“Where would you like me to stand?” she asked.
“Here, if you please.” Taking her hand, he helped her up onto the footstool. “Mira will work on your skirts while I see to the bodice. If that’s agreeable?”
“Perfectly agreeable.”
For the next half hour, Ahmad forced himself to think of nothing but silk, gauze, and trimmings. Of needles, pins, and invisible stitches. Anything but Miss Maltravers herself.
It was easier than it might have been in the fitting room at Doyle and Heppenstall’s.
Here—with Mira assisting him and Agnes hovering nearby—there were no opportunities for any long looks or private conversations. No illusion of intimacy. Instead, Miss Maltravers had been relegated to the role of marble statute.
“Will it be ready in time?” she asked when another quarter of an hour had passed. Mira knelt on the floor below her, re-pinning one of the box pleats on the silk lower skirt.
“It will be.” Ahmad secured a fold of sparkling gauze along her neckline with another pin. His knuckles brushed briefly against the silky-warm curve of her bosom. He tried to ignore it, just as he was trying to ignore every other necessary intimacy between them. “I’ll have Becky deliver it tomorrow evening. She can stay to help you into it.”
Agnes gave an audible sniff of protest at this encroachment on her territory.
“You’ll want a seamstress,” he said, “in case you require any last-minute alterations.”
“Yes, of course.” There was a wash of color over Miss Maltravers’s bosom and throat—the beginnings of a blush creeping its way to her face. “I’d be glad of the help.”
“The ball is at nine?” he asked.
Her answer was forestalled by the arrival of Mrs. Quick.
The housekeeper materialized in the doorway, seeming to appear all at once. An unsettling skill, and one that Ahmad observed was possessed by only the most efficient of servants.
“I beg your pardon, miss,” she said. “You have a caller. A gentleman by the name of Mr. Stephen Connaught.”
The name had a startling effect on Miss Maltravers.
Her face paled and her knees wobbled. For a single horrified second, it looked as though she might topple to the floor in a heap of silk and embroidered gauze.
Ahmad’s arm shot around her waist to steady her. “Are you all right?”
She turned to him blindly, blinking behind her spectacles as if to refocus her vision. “What? Oh . . . yes. A little light-headed, that’s all. I haven’t eaten enough today.”
Rubbish.
She’d been steady enough until the housekeeper had announced her visitor.
“You’ve gone white as parchment.” He helped her down. “You had better sit.”
Agnes hurried to her side. “Shall I fetch the smelling salts, miss?”
“I’m fine.” Miss Maltravers met Ahmad’s gaze. “Truly.” Her hand closed briefly over his forearm in silent reassurance.
He understood her. She didn’t want anyone to fuss. Neither did she wish to be treated as a swooning female.
Comprehending her feelings didn’t make it any easier to let her go.
He slid his arm free from her waist.
“Where is he, Mrs. Quick?” she asked.
“I’ve put him in the drawing room, miss,” Mrs. Quick replied. “Shall I bring tea?”
“No need,” Miss Maltravers said. “His visit won’t be one of long duration.”
The housekeeper withdrew.
Miss Maltravers turned to Agnes and Mira. “Will the two of you please help me out of this?” And then to Ahmad: “I’m afraid I must cut our fitting short today.”
He inclined his head.
And he reminded himself that he was just her dressmaker, not her brother or her father.
Certainly not her lover.
He had no right to question her—and no privacy to do so, either.
As she disappeared behind the screen with Mira and Agnes, he could do nothing. Nothing except pace and worry and wonder.
Who in the hell was Stephen Connaught?
Seventeen
In no time at all, Evelyn was back in her plain woolen day dress and ascending the stairs to the drawing room. She made a concerted effort to compose herself. She’d never been a swooning sort of female.
And besides, there was no reason to panic.
She’d known Stephen Connaught would pop his head up again eventually. Indeed, she’d been expecting him to reappear ever since their encounter in Rotten Row.
All that remained now was to determine how best to deal with him.
On entering the drawing room, she found him standing in front of the cold fireplace, one arm draped across the mantelpiece. His unbuttoned frock coat gaped open to reveal a garishly patterned, double-breasted waistcoat.
It was no doubt fashionable, but when compared to the quiet elegance of Mr. Malik’s black three-piece suits, it made Stephen look the veriest peacock.
In truth, there was nothing about his appearance that measured up to that of the broodingly handsome habit-maker she’d left behind in the morning room.
Where Mr. Malik was dark, Stephen was fair. Where Mr. Malik was tall and muscular, Stephen was shorter and thinner, with a boyish face that—rather than being chiseled from granite—appeared to have been shaped by a disinterested artist working from a mold used countless times before.
There was nothing special about him, she realized. Nothing unique or different.
And it was the differences in a person that gave rise to true beauty. Isn’t that what Mr. Malik had told her?
Sameness was comfortable, but it didn’t move the soul.
Looking at Stephen now, she felt profoundly unmoved. No butterflies or blushes. Nothing except irritation at the inconvenience he was posing to her.
“Miss Maltravers,” he said, bowing.
Her expression tightened.
Once he had called her Evelyn. Apparently, she was no longer worthy of being addressed by her given name.
“Mr. Connaught.” She returned his formality like for like. “What are you doing here?”
He motioned toward a chair. His manner was commanding, but at only four and twenty, he lacked the innate authority possessed by a man of Mr. Malik’s years. “Will you not sit down?”
She didn’t move. “What are you doing here?” she asked again.
His lips thinned. “I have news of your sister.”