Vixen in Velvet by Loretta Chase Page B

possible dangers of the situation hadn’t made life exciting. But then Miss Leonie Noirot had entered the picture, and London had become far more interesting.
    Since she was everything but boring, Lisburne wasn’t shocked to find her at the heart of the latest gossip.
    He and Swanton had attended the Countess of Jersey’s assembly, where the ladies made the usual fuss about the poet. While the younger women were fluttering about Swanton, Lisburne drifted toward the card room. As he was about to enter, Lady Alda Morris detained him, in order to whisper something behind her fan.
    Maison Noirot
    Wednesday 15 July
    L ady Gladys stood before the dressing glass, her face pink.
    Four women—Leonie, Marcelline, Lady Clara, and Jeffreys—watched and waited.
    Today, for the first time, Lady Gladys wore the corset Leonie had designed especially for her.
    Unlike the one they’d hastily adapted last week to replace the monstrosity she’d brought from home, this one employed all of Leonie’s knowledge of mathematics, physiology, and physics. Until this moment, she hadn’t been allowed to enjoy her accomplishment, because Lady Gladys had refused to come out and show herself in the corset. She said she would not cavort about in her undergarments to be gawked at.
    That, however, was before she’d seen the gold evening dress.
    When they’d first shown it to her, she’d made a face and said the color would make her look as though she had a liver disease. But by Lady Gladys’s standards, the protest was feeble. A moment later she said she might as well try it on. Then she’d insisted on Jeffreys—the allegedly consumptive speaker of vile French—attending her in the dressing room.
    Ladies were nothing if not capricious, but this lady had apparently devoted her young life to making everybody about her want to throttle her.
    “Well,” she said at last.
    One word, but Leonie caught the little bubble of pleasure in it. Lady Gladys had a beautiful voice, as expressive as an opera singer’s.
    “I never thought I could wear this color,” she said.
    “So you made abundantly clear,” Lady Clara said. “I thought we should have to stupefy you with drink to get you to try on anything today.”
    “That isn’t true. I didn’t make a fuss about trying on the corset. I only didn’t want to prance about in my underwear while everybody stared at me.”
    She smoothed the front of the dress though Jeffreys, naturally, had made sure every seam lay precisely in place.
    “The corset is comfortable,” Lady Gladys said. “I’m not sure what you did, but . . .” She trailed off, studying herself. “You did something,” she said.
    Leonie had done a great deal. She’d designed the stays to support her ladyship’s generous embonpoint. The corset’s shape smoothed her waist in a way that made it seem smaller, though the compression was minimal.
    Her figure remained much fuller and less shapely than the fashionable ideal. But fashionable ideals were only that. What was important was making a lady look as beautiful as it was possible for her to look. And the gold satin was as much a surprise to Leonie as it was to Lady Gladys.
    As usual, Marcelline had imagined the dress entirely in her head. This time, though, she’d relied solely on Leonie’s detailed description of their new client.
    Yet from her sickbed, and in spite of near-constant nausea, Marcelline had designed a miracle of a dress. Gold satin trimmed in black blond lace. Simple yet dramatic. The pointed waist created the illusion of a narrower waistline, and the black languets that fastened it in front enhanced the effect.
    Pointed waists had supposedly fallen out of fashion, but Marcelline never concerned herself with what she considered petty fluctuations of taste.
    This dress would bring pointed waists straight back into style, Leonie calculated. The black lace mantilla, attached to the tops of the sleeves, not only added drama but drew the eye upward, toward Lady