Apparently, the lady was still sampling. “Of the same chocolate?” Amity asked.
“Yes. Are you simple-minded?” Lady Madeleine snapped. “Give me another one.”
Amity didn’t care for her rude words or her tone of voice but placed another piece on the plate and held it out. Lady Madeleine put this piece in her mouth more quickly than the last.
“Very good,” she declared.
“How much would you like to purchase?” Amity asked.
“Purchase?” Lady Madeleine repeated the word as if she didn’t know it.
“Yes, purchase.” Now who was being simple-minded? “To take home.”
“Oh, that was plenty,” Lady Madeleine said, waving her hand in a gesture of dismissal. “Obviously, I could eat more. I could probably eat every piece in the entire shop if they are all as nice as that, but then I would gain an obscene amount of weight.”
“And if you ate all our confectionery, we would have nothing to sell and our store would close,” Amity said, knowing her tone had taken on an unusually sharp edge.
Getting hold of herself and returning to her usual cheerful shopgirl’s tone, she asked, “Are you certain you don’t wish to buy anything for later? Perhaps to share with your family?”
Lady Madeleine’s expression soured slightly. “Don’t you think you shall benefit from my custom without this vulgar begging for me to grease your palm as well?”
“That will do,” came Beatrice’s voice from the other side of the curtain, sounding annoyed.
Before Amity could react, her sister emerged from the back, slipped through the opening between the counters, and halted within two feet of Lady Madeleine.
“Since no one on the other side of that door knows or cares you’re here,” Beatrice pointed out, “and since we have customers farther up the rank than the likes of you, I don’t see how having you eat our confections for free benefits our shop in any way. I would think someone such as yourself would have better manners than to take advantage of us.”
Amity stared in horror over her sister’s shoulder during this dressing down. Her outspokenness was the reason why they kept Beatrice in the back.
Lady Madeleine went a becoming shade of rose. Her beauty didn’t dim in the slightest, no matter the hue of her skin.
“How dare you!” the earl’s daughter retorted.
Amity groaned. That tepid response wasn’t going to stop Beatrice in any way.
“I dare,” Beatrice continued, “because this is 1877, not 1477. We are not serfs, and you are not our overlord. This is a business.” She gestured around them. “If you are unfamiliar with the concept, we create a very fine product and we sell it. In return, people pay us. And my sister is too kind in giving out samples to greedy, thankless snout-noses such as yourself.”
Amity gasped and slapped a hand over her own mouth. This could not be happening, not with this particular customer. If Lady Madeleine told the Duke of Pelham about her rude treatment at the hands of the shopgirls of Rare Confectionery, he might withdraw his order.
It was true that Lady Madeleine eating their sweets for free did not benefit them. However, having His Grace present a tray of their confectionery to his beloved and ask her to marry him, all while the finest flower of British society was in attendance, that would definitely increase their custom. And such a blessing should not be trifled with.
Unfortunately, Beatrice wasn’t finished. “You,” she said, pointing to the maid who had not said a word but whose gaze had lifted from the floor in stark astonishment as soon as the insults had started flying. “Would you like to taste something?”
The girl paled and looked to her mistress, who stared her down with the force of the Gorgon Medusa.
“No,” squeaked the maid, shaking her head adamantly.
Beatrice sighed, looked at Amity and back at Lady Madeleine. Then she retreated toward the curtain with a shake of her head as if she had done her best and could do no more.
Parting the velvet, she muttered again, “My sister is too kind,” before disappearing into the back.
Silence cloaked the store like funeral crape draped across a mirror, and Amity locked gazes with the fuming Lady Madeleine.
“I apologize for my sister,” Amity began wishing her voice hadn’t come out so tense and terrified.
“Don’t apologize on my behalf,” Beatrice called out from the other room, absolutely unbothered by the damage she had done.
“What is your name?” Lady Madeleine asked, icily.
“Miss Rare-Foure.”
The lady raised an elegant eyebrow. “I see. You are not merely a shopgirl. Well, Miss Rare-Foure, I hope you have enjoyed your success here on Bond Street. If there is anything I can do to bring it to a swift end, make no mistake, I shall do so.”
Turning on her heel, Lady Madeleine didn’t wait for her maid to open the door. She yanked the handle so forcefully the bell tinkled wildly for many seconds after she strode out of the shop.
The maid turned wide eyes to Amity, and then, against all odds, she grinned and followed her mistress onto the pavement.
Amity wished she could have given the girl a chocolate. She also wished she could have stuffed a rag into Beatrice’s mouth to stop her saying such awful things.
Parting the curtain, she found her middle sister seated on a stool stirring her famed warm treacle toffee, entirely unconcerned.
“Are you mad? Do you know what you’ve done?”
Beatrice shrugged. “I’ve sent an arrogant peahen packing and, I hope, put her in her place.”
“No, you didn’t put her in her place. You created an enemy among the haut ton, the highest echelon of our clientele. You may have destroyed us.”
Beatrice hesitated but began stirring again. “Don’t be melodramatic.”
“That was not simply any arrogant peahen,” Amity protested. “That was Lady Madeleine Brayson, darling of all London. The crème de la crème hang upon her every word. If she tells people at a salon or a party that Rare Confectionery is not to be patronized, they will listen. I know we have customers from all classes, but the majority of the income, the greatest spenders, if you will, come from a one-mile radius of Mayfair.”
She paused for a breath, but couldn’t help continuing her first harsh words aimed at Beatrice for years. “Do you realize over half the homes surrounding us are owned by titled nobility? About one hundred and twenty of them, in fact! And they are all enamored of that young woman you just insulted. In a word, sister, we may be sunk.”
Beatrice remained silent for a long moment before muttering, “That’s four words.”
“Argh!” Amity yelled, then turned around and went straight for the chocolate in the display case, snatching one of the nutty, chewy “strength” chocolates Lord Pelham had so favored. She devoured it swiftly.
The duke! She would call upon him as soon as visiting hours began at eleven o’clock the next day. Unless Lady Madeleine were going to see him that very evening, Amity could hope to get to him first. She would beg him to persuade the lady to forgive her and Beatrice and not to ruin Rare Confectionery.
And she would definitely take him more chocolates to try. She would stay up all night if she had to, crafting the very best confections she could think of for that peevish shrew the duke desired.