“You could come to Russell Square,” she suggested. “My uncle wouldn’t object. Not when your dressmaking is to his benefit.”
Mr. Malik flashed her a questioning look.
“The sooner I make a match, the sooner Uncle Harris will be free of me,” she explained.
A frown darkened Mr. Malik’s brow. He seemed to hesitate for an instant. “Very well. We might as well make the most of Mira’s and Becky’s services while we have them.”
“You’re not employing them permanently?”
“Mira is my cousin. She helps whenever she can.”
His cousin.
Evelyn felt a distinct flicker of relief. “And Becky? Is she another relation of yours?”
“No. She’s someone I knew long ago. A competent seamstress in need of work. Her employment depends on what happens this season. On how many more orders I receive.”
“In other words,” she said, “it depends on me.”
His fingers stilled on her hem. He glanced up at her again. “Nervous?”
“A little.” Her mouth curved in a bleak smile. “More than a little.”
He stood. “I have something that might help.” He exited the fitting room, only to return seconds later with yards of luminous creamy white silk draped over his arm.
Evelyn sat up taller. “Is that my ball gown?”
“Part of it.” He brought it closer to her. The delicate pearl hue of the fabric was as softly seductive as moonlight.
She ran her fingers over it. Anne and Lady Arundell were likely wearing black to the ball, but Evelyn had no restrictions on the color of her own costume. She’d left the selection of it completely up to Mr. Malik.
“Do you see how it complements your complexion?” His head was bent close to hers as he showed the fabric to her, their shoulders almost touching. “It will look even better in the ballroom. Mira is embroidering the upper skirt with glass beads—just enough to catch the gaslight as you dance.”
“Goodness,” she murmured.
“Embroidery is her particular gift. No one at the ball will have anything to compare.”
“It sounds as if it will be very grand. I pray I’m equal to it.”
“You are,” he said. “Trust me.”
She lifted her gaze. Their eyes met and held.
A tremor of longing went through her.
They’d been facing each other in just such a way when her lips had brushed against his. Was he thinking of it, too? Remembering how it had felt to almost kiss her?
Or perhaps he didn’t view it as a kiss. Perhaps, to a man of his vast experience, it was nothing more than an awkward fumble. The intimate equivalent of someone accidentally bumping into him in a crowd.
A lowering thought!
“I do trust you,” she said. “I know you’ll make me look my best. That doesn’t stop me from worrying about every detail.”
He nodded once, seeming to comprehend her fears. “When we meet for your next fitting, I’ll bring my sketches. Will that help?”
Her shoulders relaxed. She hadn’t realized how much tension she was carrying in them. “Yes. Thank you.”
“Not at all.” He moved to set the bolt of silk on the fitting room table. “I should have brought them today. You could have seen what I have in mind.”
“That’s all right. We only made our agreement two days ago. I don’t expect you’ve had time yet to think of very many designs for me.”
He looked at her from across the fitting room. There was a brooding glint in his dark eyes. The same expression that had often put her in mind of a fallen angel. “You’re all I’ve been thinking of.”
Evelyn’s pulse beat heavy at her throat. He didn’t mean it. Not in the way she imagined. It was about fashion, that was all. It was nothing personal. Certainly nothing romantic. Even so, she couldn’t help but stare at him.
An ironic smile edged his lips. “I told you that you were my muse. You’ve been keeping me up at night.” Returning to her, he smoothed the line of her sleeve. It might almost have been a caress. “The trouble won’t be that I don’t have enough ideas for you, it will be that I have too many.”
* * *
Ahmad spent the next several days cutting and sewing Miss Maltravers’s ball gown. There were early mornings and late nights. Moments when he feared his vision may have outpaced his skill. Never in his life had he made something that meant so much to so many people.
Hunched over his worktable, he unpicked stitches and reworked seams, constantly checking what he was creating against his design.
His rough sketches depicted a silk dress with a formidable set of skirts. The lower skirt was edged in box pleats, while the upper skirt was made of embroidered gauze, drawn up on both sides with ribbon bows. The same delicate gauze framed the dramatic neckline of the bodice. Cut low both at the front and back, it was made to expose a daring expanse of bare skin.
And not just anyone’s bare skin.
Evelyn Maltravers was in his mind constantly as he worked, never leaving his thoughts for even a moment. This was her dress as much as it was his, all the way to the hidden pocket he placed at the seam of the skirts.
“You’re exhausted,” Mira said as he accompanied her back to Half Moon Street on the evening before Miss Maltravers’s final fitting. Unlike Becky, who slipped away from his lodgings early in order to make it back to the East End before nightfall, Mira always waited for him to escort her home, no matter how late the hour.
“And you’re not?” He cast her a distracted glance. She was seated across from him in the hired hackney cab. The carriage lamp shone a weak light over her face. “You have shadows under your eyes, bahan.”
“It will be worth it in the end,” she said. “I only wish I could be there to see her wear it.”
“You’ll see it tomorrow.” He was expected at Russell Square in the morning. Mira was set to accompany him. As for Becky, she’d be turning her attentions to some of the other dresses Ahmad had in mind for Miss Maltravers.
There was work enough to keep the three of them busy for weeks. Sketches for day dresses, evening dresses, and carriage gowns. Colorful skirts and Garibaldi shirts. The fashionable garments of a young lady making her debut, all of them informed by his taste for elegant lines and sensual silhouettes, and by Evelyn Maltravers herself.
“It’s not the same as seeing it in a ballroom,” Mira said, “when the candles are lit and the gasoliers are glowing. She’ll shine like a star when she’s waltzing. Like a moonbeam.”