Chapter 8 #2
Augusta walked away to the far end of the drawing room and took her place upon her “throne.” This was a chair the servants had raised up on bricks, to bring her to approximately the level at which the Queen would sit.
Gertrude positioned herself nearby.
Dorothea and Priscilla remained in the corridor, to offer instruction as needed. “Are you ready, Augusta?” Dorothea called.
“Of course I’m ready,” said Augusta. “The question is whether Zoe is.”
They had closed one side of the double doors leading into the large drawing room so that Zoe could practice maneuvering through a more confined space.
She brought her elbows down to compress the hoops, as Priscilla had shown her. Then she concentrated on the route she meant to take to Augusta, took a deep breath, and sailed over the threshold at the same instant Dorothea cried, “Zoe, wait! The train!”
Too late.
Zoe’s foot tangled in the forgotten train, and down she went. She let go of the hoops and put her hands out to break her fall. The hoops sprang out as she went down face foremost onto the carpet, and the gown billowed up around her.
She heard the snort behind her, but she was preoccupied with determining the simplest and quickest method of getting upright unaided.
The corset required her to bend from the hips.
After a quick mental survey of the options, she pressed her hands into the carpet and pushed herself up onto all fours.
Then, hands still braced on the carpet, she lifted her bottom into the air while she straightened her legs.
She carefully walked her hands back as close to her feet as she could, then angled her spine upright.
Another, louder snort came from behind her, then a bark of laughter. Deep, masculine laughter.
She turned toward the doorway, where Marchmont stood, one hand braced against the door frame while he laughed.
And laughed.
And laughed.
Tears streamed down his face.
He shook his head and composed himself. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his face.
Having erased all signs of mirth from his face, he walked into the room and sat in a chair.
Her two younger sisters broke into giggles.
He made a strangled sound, then exploded into laughter.
Then they were all laughing, even Augusta.
“Do you know,” Zoe said to the room at large, “that is much more difficult than it looks?”
“Falling on your face?” said Marchmont. “But you make it look s-so easy.” And off he went into whoops.
During this one unguarded moment, Zoe could watch him, and she did, utterly bemused. Something had happened, and she wasn’t sure what. The world had changed somehow. Or perhaps something in her mind had changed or a key had turned in a keyhole, unlocking something hidden away and forgotten.
Then, as his laughter began to subside, she saw what it was.
This is he, she thought. This is the boy I used to know. This is Lucien.
The moment passed and the green eyes shuttered, but she could still discern the amusement glinting there.
“The Birthday Drawing Room will prove more entertaining, I suspect, than some might wish,” he said.
“I shall not embarrass you,” Zoe said.
“Oh, nothing embarrasses him,” said Gertrude. “Never fear for that. It’s the rest of us who’ll be mortified. It’s Mama who’ll be there, humiliated.”
“She will not be humiliated,” Zoe said. “I won’t fall. I’ll learn everything. If I can learn to dance in veils without killing myself, I can learn to get through a door wearing hoops.”
She became acutely conscious of his slitted green gaze.
She knew he was either picturing what was under the hooped petticoat or imagining her dancing in veils.
She glanced down at his hands and remembered yesterday.
Her skin had memorized every place where those hands had touched her.
Every one of those places tingled. In the airy space under the hooped petticoat, her Palace of Delight tingled, too.
“I’d always thought the Dance of the Seven Veils was a myth,” he said.
“It isn’t,” Zoe said. “It’s very beautiful and arousing to men—well, not to Karim, but then, nothing aroused him.”
Not like you, she thought. The trouble was, she’d thought of him in that way far too much. She really needed to meet other men.
“That is an unsuitable topic of conversation,” said Augusta, who’d quickly regained her normal pomposity.
“You had better go away, Marchmont,” said Gertrude. “You do not take this seriously, and you are a bad influence.”
“Zoe can practice her gymnastics later,” said Marchmont. “I must mount her.”
Augusta turned purple. Even Zoe looked taken aback.
“Out!” Augusta snapped. “Out!”
“Certainly not,” Marchmont said. “I am in charge of launching Zoe into Society, and she can’t make a respectable show if she isn’t properly mounted. We can’t have her riding in Hyde Park looking like a quiz, on a borrowed horse on a borrowed saddle and wearing a borrowed habit.”
At the moment, in her borrowed finery, she made anything but a respectable show.
It was the first time he’d ever seen her not wearing day dress, with her bosom covered.
At present, it was on full display. Overfull display.
They had stuffed some lace into the bodice for decency’s sake, but it was obviously too small, and the lace was being asked to do more than the laws of physics allowed.
Zoe laughed. “Oh, it’s a word play. Mount means two things. Very funny, Marchmont. I’ll be happy to let you mount me.”
The two younger of her sisters covered their mouths.
Augusta and Gertrude glowered.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your presentation lessons,” he said. “But the matter can’t wait. We’re due at Tattersall’s in an hour.”
“What is Tattersall’s?” Zoe said.
“The grand mart for horses,” Priscilla explained. “It’s quite close to Hyde Park Corner. They’ve room for more than a hundred horses, as well as carriages and harnesses and hounds.”
“The auction is not until Monday,” Augusta said. “And Tattersall’s is for men only.”
“Like a gentleman’s club,” Priscilla told Zoe.
“Women do not enter,” said Gertrude. “Unlike a gentleman’s club, they let in persons of high and low degree, including some of unsavory character.”
“For a lady to go is unthinkable,” said Augusta.
“True,” said Marchmont. “But the rules do not apply to me. I thought it unwise and dangerous to choose a horse for Zoe without her participation. I’ve made arrangements. What’s the good of having a duke in charge of these matters if he doesn’t use his…er…duke-ness?”
“Baksheesh,” Zoe said. “It works magic, I know.”
He knew what baksheesh was. He’d learned about it when she’d told her story to Beardsley. London was not altogether different from Cairo in that way. Bribes worked wonders.
“That, too,” he said. He didn’t know or care what the special arrangement had cost. He left financial wrangling to Osgood. “But we have a limited time. Can you get out of that contraption quickly?”
“Oh, yes.” She lifted up her gown, reached under, and started wriggling about as she hunted for the petticoat ties.
“Zoe!” Gertrude cried.
“Someone help me get out of this,” Zoe said.
“Not here!” Augusta shrieked.
Zoe paused, the front of the dress pulled up to expose her knees and more. Her garters were plainly visible. They were red.
She did not appear to be wearing drawers.
She let the garment fall, dragged up the train, and ran out of the room. “Jarvis?” she called. “Where is Jarvis?”
He muttered something about making sure she didn’t tumble down the stairs and followed her out.
It was the feeblest excuse. The truth was, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
It wasn’t simply the expanse of smooth flesh on display, either.
It was the way she moved in the hooped skirts, the way they exaggerated the sway of her hips, and the way the skirts billowed about her.
She was like a ship under full sail, gliding along the passage as though she glided on water.
He was dimly aware of her sisters saying something. He shut the door behind him, to shut them out.
She had the train over her arm, but the way she held it hiked up the skirt on one side. He remembered what he’d seen, what he knew: under those hooped petticoats was only air and skin.
His mouth went dry.
She rounded a corner. He could have—and should have—stopped then if he’d known how, but he didn’t.
Temptation glided ahead of him, and he couldn’t turn away.
Though the corridor was carpeted, she must have heard him, because she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. She gave a little laugh and broke into a run.
Then he became aware of the staircase looming ahead and a chair against the opposite wall and a table beyond that, with a great china dragon standing on it—and scores of obstacles elsewhere. If she tripped and fell against the table, the dragon would fall on her head.
“Zoe, stop!” he called.
She stopped abruptly, dropping the train. She started to turn, lost her balance, and tottered toward the stairs.
He lunged toward her and pulled her upright and dragged her away from the stairs.
He pushed her against the nearest wall, solid and safe, and tried to calm himself.
Impossible. His heart was racing, churning with panic and anger and desire everlastingly put off.
Red garters and stockinged legs and the memory of her hands on him and the taste of her mouth and the scent of her skin.
In his mind he saw her as she was long ago, galloping away, never to return.
He saw her as she was yesterday, in his arms, yielding and eager and curving and soft and turning the cool spring day into summer.
“Don’t, don’t, don’t,” he said. He didn’t know what he was saying.
Nothing made sense. But she was here, and he could feel her breath on his face.
He could hear her inhale-exhale, fast and shallow, like his.
He was aware of the rustle of silk and the gown billowing about him, a silken, feminine cloud.