“Shall I summon her back?”
Lady Heatherton’s pale blue eyes flickered with irritation. “Don’t be absurd. It’s you I want, not stuffy old Crebbs.” She gestured to a tall, lacquered wardrobe that stood against the wall opposite her silk-draped four-poster bed. “I’ve fresh underthings in there. Fetch them.”
Ahmad saw no point in arguing. They’d been through this before. One of the many small power struggles in which the viscountess inevitably got her way.
And why shouldn’t she? She was his customer. Practically his patroness. It didn’t pay to refuse her.
That didn’t mean he had to enjoy performing the little offices she required of him. He wasn’t her plaything. Her bit of rough, as some fine ladies liked to call it. If he were, he wouldn’t be half so obliging.
He’d come of age in a whorehouse, for God’s sake. If she expected her advances to rattle him—to make him stammer and blush—she was in for a disappointment.
Retrieving her petticoats and crinoline from the wardrobe, he assisted her into them with a briskness that spoke more of impatience than intimacy. “Might I suggest that, in future, you have these on before I’m summoned?”
“And why should I when you’re so accommodating?”
He bent his head to tie the tapes of her crinoline at her waist. “Because it would save us both a great deal of time.”
Her fingers slid through his hair.
He stiffened at the sensation. There was nothing pleasurable about it. Her touch left him cold. Repulsed. The same way he’d felt as a boy when Mrs. Pritchard had taken such liberties.
He despised being handled.
“How thick it is,” she murmured. “I’ve been longing to run my fingers through it.”
Straightening, he drew back from her, well out of her reach. “Lady Heatherton—”
“Have I shocked you? Upon my word, I do believe I have. No wonder this gown you’ve made me is so demure and simple. It seems you’ve mistaken my character.”
Like hell he had.
“Perhaps you should try it on,” he suggested.
“I intend to. But first . . .” She beckoned to him with a crook of her finger. “Come. My corset needs tightening.”
“It’s tight enough.”
“I insist.” She turned, giving him her back. “You’re stronger than Crebbs. I’d be a fool not to take advantage of you while you’re here.”
Clenching his jaw, Ahmad reluctantly did as she bid him. He didn’t know why he should be so surprised by her behavior. Lady Heatherton was always skirting propriety. Always speaking in an overly familiar way, or brushing him lightly with her fingertips as he pinned and marked her garments. He was used to it.
As used to it as a man could become.
Even so, she’d never touched him as intimately as she had today.
She was growing bolder.
“You’re very strong.” She gasped as he cinched her corset. “I remarked on it only recently to Lady Godwin. She visits a cobbler in South London on occasion. A shockingly good-looking specimen of a fellow. Makes lovely boots. He’s quite strong as well. No doubt you know him.”
“Should I?”
“He’s an Indian, didn’t I say?”
Ahmad gave another sharp tug on her laces before knotting them in place. “India is an exceedingly large country.”
Lady Heatherton exhaled the breath she’d been holding. “Hmm.” She sounded doubtful. “I couldn’t say. I’ve never visited the colonies. After the mutiny, who would want to? The people seem the veriest savages. But not you.” She flashed him a hooded glance. “You’re quite tame, aren’t you?”
Her words rankled. He supposed they were meant to. Another not-so-subtle expression of her dominance. In other circumstances he would have ignored her. He’d become adept at doing so with ladies of her ilk.
But not today.
This time, her words cut a little too deeply.
The Indians who had rebelled five years ago weren’t mindless savages. They were an oppressed people—subjugated in their own land by colonizers who had no respect for India’s history, for its traditions, or even for the religions of its native inhabitants. Indeed, the whole uprising had been sparked by a rumor that the cartridges used in British muskets were greased with both pig and beef fat.
Ahmad had left India as a boy. He had no religious beliefs to speak of, no more than he had any other claim to that part of his heritage. He could still comprehend the horror of such a thing. The offense to both Hindus and Muslims. The deep, unspeakable disrespect.
He didn’t expect Lady Heatherton to understand.
“Your dress, my lady,” he said evenly.
“Yes, yes. Bring it here. I never did see a man so single-minded.” Her mouth screwed into a pout. “I begin to believe you don’t notice me at all. You think of nothing but ladies’ dresses.”
“It’s why you hired me.”
“I hired you because I saw one of your gowns on that solicitor’s wife—Mrs. Finchley—at the dinner for the Society for the Betterment of Orphans. She looked far better than she ought to.”
Ahmad refrained from comment. He owed a great deal to Jenny Finchley. While employed as her manservant, he’d made her riding costumes and several of her gowns. Gowns that she wore to the occasional evening entertainment or to charitable functions, like the one Lady Heatherton had attended.
Unfortunately for him, Mrs. Finchley rarely moved in society. Indeed, she scarcely resided in London for more than a few months out of the year. The fact that Lady Heatherton had crossed paths with her was so much chance.
“It doesn’t fall to a woman of her class to set the fashion. A solicitor’s wife, of all people!” Lady Heatherton raised her arms above her head so Ahmad could slide the skirts of her evening dress over her shoulders and down to her waist. “I was never so unhappy with Madame Elise. To think, until then, I’d been content with her designs.”
“I trust you’ll be more than content with mine.” He helped her into the bodice, fastening the delicate hooks at the back and settling the lace-trimmed neckline so it skimmed her bosom in line with the short, fluttering sleeves that brushed her upper arms.
It was an exceptionally lovely gown, made to enhance a lady’s beauty instead of manufacturing it. Rather like a frame to a portrait. One should never overshadow the other.
Or so Ahmad believed.
No sooner had he arranged the last bit of lace than Lady Heatherton brushed his hands away and hurried to her looking glass.