers rasp and rub the same way?

By the time they reached the top of the stairs, he was lightly winded, faintly aroused, and ripely annoyed at himself. He could scarcely listen to her prattle about the offices and the general organization, or her introduction of a petite woman with a harried look. Emily somebody, a secretary. They were rudely interrupted by two young boys in velvet Fauntleroys who raced into the office, caked with mud and wailing at the top of their lungs that they had been bullied and beaten by big, mean boys.

Madeline dismissed her overwrought secretary to take the crying children home. Continuing the tour, she led him into a large, airy room lined with shelves and worktables laden with every sort of textile and tailoring tool.

“Endicott?” she called, peering around a corner at an abandoned drawing table and an empty hat rack. “Where could he—”

“There you are, dear Madeline!” a high, nasal voice called from the doorway behind them. Cole turned to see a slender, long-haired fellow in velvet knee breeches and a flamboyant red and purple velvet vest poised in the doorway. “I’ve had a brainstorm, a stroke of absolute brilliance! You’re going to simply love it! Here it is:
Leaves
. Wonderful graceful designs taken from genuine leaves. We’ll wrap women in pure, unsullied
nature
—women everywhere will share Mother Nature’s beguiling glory! Wait—don’t tell me what you think—not until you see my designs!” He rushed past them and grabbed a sketch pad and pencils from the desk. On the way out the door he paused to shimmy with delight. “It will be spectacular! I’m going out upon the sun-drenched hills and into the cool, shaded vales to absorb the shapes and colors—to find inspiration in communion with nature!”

Deep silence followed Endicott’s dramatic entrance and precipitous exit. Madeline blinked and scrambled for an explanation.

“That was Jessup Endicott, my designer and pattern maker,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “He’s a pure
genius with textiles and patterns. He was one of William Morris’s protégés at The Firm. In fact, he was one of Mr. Morris’s favorites. He has the finest design credentials and a very … 
creative
 … mind.”

“Ummm” was all Cole said.

Ignoring his blatant skepticism, she turned to the bright sunlit space, arms out, as if to embrace it.

“This is what we call the sample room. Here our designs are developed into pattern pieces, and sample garments are constructed. It’s a most dynamic and creative undertaking.” She noticed that he was eyeing the cluttered tables and littered floor. “Creativity is sometimes a rather messy process.”

“Ummm.” His attention began to settle once more on that billowy blue smock. Forcing his gaze away, he strolled around the workshop. “Where are they, then, these ‘sample garments’? I don’t see any.”

“That’s because we’re still working on the ideas for them.”

“Am I to understand that you will soon have an entire factory retooled, refitted, and refurbished, and you don’t even have an
idea
for a product?”

“Oh, we know what we’ll produce, all right: reformed clothing.” She crossed her arms and tucked her chin. “And where better to start than with the very foundations of women’s clothing?”

“Corsets again.” He strolled closer, glancing at her eyes, trying to see what was in her head without having to deal with what was in her heart. “Tell me,
Mad Madeline
”—his voice softened and deepened in spite of himself—“what do you have against corsets anyway? Did someone stuff you into one once and refuse to let you out?”

“Don’t be absurd. This has nothing to do with me personally.” Her chin rose a notch. “Liberating women from their corsets is a perfectly reasonable and humane course of action.”

He laughed softly. “A sentiment that would be heartily seconded in the gentlemen’s clubs of St. James’s.”

He headed for one of the worktables, where sketches sat in piles, pinned to swatches of fabrics. “Let’s see some of these ‘reformed’ garments of yours.”

He picked up, perused, and discarded several sketches of tunics and smocks, with a long-suffering expression. Then he came upon a drawing of a pair of ladies’ knickers. His interest was piqued by the swatch of filmy silk that was attached.

Madeline watched the smirk spread across his face and felt strangely that her very person was somehow being invaded. She snatched the sketch from his hands and cradled it against her. But he simply picked up another one showing the silhouette of a woman’s unclothed body with a bandeau bodice drawn over the bosom. Holding it up, well out of her reach, he gave it a thorough inspection.

“Tell me, Mad Madeline, just what is this bit of stuff”—he twanged the rubberized elastic attached to the sketch—“meant to do?”

Mayhem, she told herself, was out of the question. Throttling was probably out as well. Imagine having to face Sir William.
I’m sorry, Your Honor, but he indecently fondled my swatches and I had to shake him until his teeth rattled in their sockets
.

“It provides support and shaping,” she said with more heat than was prudent.

“Support and shaping for what?” His gaze flickered speculatively over her.

“For a woman’s … 
shape.
” When he raised a skeptical brow, she carefully elaborated: “Women wear boning because they think they need support and shaping beneath their garments. We will give them an alternative. Something soft and flexible. Something that permits freedom of movement but still provides support.”

He raised the sketch to eye level and pointedly looked between it and her upper half. Then with a shake of his head he tossed the drawing onto the table.

“Women wear corsets because they want
curves,
Mad Madeline. What woman in her right mind would give up an eye-catching hourglass figure to look like a twig?” He smiled vengefully. “Or a mossy tree trunk … with plenty of
leaves
?”

He was making fun of Endicott’s ideas and her plans.
I’m sorry, Your Honor, I have no idea how those scissors got into Lord Mandeville’s heart. I wasn’t even aware he
had
a heart
.

“My clothing will not make women look like twigs, logs, or tree trunks. My designs will use rubberized elastic to support and enhance a woman’s natural shape … curves and all.”

“How do you know what they will do?” he said, moving closer to her and intruding on her senses with his size and personal intensity. “You haven’t even made a sample garment yet.”

There it was again, she thought. That worrisome tingling she had experienced when her head filled with his bedeviling scents. Sandalwood. With a hint of spice and vanilla.
I’m sorry, Your Honor, but Lord Mandeville smelled so good that I simply forgot he wasn’t cake and bit him
. Jerking back, she put several paces between them.

“I don’t need to make samples to know that the garments function properly.”

“Oh?”

“I wear them myself. I have for years.”

He scowled, regarding her baggy smock, then gave her a superior smirk. “You really are in trouble. No woman I know would trade in her lacing for a frumpy blue barrel, no matter how comfortable it is.”

“I am not wearing a
barrel.
” Her fingers flew to her buttons and in a moment she had shed her smock and was smoothing the midriff of a scarlet tunic identical to the one she had worn that day in court.

“Barrel … barberpole …” he said with a taunting smile. “Where’s the difference? Neither has curves.”

“That’s not true, I have—” She bit it off, realizing the
folly of proclaiming she did have plenty of curves. What would she have to do when he took exception to that? She had to think of another way to put it. “There is considerable variation in my circumference, even in reformed garments.”

“How much variation?” he demanded.

“Really, your lordship!” The man had crossed the line, demanding the facts and figures of her figure!

“Well, there is one sure way to settle the matter.” He turned to rummage through the equipment on the table and came up with a linen measuring tape. “You’re wearing the samples. We’ll just measure you.”

“Don’t be absurd.” She backed up a step for each step he took toward her, eyeing the dangling tape measure as if it were the Serpent in the Garden.

“If you truly have curves, as you claim, then there’s nothing for you to worry about, is there? It requires only a simple empirical investigation. Unless, of course, you’re afraid to put your garments to the test.” His autumn-forest eyes grew flinty with challenge. “You can be sure other women will before they buy.” He had her right where he wanted her, and he knew it.

“Very well. I’ll measure myself.” With her face aflame, she snatched the tape from his hands, wrapped it around her waist, and noted the measurement. Then she lowered it to her hips, whereupon he objected.

“For the sake of accuracy, I should at least have the right to verify the numbers.” The wretch. For a minute she just stared at him, telling herself to ignore the angular strength of his jaw and the well-tended sheen of his dark hair.

He sank down on one knee before her and scrutinized both the linen tape and the part of her it encompassed. A low whistle expressed his opinion.

“Thirty-six.” He glanced up with a insolent male grin. “Even in country terms I believe that would qualify as ‘bountiful.’ ” When she bit her tongue and jerked the tape to her waist, he had the cheek to readjust it, sending a curious shiver
up her side. “Ummm.” He stared judiciously at the measurement. “It’s plain to see that you’re not a slave to the eighteen-inch rule.”

“It’s twenty-four,” she snapped.
I’m sorry, Your Honor, if a tape measure seems undignified for a member of the bar, but it was all I had to strangle him with at the time
. “Which makes a twelve-inch variation from the other measurement. That should be proof enough.”

“Ohhh, no.” He wrested the tape from her fingers and slid it up to her bosom, catching her gaze in his as she attempted to pull away. “I would almost think you were embarrassed, Miss Duncan, if I didn’t know that you are far too sensible and forward-thinking for such maidenly folderol. And much too old.”

In any other situation she might have used those very words to describe herself. But coming from him, as he stood there with his knuckles pressed intimately against her breast, they sounded positively insulting. Worse yet, his smile let her know he was enjoying the way she was toasting on her own flaming pride. Shamed by her own missish impulses, she lifted her chin and endured his final measurement.

“Thirty-eight here, I’m afraid. Not very consistent of you.” His voice acquired a thick quality that poured through her like honey—sweet and clinging.

She looked at him and was caught in his hazel-green eyes. The nape of her neck prickled, and her breasts, near his hands, began to tingle. The sensations released a subtle physical awareness that she hadn’t realized had been locked away.