“What about the rest of your wardrobe?” Mr. Malik asked abruptly.
“What about it?”
“You do plan on attending evening entertainments?”
“Eventually.” She was certain to be invited somewhere.
“And you are going to a ball?”
“More than one, I trust, once my season is officially under way. As for what I shall wear, Lady Arundell has insisted that, tomorrow, I accompany her daughter to Madame Elise’s salon in Regent Street.”
Mr. Malik’s expression darkened.
Evelyn added quickly, “I know you object to her designs, but—”
“It isn’t her designs I object to,” he said. “It’s the way she treats her seamstresses.”
A question formed on Evelyn’s lips. He answered before she could ask it.
“Did you never wonder how a fashionable London dressmaker can deliver a ball gown so quickly after it’s been ordered? How—for an exorbitant sum—such orders can be expedited in mere days?”
“Certainly I haven’t. I’ve never patronized such establishments in my life. A fact which should be abundantly plain to you. Even your employer, Mr. Doyle, noted how ill I was turned out when first he saw me.”
“He’s not my—” Mr. Malik broke off. He surged to his feet, briefly looming over her before walking to the fireplace. “The point is, dressmakers like Madame Elise don’t care tuppence for the young girls they employ. She works them from dawn until dusk. As many as thirty of them, in small rooms with no ventilation. And then, when they’re at last permitted to retire to bed—if they’re permitted to retire at all—it’s to rooms even smaller. Rooms with no air, where they sleep two and three to a bed, breathing in the same noxious fumes.”
Evelyn stared up at him. She couldn’t recall when Mr. Malik had ever said so much all at once, or with so much animation. “I’d no idea.”
“Of course not.” He ran a hand over his hair. The glossy black strands glistened in the gaslight, still slightly damp from the rain. “Forgive me. I get rather passionate on the subject.”
“I don’t blame you. If it’s as horrid as you say—”
“It’s worse. Every garment Madame Elise makes may as well have blood on it. If you go to her for your ball gown—”
“I won’t,” Evelyn said.
“Won’t you?”
“Not now. How could I? After what you’ve told me, it would be unconscionable.”
He looked both relieved and a little doubtful. “You may find that a conscience is a luxury in London. Especially when weighed against the demands of fashionable society.”
She raised her chin. “Not my conscience.”
His mouth ticked up at one corner. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“I know my own mind. And as for my conscience . . .” She’d already sacrificed too many of her principles on this venture. “I won’t burden it on Madame Elise’s account, no matter how pretty her dresses.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
She searched his face. “Is that why you came? To offer to make a ball gown for me?”
“No. At least, not only that.” His expression sobered. He cleared his throat. “I came because . . . I have a proposition for you.”
She blinked up at him. A proposition?
“Something that would benefit us both.” He paused, looking more serious than Evelyn had ever seen him look before. “I’d like to offer myself to you as a dressmaker. Not only for your habits and eveningwear, but for your entire wardrobe this season.”
Thirteen
Ahmad stood in front of the dwindling fire, every inch of his frame fraught with tension, waiting for Miss Maltravers’s reply.
Coming to see her had been a gamble. And he didn’t like to gamble with his future—or with Mira’s. Had Lady Heatherton not rejected his work, he’d never have risked it. He hated making himself vulnerable. And in this taut moment, he was vulnerable. Indeed, offering himself to Evelyn Maltravers was akin to stepping off a cliff into a vast unknown.
What if she didn’t want his services? Or worse: What if she couldn’t afford them?
Her uncle’s house in Russell Square was stately enough, to be sure, but there was nothing about it to indicate that he was a man of extraordinary wealth. Faded wealth, more like it. The drawing room was littered with worn carpets and old-fashioned furnishings.
Miss Maltravers appeared a little faded herself. Not only that, she seemed smaller somehow. He never noticed it so much as when he saw her directly after having watched her ride. She was majestic on a horse. Almost queenly. Another person entirely.
Standing at the rail in Rotten Row, Ahmad had been riveted by the sight of her. She’d ridden down the stretch of tan at a prancing trot, in company with a blond lady on a golden stallion, their two grooms following not far behind.
“Is that her?” Mira had whispered from her place beside him. “On the bay?”
“It is.” Ahmad’s chest had tightened painfully as Miss Maltravers trotted by. She’d looked more than beautiful. She’d looked formidable. A veritable goddess on horseback, drawing the eyes of everyone she passed.
“Are you sure she’s not a courtesan?” Mira had asked.
Looking at Miss Maltravers now, seated in her chair, with an old cashmere shawl drooping around her shoulders and her spectacles slipping down her nose, he saw no resemblance to one. No trace of the powerful sensuality she exhibited when riding.
“My entire wardrobe?” she repeated in tones of disbelief.
“Yes,” he said. “Excepting what you’ve already ordered from Madame Lorraine.”
He had just enough left in his savings to cover the expenses for fabric and trimmings, and to hire seamstresses to assist him. It would deplete his resources until Miss Maltravers settled her bill, leaving him with no funds to take over Doyle’s lease.
A gamble, indeed.
If it failed, he and Mira would be left with nothing at all.
“I haven’t ordered much,” Miss Maltravers said. “Not yet. I confess, I’ve been wholly focused on my habits.”
“Understandably so. They’re an important piece of your plan.”
She gave him a faint smile. “You must think me silly to have contrived it. To come to you as I did, claiming I could rival the charms of Miss Walters and the other Pretty Horsebreakers. Considering their attributes—”