“Rubbish. It was the wisdom of the ages.”
“It was common sense.”
“It was guidance from beyond. And prescient, too. If I hadn’t been concerned with your temporal whereabouts, Lady Arundell would never have gone looking for you. And then where would you be?”
Evelyn blinked. “You sent Lady Arundell after me?”
“Quite so.” Uncle Harris settled back in his seat. “One never prospers by ignoring advice from the spirit realm.”
Thirty-Three
Ahmad woke the next morning before dawn, just as he always did. He lay awake in his bed for a moment staring up at the shadows playing over the ceiling. The previous evening’s events seemed so much a dream.
Had he really appeared at Cremorne Gardens and waltzed with Evelyn Maltravers in front of the entire fashionable world? Had he really told her that he loved her?”
And he did love her.
He rested one bare arm behind his head, a smile curling his lips.
It was then he remembered what else he’d done at Cremorne. Not only danced with Evelyn and declared himself but compromised her, too.
His smile vanished.
Good God. What had he been thinking? To lead her onto the dark walk where they might be discovered by any passing busybody?
And they had been discovered. First by Lady Heatherton and then by Lady Arundell.
Word would get out. It was inevitable.
This afternoon, he would go to Russell Square and formally ask Evelyn’s uncle for her hand in marriage. With luck, Ahmad’s proposal would ameliorate any damage he’d done to her reputation.
Though, he was fully aware, it would create a whole new scandal in and of itself.
But that was to be expected.
He and Evelyn both knew the consequences of forming an attachment. They both accepted them. He could only pray she wouldn’t come to regret her decision.
Rising from his bed, he washed and dressed and made his way downstairs to the street. He bought a paper from a newsboy at the corner before hailing a hackney to take him to Conduit Street.
He always spent a few hours alone in the workroom at Doyle and Heppenstall’s before going to fetch Mira from the Finchleys’. With the seamstresses now in residence, it was the only time of day Ahmad had any quiet.
As the hackney rolled through the streets, he opened the paper. He turned to the society page, a pit forming in his stomach at the prospect of finding something there about Evelyn’s conduct at Cremorne.
Lady Heatherton had made it clear that Ahmad was her enemy. As a leader of fashionable society, she need only drop a word to one of her contacts at the paper and Evelyn would be ruined. It was no comfort that Lady Heatherton had promised to hold her tongue. Ahmad no more trusted the word of his former patroness than he would trust a viper.
But as he scanned the society page, he realized that Lady Heatherton had, in fact, kept her word. The article, when he found it, made no mention of Evelyn at all.
It was about him.
A Poor Lady’s Dressmaker
Our correspondent’s discerning eye has lately noticed a trend among the fair ladies of London: a distinct lack of embellishment in their fashionable toilettes. On close inspection, we can find none of the rich trimmings that grace the gowns of our city’s Parisian sisters. Instead, the gowns of the exotic Mr. M—— are marked by a noted nothingness. Does he cater to ladies in straitened circumstances? Or is he himself impoverished? We leave it to you to judge.
A chill crept into Ahmad’s veins as he read it, turning his blood to ice.
He understood what the damning words meant for his career as a fashionable dressmaker. They were akin to a death blow. But in that moment, he wasn’t thinking of what it would mean to lose his business. All he could think of was losing Evelyn.
* * *
Ahmad arrived in Russell Square at half past ten. He bounded up the steps of the town house, presenting himself at the front door like a proper suitor. The housekeeper welcomed him in, her face inscrutable as she showed him into the drawing room. Evelyn joined him there directly. They’d scarcely greeted each other before he thrust the paper into her hands.
She sat down on the sofa to read it, the full skirts of her cuir-colored cambric morning robe pooling around her in an elegant spill of golden-brown fabric. “What is it that they’re implying?”
Ahmad ran a hand over his hair. “At worst? That the ladies who wear my designs are too poor to afford the trimmings.”
She looked up at him. Morning sunlight filtered through the curtains, casting a glare on the glass lenses of her spectacles. “No one would ever believe that, surely. All they need do is use their eyes. Any fool can see how beautiful your dresses are.”
“It isn’t only about beauty. It’s about proclaiming one’s wealth and status.” Ahmad sank down beside her on the sofa. “A skirt weighted down with flounces and fringe may be unflattering to some, but it shows that its wearer can afford the expense of it.”
She folded the paper and set it aside. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” he said. “Sorry to come here so early, and for such a reason. I shouldn’t be burdening you with this.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. I would have seen it myself soon enough.” She angled herself on the sofa to face him. “I usually read the paper at breakfast, but after last night, I feared the society page would contain something awful about me.”
“We can thank Lady Heatherton for that much, at least.”
“Was this her doing?”
“I suspect so. Although . . . I suppose it might have been Madame Elise. I’ve taken some of her customers.”
“And two of her seamstresses,” Evelyn reminded him.
He smiled wryly. “Yes. And that.”
She gave him a searching look. “What happened between you and Lady Heatherton?”
The question shouldn’t have startled him, but it did. He hesitated before answering it. “Nothing happened.”
“It didn’t look that way. Indeed, she seemed to be rather angry with you.”
“She is angry,” he said. “Because nothing happened.” He was reluctant to explain the sordid matter in any detail. But there was no avoiding it. “That’s why she sent back her dress. I rejected her advances.”
An expression of dawning understanding came over Evelyn’s face. It was followed by a blush. “I see.”
He began to feel a little like blushing himself. This wasn’t the conversation he’d envisioned having with her this morning. Or ever, if he was honest.