“You needn’t go elsewhere. Madame Lorraine should be able to amend your order, provided she hasn’t started cutting the fabric.” Ahmad doubted she had. During the season, a London modiste prioritized orders from her most distinguished clients—ladies of wealth and rank. Miss Maltravers was neither. “I’ll write up a list of suitable colors for you to give her.”
Miss Maltravers was visibly relieved. “I’m obliged to you.”
“Not at all,” he said. “Do you need help undressing?”
A delicate blush suffused her cheeks. “The fastenings at the back are a little difficult to reach. If you wouldn’t mind?”
“Turn around.”
She promptly did as he asked. Her voice held a note of apology. “It’s just the first five hooks.”
He stepped up behind her. Close. So close, he could smell her orange blossom perfume, a faint whisper-soft fragrance that set his heart to thumping. He unfastened the first of the small metal hooks that secured the neck of her bodice. It was something he’d done countless times while making alterations—helping women to dress and undress—his assistance rendered with dispassionate efficiency. It was the veriest commonplace for a man of his trade. But this time . . .
This time he felt neither dispassionate nor particularly efficient.
There was something warmly seductive about being this close to Evelyn Maltravers. Something about her scent, and her posture. The way her neck was curved so elegantly before him, her bodice opening hook by hook to reveal the creamy expanse of bare skin just above the line of her lace-trimmed chemise. It was a soft, secret place. A place that beckoned to be touched. To be kissed.
Naturally, he took no such liberties.
He never had done, not even when altering gowns for the women at Mrs. Pritchard’s. It was only the thought of it that plagued him now. The sort of thought that had never before entered his head while he was working, no matter how alluring his client.
Did she feel it, too?
If so, she gave no indication. Nothing save the ordinary blushes one might expect of a modest, respectable young lady being unclothed by a man.
“Perhaps this is something I should have mentioned,” she said. “The importance of being able to dress and undress myself. Will the habit require the assistance of a lady’s maid?”
“No.” As he unfastened the final hooks, his fingers brushed against the silken thickness of her hair. A jolt of awareness went through him.
Damnation.
He backed away from her.
She cast him an uncertain look over her shoulder. “Is anything wrong?”
“Nothing.” He cleared his throat. “Can you reach the rest yourself?”
“I believe so.”
“Then I’ll give you a moment of privacy.” He withdrew, swiftly returning to the safety of his workroom.
* * *
Evelyn slipped off her gown and stepped out of her crinoline and petticoats, folding each item meticulously before stacking it on the fitting room chair. Perhaps it would have been wiser to bring a maid. It would certainly have made undressing easier. Unfortunately, in this case, propriety had had to give way to expediency.
When it came to getting herself outfitted for the season, she hadn’t a second to spare. One season, that was all that had been granted to her. A period of less than five months in which to make a suitable marriage. A brilliant marriage. One that would secure her future, and that of her sisters. And that season couldn’t start—not for her—until she had her wardrobe in order.
She was already woefully behind schedule. And now she’d gone and purchased the wrong color gowns!
“Should I not wear shades of rose or magenta?” she asked when Mr. Malik returned.
His tall, broad-shouldered frame was clad in black wool trousers and a single-breasted waistcoat. He’d discarded his coat. The crisp white linen of his shirt stood in stark contrast to the healthy bronze of his skin. “Never.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected him to answer so definitively. “Then what colors—” She stopped short at the sight of her new habit draped over his arm. “Goodness. Is that it?”
“The beginning of it.” Mr. Malik set the unfinished garment down on the fitting room table. Turning back to her, he offered his hand.
She took it, her attention still fixed on the habit as she climbed up on the raised platform in front of the fitting room’s cheval glass.
Shopping for gowns had been a pleasure—choosing patterns and fabrics and trimmings. But it was nothing to equal her excitement at the prospect of a new habit. Especially this habit. It was the linchpin of all of her plans.
“I suppose green is acceptable,” she said.
“Not every shade of it. Not with your coloring.” His eyes dropped to her riding stays.
Made of fine linen coutil, the modified corset was cut high over her hips, with a short busk and no shoulder straps to impede her movement. Just the style he’d prescribed.
He stilled to examine them.
Evelyn felt his quiet regard all the way down to her marrow. As if every brush of his gaze over her tightly bound bosom and midriff was a touch. A bold caress that heated her blood and tied her stomach in impossible knots.
She moistened her lips. “I trust you approve.”
“Wholeheartedly. These will do nicely with my design. So long as you can breathe?”
She couldn’t at the moment. Not very well. He was still holding her hand. Holding it as naturally as if he’d always done so. And she was letting him. Permitting what would otherwise have been an impertinence for the very same reason. Her hand fit so well in his grasp. As if it was made to be there.
Which it most certainly wasn’t.
She slowly slipped her fingers from his. It was impossible for him not to notice. Impossible not to draw attention to the sheer awkwardness of it all.
A faint flush of red appeared on the strong column of his throat, just above the line of his black cravat. “I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly.
“It was my fault. I—”
“You were distracted. As was I. Anticipation, no doubt.”
Anticipation?
“You must be as anxious to see it on as I am.” He moved back to the table to retrieve the first piece of her habit.
“Yes,” she managed. “Most anxious.”
“I must ask for your patience. For future orders, things will go quickly, but today, I must mark all four pieces.”
“Four?” The dressmaker in Combe Regis had only ever made riding costumes that were three pieces: a skirt, a jacket, and the close-fitting riding trousers one wore underneath.