Chapter Three The Fortress of Violet Velvet
Bond Street did not sell goods. It sold armour for the soul.
Caroline adjusted the strings of her reticule, enjoying the heavy, rhythmic collision of gold sovereigns against the silver clasp.
The sound acted as a heartbeat, steadier and far more comforting than the one fluttering in her chest. If a lingering melancholy from previous humiliations wished to take root in her ribs, she would simply evict the sensation by filling the void with sarcenet, lace, and exorbitant trifles.
Schmidt, nearly buried beneath a mountain of striped hatboxes, trailed five paces behind, wheezing like a bellows with a puncture. Caroline paid her no mind. One did not remunerate servants to breathe with ease. One paid them to bear the physical weight of one's superior taste.
She paused before the bow window of a stationer's shop to inspect her reflection.
The new walking dress of burnt sienna, worn beneath a pelisse of distinctively bright violet velvet, announced her presence with the subtlety of a coronation cannon.
The bonnet, crowned with three towering ostrich feathers, added nearly a foot to her stature, and she was tall for a woman.
It was a magnificent assemblage. It screamed consequence. It screamed validity.
A dowager in a carriage passing by, wearing drab, respectable grey, raised a lorgnette and inspected the violet velvet as one might inspect a suspicious rash.
Caroline lifted her chin, the feathers bobbing with aggressive pride.
Let them stare. The peerage wore dull muslins and faded coats because they were crumbling into dust, their fortunes eaten by moths and mortgages.
She was new masonry, freshly painted and fortified.
She turned from the window, intent on acquiring a set of hot-pressed writing paper she did not require, when a figure emerged from the shop directly into her path.
The man halted, blinking against the weak afternoon light.
He wore a coat of blue superfine cut by a master, Weston, undoubtedly, although the cuffs bore the tell-tale sheen of a garment brushed a dozen times too many.
His buckskin breeches were immaculate and undeniably worn, and his Hessian boots, though polished to a black mirror, had seen better years.
The Colonel.
He did not see her immediately. His attention remained fixed on the object in his hand, a single, small parcel wrapped in coarse brown paper, tied with a frugal piece of string.
A gentleman, the son of an Earl, carrying his own purchase on Bond Street?
It was a social crime akin to walking past St James's Palace in one's shirt sleeves.
Caroline planted her boots firmly on the pavement, effectively blocking his escape route.
"I laboured under the impression that beasts of burden were restricted to the road, sir," she announced, her voice pitching high to carry over the street noise. "Yet here you are on the footpath, doing a porter's work."
He looked up. His eyes, dark and sharply intelligent, swept over her violet pelisse, taking in the brown hem, the velvet, and the feathers.
He did not wince, though the corner of his mouth twitched, a danger signal she remembered well.
He tucked the shameful brown parcel under his arm with the casual arrogance of a monarch holding a sceptre, showing no embarrassment whatsoever.
"And I laboured under the impression the Royal Menagerie was not due in town until May," he replied, his tone smooth as glass. "Yet here stands the rarest bird in full plumage."
Her spine stiffened against the whalebone of her stays. "I see your wit is as threadbare as your cuffs. Tell me, do you carry that parcel for a wager? Surely even a man of your reduced circumstances can afford a penny for a delivery boy."
"I prefer to ensure the safety of my acquisitions personally." He stepped to the left, attempting to bypass her with a tip of his hat. "Unlike those who trust their valuables to a servant already buckling under the weight of questionable millinery."
She moved to the left as well, the feathers on her bonnet quivering with indignation. "My millinery is the height of fashion. Madame Fanchon assured me this shade of violet is all the rage in Paris."
"If by 'Paris' she meant a bruised plum left too long in the orchard, then Madame Fanchon is a woman of integrity.
" He dusted a microscopic speck of lint from his lapel, his demeanour infuriatingly calm.
"You are blocking the thoroughfare, Miss Bingley.
People are beginning to mistake you for a toll gate. "
The use of her formal title, delivered with such precise, chilly courtesy, annoyed her more than an insult. He maintained the high ground of manners while dragging her into the mud.
"I am merely admiring the spectacle," she countered, snapping her fan open with a crack that startled a passing clergyman.
"It is rare to see a member of the aristocracy performing manual labour.
What is in the paper, Colonel? A single candle?
A crust of bread? Or have you taken to mending your own stockings? "
"It is a volume on the history of silence," he drawled, looking past her ear as if bored by the very air she exhaled. "I intended to send it to your address, Miss Bingley, but I feared you might mistake it for a coaster."
"Ha! I possess more etiquette in my little finger than you retain in your entire ancient, crumbling family tree.
" She laughed, a loud, bright sound that caused a pair of dandies to turn their heads.
"At least my family can pay for our eccentricities.
You wear your pride like a coat of armour, but we both know it is the only coat you have left. "
He leaned in slightly, though he kept his hands clasped on the parcel. "Wealth screams, Miss Bingley. Breeding whispers. At present, your ensemble is shouting so loudly I can barely hear the traffic."
"Better to shout and be heard than to whisper and be forgotten.
" She gestured grandly with her fan, the movement swift and sharp, encompassing the street, the shops, the world that belonged to those with ready coin.
"You sneer at my money, but without people like me spending it, half of London would starve.
Including, I suspect, the younger sons of Earls. "
"I assure you, my appetite is modest." He cast a pitying glance at the overflowing bags and boxes in the hands of her gasping maid. "Unlike your appetite for feathers. Have you left any birds alive in the kingdom, or is this a total extinction?"
In her haste to deliver a scathing retort, Caroline gestured too widely. Her reticule swung on its ribbon, striking the top of the maid's precarious pile. A small, tissue-wrapped box, containing a bottle of scent costing more than a labourer's yearly wage, tumbled from the stack.
It landed with a soft thud near the Colonel's scuffed Hessians.
Caroline froze. She waited. Schmidt was incapacitated by hatboxes, her arms full, her face red. The laws of chivalry were clear. The laws of Society were immutable. A gentleman stooped. A gentleman retrieved.
He looked at the box. He looked at her. He remained perfectly upright, indistinguishable from a statue in the park.
"Well?" she demanded, tapping her foot on the paving stone.
"Well what, Miss Bingley?"
"Do you intend to retrieve it? Or do you plan to leave a lady's property in the dirt?"
He sighed, a long, weary exhalation that suggested he was dealing with a particularly slow child. "I fear I cannot. I suffer from a debilitating injury."
Caroline blinked, her mouth falling open. "You were walking perfectly fine a moment ago. You sidestepped me with the agility of a fencing master."
"It is a recurring affliction." His face became a mask of solemn, mocking tragedy.
"A terrible strain of the lower back. It occurred only a few days past, whilst carrying an unreasonable number of parcels for a woman who possessed more guineas than sense.
The physician prescribed strict avoidance of dropped trifles. "
She gasped, scandalised. The impudence! "You refuse? You honestly refuse?"
"Doctor's orders."
"I could pay you," she snapped, reaching into her reticule, her fingers closing around a shilling. "Since you are already carrying parcels, perchance you wish to make a profession of it? A shilling to pick up the box. Is that not the going rate for a porter?"
He stepped closer, invading her personal space until she could smell the faint, clean scent of sandalwood and starch that clung to him despite his worn coat. The mockery vanished from his eyes, replaced by a cold, hard glint of the aristocracy that no amount of money could purchase.
"Keep your coins, Miss Bingley." His voice was low, devoid of humour. "You could not afford me."
The air between them crackled, charged with a strange energy that sat somewhere between fury and fascination. Before she could calculate a response to such breathtaking arrogance, the atmosphere on the street shifted.
From down the road came the raucous baying of hounds, or rather, men who behaved like them.
A phalanx of five young bucks, arms linked, cravats starched high enough to obscure their ears, came barrelling down the pavement.
They were loud, flushed with midday wine, and moving with the blind entitlement of those who owned the stones beneath their boots.
They took up the entire width of the path, forcing pedestrians into the gutter.
Caroline stood directly in their trajectory. Her violet dress was a beacon, but to these men, in their intoxicated state, she was merely an obstacle to be shoved aside.
She saw them coming. Panic flared in her throat. She froze, clutching her reticule, bracing for the impact, the insult, the mud.
The Colonel moved.
It was not a dramatic gesture. He did not draw a sword or raise a fist. He simply shifted his stance.
One moment he was the antagonist, sneering at her wealth.
The next, he was a wall of blue superfine positioned between her and the oncoming tide.
He turned his back to her, shielding her completely with his body, facing the group head-on.
"Worthy," he said. The name was spoken softly, but it cut through the noise like a whip crack.
The leader of the group skidded to a halt, the chain reaction causing his companions to stumble and sway. He squinted, fighting the haze of alcohol to focus on the man standing calm and immobile before him.
"Colonel?" The young lord blinked, his face slackening. "Is that you? We thought you were dead or in the country."
"Neither, though the difference is negligible." The Colonel's tone was bored, and his posture relaxed but immovable. "You are blocking the lady's path, chaps. And you are shouting. My head aches."
The young lords looked from him to the sliver of violet velvet visible behind his shoulder. They did not sneer. They did not shove. The recognition of his rank, and perhaps a memory of his temper, sobered them instantly.
"Apologies, Colonel," Worthy mumbled, tipping his beaver hat. "Didn't see. Spirits. Jolly good fun."
"Take your fun to the park," the Colonel dismissed them with a flick of his fingers.
They streamed around the pair like water parting around a rock, murmuring deferential apologies, giving him a wide berth. Caroline stood in the lee of his protection, staring at the back of his coat. For a moment, she was not the rich tradesman's daughter fighting for respect. She was simply safe.
He waited until the group had vanished around the corner before turning back to her. He did not ask if she was unharmed. He did not seek gratitude. He merely adjusted his brown parcel. Whatever he was thinking, his face gave nothing away, though it was certainly not admiration.
"Try not to get trampled, Miss Bingley," he said. "It would ruin the velvet."
He touched the brim of his hat and walked away, leaving the little box of scent lying on the stones.
Caroline stood there, her heart hammering against her ribs. She motioned sharply for the maid to retrieve the box. "Pick it up, Schmidt. Do not gawk."
As she turned to compose herself, preparing to march to her carriage with her head high, a movement across the street caught her eye.
An elegant barouche, painted in a dark, understated maroon, was idling by the kerb. The drapes were open. Framed within it sat a woman of advancing years but formidable beauty. She wore an elegant bonnet of severe grey silk, and her posture was as rigid as iron.
It was the Countess of Matlock. The Colonel's mother.
The older woman was not looking at her son.
She was looking directly at Caroline, not with the usual sneer of the ton, nor the blank dismissal of a stranger, but with a stern, penetrating gaze that gave nothing away.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, calculating, assessing, like a general surveying a battlefield or a jeweller inspecting a flawed but curious diamond.
Caroline felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wind.
She had seen it all. The argument. The parcel.
The protection. The Countess gave a single, imperceptible nod, to whom, Caroline could not say, and signalled for her driver to move on.
The carriage rolled away, leaving Caroline standing on the pavement, surrounded by her expensive purchases, feeling unsettled and exposed.