A flicker of unease went through Evelyn’s frame. She hesitated to ask. “What names?”
“The three Fates. The three Furies. The spinsters three.” Lady Anne grimaced. “We none of us have been very popular on the marriage mart.”
Evelyn was appalled. “What has that to do with anything?”
“Nothing at all, so long as we keep to our places. But I never could resist giving an impertinent fellow the sharp side of my tongue. And Stella won’t shrink from anyone, least of all an encroaching young jackanapes. As for Julia . . . her shyness has a power all its own.”
Evelyn remembered the way Miss Wychwood had chattered with such animation. “She didn’t appear shy to me.”
“Ah, but the two of you were mounted. Julia is much more confident on horseback—as are we all.” Lady Anne smiled wryly as she helped herself to another biscuit. “Pity one can’t ride a horse into a ballroom.”
Six
Doyle and Heppenstall’s was closed on Sunday, a fact of which Ahmad took full advantage. Seated at one of the empty worktables in the back, he finished basting together the final pieces of Miss Maltravers’s habit.
It wasn’t his only commission. Neither was it the most pressing. He had Lady Heatherton’s gowns to finish. She was expecting him to deliver the first on Wednesday morning. It was the gown she planned to wear to her first ball of the season—an event as important to Ahmad as it was to her.
Wasn’t that his dream? To have his designs worn by the fashionable elite?
And yet, he’d spent most of the last several days working not on hemming Lady Heatherton’s ice-blue evening gown, but on Evelyn Maltravers’s riding costume.
He’d cut the fabric on Friday, from a pattern of his own devising. It was a variation of the last habit he’d made. One for the infamous Miss Walters.
But this habit was different.
Not only had he adjusted for Miss Maltravers’s measurements, he’d shortened the jacket, widened the sleeves, and left ample room in the bodice and skirts for additional darts and seams.
It was a departure from the style he usually made. Something new, as functional as it was beautiful. A garment well suited to a lady like Miss Maltravers, and one he hoped she would favor.
He’d sent a note round yesterday informing her that he was ready to do her second fitting and asking if Sunday afternoon would be convenient. She’d responded almost immediately in the affirmative.
As he tied off his last stitch, he felt a throb of anticipation at the prospect of seeing her again.
Ridiculous.
He was a man of thirty, not some raw lad pining over his first woman.
It was because of the habit, that was all. He was anxious to see it on her. To fit it to her figure, pinning it into an approximation of its final style.
But even as he told himself that—even as he assured himself that there was nothing personal about his desire to see her again, to touch her and speak with her—he recognized the truth of his feelings.
Miss Maltravers hadn’t merely inspired him. She’d aroused his interest.
A dangerous thing, curiosity. Especially when it came to Englishwomen. He prided himself on the lack of it. The less one knew, the less one was tempted to get involved.
Things never ended well when one tangled with an English female. There were too many differences. Too many inequities to account for. If he’d learned nothing else from his years at Mrs. Pritchard’s, he’d learned that.
It didn’t stop his pulse from leaping when a knock sounded at the front of the shop.
Setting aside his sewing, he walked into the empty showroom to unlock the door. Miss Maltravers was waiting on the other side of it. Alone.
“My maid has a half day off on Sunday,” she explained as she entered the shop. She shook the raindrops from her drab wool cloak. It was drizzling outside. Had been ever since sunrise.
He shut the door behind her and slowly turned the lock. “You might have said so. You could have come another day.”
“I didn’t want to wait another minute.”
Ahmad gazed down at her. Her face was framed by the hood of her cloak. “Your habit isn’t finished yet.”
“I know that.”
“There’s a final fitting after this one.”
She smiled. “I know that, too. I still couldn’t wait. I’m anxious to see how it’s coming along.”
He motioned for her to precede him through the back curtain that led into the gaslit fitting room. Once there, she drew back her hood. His heartbeat quickened. Her dark auburn hair was no longer a bushy cloud of curls around her face. It was sleek and elegant—the sides rolled back, and the length bound up in a beaded hairnet. “You’ve seen Monsieur Phillipe.”
“I have. And Madame Lorraine as well.” She unfasted her cloak. It slid from her shoulders, revealing the dress beneath—an overly flounced confection made in a shade of magenta so garishly bright it nearly burned his retinas.
Ahmad regarded her in mild horror.
Her face fell. “You don’t like it?”
“Did you choose it?”
“No. It was part of an order for someone else. This and another dress. Madame Lorraine persuaded me to buy them so I’d have something to wear while I await the rest of my order. She said the colors were flattering.”
“Blinding, more like it. What color is the other dress?”
“Rose.”
He grimaced. “Worse and worse.”
Miss Maltravers cast her gown a rueful glance. “Is it truly that bad?”
“You don’t see it?”
“I confess, I did wonder.” She draped her cloak over the wooden chair in the corner of the fitting room. “Neither gown is to my particular taste. But you said Madame Lorraine was better than Madame Elise, and that I—”
“Better than Madame Elise in most respects.” Not in color selection, apparently. And not when it came to trimmings. The excessive flounces and frills did nothing to flatter Miss Maltravers’s figure.
“In other words, dreadful.” She looked at him. “What am I to do?”
He rubbed the side of his jaw. “Have you placed a large order?”
“Not very. Only a few dresses. And I haven’t bought any of my evening dresses or ball gowns yet.”
“Don’t.”
“Where else should I go? There isn’t a great deal of time before my debut.”