The Scandalous Life of a True Lady by Bárbara Metzger Page B

the least attention. She might as well have been a mannequin they were dressing, or a doll. Like children at play, they were exuberant and self-absorbed, uncaring of the cost or her debt to Major Harrison, or how hard she’d find it to refuse his offer.
    Then she saw the riding habit. Someone had listened to her, or the longing in her voice. It was the latest style, with a divided black velvet skirt, a jacket woven of the finest wool two shades darker than her red hair, trimmed with black frogging. Black lace spilled over the high, military collar. Simone sighed just looking at it.
    The gowns were all beautiful: silks and satins, with muslins for daytime, with ribbons and lace and puffed sleeves and scalloped hems. None of the women she’d worked for had owned anything half so becoming, so au courant, so luxurious. She’d never imagined even attending a function where such frocks were the norm. But the riding habit…? That was a dream.
    Simone thought of open fields and fresh air and riding astride, of a freedom she’d not known since girlhood, racing bareback on the pony her grandfather had given her, to her sedate father’s dismay and her mother’s understanding. Now she imagined riding cross country with a handsome, dark-haired gentleman by her side. He’d ride a magnificent black stallion. And she’d be mounted on a—
    “…chair, miss. Do step up, so I can take an accurate drawing.” The bootmaker had arrived. Like the dressmaker, he brought a trunk filled with finished shoes to see if any fit her small foot. Now he wished to trace a pattern for the slippers he’d make to match her new gowns.
    Simone held her breath to see if any of the riding boots fit. One pair was only a shade too wide, and the bootmaker quickly inserted a felt lining. Perfect. The hairdresser kissed his fingertips. Sally clapped her hands.
    Even the seamstresses put aside their work to circle her chair as if it were a throne. The habit’s skirt’s hem was only basted, the tiny black shako hat was still missing its feather, her hair was trailing ringlets that had not been gathered into a lace snood yet—but Simone knew she’d never looked better.
    Until the apothecary’s assistant arrived with an assortment of lotions and face paints, brushes and colored papers. Simone did not bother demurring, not after seeing the results so far.
    “Mademoiselle is trés bon , no ? She is meant for a man’s admiration.”
    “Monsieur will be pleased, oui .”
    The coiffeur and the modiste were speaking in French, not realizing that Simone could understand. She understood all too well. They thought she was a perfect courtesan.

Chapter Eight
    “You have to speak with her, Daniel. Convince her to stay.”
    Daniel Stamfield set his glass down and leaned back in his soft leather chair, staring at his cousin. Harry was a cousin from the wrong side of the blanket, but the right side of McCann, to have such a cozy suite of rooms above the exclusive gambling club. He was enigmatic, and the best man to have at your back, now that Daniel’s other cousin, Rex, was settled down. Married and a father, who could believe it? Certainly not Daniel, who was nowhere ready to put on leg shackles. Hell, no. But a mistress? Almost as bad, from what he could see everywhere he looked. Expensive, demanding, and only a little easier to get rid of than a wife.
    “Don’t see why you want to keep one woman, with so many others out there.”
    Harry gave him a dark look, from eyes that matched Daniel’s own, deep blue with a black rim around the iris. For that matter, Harry looked a lot like Daniel, with the same wavy black hair and straight nose. They might have been twins instead of cousins, except that Daniel was taller and broader and heavier, and Harry looked far older than the four-year difference in their ages. Of course he did, Daniel reflected, with the weight of the country, if not the world, on his shoulders. Now he wanted a mistress, and an unwilling one at