“We’re not competing with the Horsebreakers,” Evelyn said. “And even if we were . . . their riding isn’t so impressive. Only look at the dreadful bit the chestnut is wearing. She has him entirely behind the vertical. And what about the gray? He’s not engaging his hindquarters at all.”
“Do you think men care about such things when a rider has bosoms like that? Or when she boasts a seventeen-inch waist?” Lady Anne huffed. “I suppose we must be thankful that Miss Walters isn’t among them. It would be worse if she were. All the young men would be out in force.”
Evelyn glanced back. Lady Anne was right. The famous Catherine Walters was nowhere to be seen. No doubt she was somewhere with her protector—a man rumored to be the Marquess of Hartington. “There must be some gentlemen who can resist their charms.”
“No one between the ages of fifteen and fifty. If you’re intent on marrying in your first season, you’d do better to look for an old gentleman in his dotage. They’re kind enough. Almost fatherly. Or you could try a retired military man. Rumor has it that Captain Blunt is in town, seeking a new bride to raise his brood of illegitimate children.”
“Captain Blunt?”
“The infamous Hero of the Crimea,” Lady Anne said. “And the Earl of Gresham arrived only yesterday. He’s on the lookout, too, I’ve heard. Newly widowed, and casting about for a fertile female to deliver him an heir.”
Evelyn suppressed a grimace. Her prospects were starting to sound rather bleak. “Do you know everyone hereabouts? All the gentlemen?”
“Most of them.” Lady Anne made a soft sound of reprimand as she tugged at Saffron’s reins, narrowly preventing him from nipping Hephaestus’s neck. “There’s Mr. Phillips, riding with Mr. Edgeware, both perpetual bachelors, and hopeless wagerers at the track. That large man in the barouche is Sir Newton, a hunt-mad baronet from Hampshire, intent on marrying a fortune. And that gentleman . . . Hmm. That’s strange. I don’t recognize him. Though he appears to recognize you.”
Evelyn followed Lady Anne’s gaze. A fair-haired man stood along the viewing rail. He was pale and slim and startlingly familiar.
A shiver traced down her spine.
Hephaestus felt it and responded, springing into another elevated trot.
“There’s room ahead,” Evelyn said hastily. “Shall we canter?” She didn’t wait for Lady Anne to agree. A touch of her heel, and Hephaestus leapt forward.
Lady Anne kicked Saffron into a canter, swiftly catching up. “Who is he?” she asked. “Do you know him?”
“I do,” Evelyn admitted. It was her former friend. The man who, up until three years ago, she’d believed she was going to marry. “His name is Stephen Connaught.”
Eleven
In Ahmad’s experience, actions, no matter how well-intentioned, invariably had consequences. There would be a price to pay for rejecting the viscountess’s advances. He’d been expecting it to be exacted ever since he’d left her town house and returned to Doyle and Heppenstall’s.
The prospect left him distinctly uneasy. Leaning over his table in the shop’s workroom, he was scarcely able to focus on cutting and basting the pattern he’d designed for Miss Maltravers’s third riding habit. Not even the sumptuous Venetian cloth he’d chosen for her—a fine worsted fabric of rich mink brown—served to distract him.
It was the uncertainty of it all. The sense of impending disaster. He’d much rather know where he stood than be left waiting to find out. Once he knew, he could make a plan. Until then, he was stuck in limbo, dangling at the viscountess’s pleasure.
It wasn’t for long.
Not three hours later, as he was shelving a bolt of wool suiting fabric behind the showroom counter, the viscountess’s lady’s maid, Crebbs, entered the shop. She was clad in a dark cloak and bonnet and carrying a large dress box in her arms. The same dress box Ahmad had delivered that morning.
She dumped it unceremoniously onto the counter. “My mistress don’t want this.”
Ahmad had expected retaliation in some form or another. It didn’t stop the reality of it from stinging like the very devil. Approaching the counter, he lifted the lid off the box, dropping a grim glance at the evening dress he’d spent so long perfecting. It had been shoved inside, left to crumple and crease amid the torn tissue paper. “She requires an alteration?”
“She don’t want it,” Crebbs said again. “And she’s got no use for you anymore, either.”
He might have known Lady Heatherton would react this way. She was angry, and very likely embarrassed.
But such emotions didn’t last.
She was bound to cool off in a day or two. Then she’d remember how well his design had suited her and she’d want her dress back again. All it needed was time and patience.
“You may tell your mistress that I’ll call on her tomorrow,” he said. “When she’s more herself.”
“Oh, no you won’t.” Crebbs leaned halfway across the counter. Her foul breath gusted into his face. “Don’t you understand English? You’re not welcome at the house no more. My lady’s left word with the butler and the footmen. If you so much as set foot on the property, they’ll haul you up before the magistrate.”
An icy chill seeped into Ahmad’s veins. Empty as the threat may be, it couldn’t be taken lightly. He’d been up before the magistrate before. Had very nearly lost his freedom. “On what charge?”
“Don’t get cheeky with me, sir! I know all about you and your sort. You’ve no business with my mistress.” Crebbs gave the dress box a hard shove. “And she won’t be wearing this, or anything else you’ve made. If she wants an evening gown, she’ll go to a proper dressmaker, not the likes of you.”
“I see.” He regarded Crebbs with studied impassivity. She wasn’t the first aggressively offensive Englishwoman he’d dealt with, nor was she the worst. He’d learned self-control in hard school. Losing his temper was never an option. Even now. Even when she was destroying his future with every word.
And not only his.
“And what about her ladyship’s bill?” he asked. “Will you be settling it?”
Crebbs laughed, as if the very idea of payment for his work was something too outlandish to contemplate. “My mistress won’t give you a ha’penny,” she said. “The nerve of you people! You don’t know your place, is your problem. Best learn it before you find yourself in trouble.”
Ahmad stood immobile as she exited the shop. She slammed the door behind her with such force that it rattled the panes of glass in the front windows. The sound jolted him from his stupor.