Chapter 4
Four
Mrs. Edward Lovelock, née Catherine Cooke of the London stage, originally Kate Cooksey of the West Midlands, stood on a platform in the frigid fitting room of Madame Beauchamp’s shop and rubbed at the gooseflesh on her bare arms.
Seamstresses clustered around her, taking her measurements even though there was no need for new measurements, nothing had changed about her body in the last fifteen years, not since she had recovered from giving birth to Arabella. The seamstresses were wasting their time.
As was she.
It was madness to order a new dress in October in the hope of wearing it in November.
Madame Beauchamp and her staff were overtaxed at this time of the year.
The shop was a hive of activity; the bell on the front door jangled constantly, announcing the arrival and departure of customers.
Normally, Catherine would have had Madame Beauchamp come to the Lovelock house to discuss color and cut, but the modiste was so very much in demand that Catherine, like all other customers, had been forced to come to the shop.
And she had come alone.
Solitude had crept into Catherine’s life piecemeal over the last five years. First, her husband had died. Then her oldest stepdaughter Mary had married and gone to live in Wales with her husband, the Viscount Tregaron.
Her other stepdaughter Harriet—Harry amongst family—had wed last spring, just two months after Lady Huxley’s ball. Harry now resided with her husband Thomas Drake, the Earl Drake, at his country seat Sommerleigh, where she ardently pursued her one and only love, mathematics.
And Arabella, the only child Catherine had given her beloved Edward, had gone off to see a puppet show today with the Dalrymple family.
At sixteen years of age, Arabella was a little mature for such amusement, but the Dalrymple girls ranged in age from seventeen to seven, and the whole family still enjoyed going to see the puppets.
Afterwards, all of them would go back to the Dalrymple house and recreate the puppet play in the nursery with a great deal of merriment.
Madame Beauchamp, tall and angular and dressed in a puce-colored frock of her own design, her dark hair streaked with white and scraped into a severe chignon, cast a critical eye over Catherine and spoke to the apprentice seamstress scribbling notes.
“If you can manage it, idiote, write that la Veuve Lovelock est très petite. We would use the child dress form but for the bosoms, which are of a large size. Comprends-tu, petite sotte?”
The harassed apprentice bit her lip and nodded.
Success had turned Madame Beauchamp into a petty tyrant. Her dresses might be the most fashionable in all of London, but Catherine would take her custom elsewhere in the future.
“Do you know, Madame Lovelock,” Madame Beauchamp said in a loud whisper, “we have a lover’s door for this salle d’essayage?
If you have a gentleman who is interested in your dresses, he can enter here.
” She strode to a corner and indicated a tall, narrow door, partially hidden by a cheval glass.
“He can supervise your fittings, help you select your silks, and no one will ever be the wiser.”
Except the modiste herself, of course, and her seamstresses. Who would all be sure to spread the gossip.
“Even my late husband had no say in my clothes, Madame Beauchamp.” A polite smile masked Catherine’s pique. “He trusted my taste in all things.” Now a careful lie. “And there is no gentleman of my acquaintance who is interested in my gowns.”
“For now.” Madame Beauchamp gestured impatiently at another seamstress who moved a small set of stairs next to the platform.
The modiste offered Catherine her hand to step down and then pulled her in front of a full-length mirror and stood behind her, placing her hands on Catherine’s shoulders, easily peering over the top of her head.
Madame Beauchamp sighed. “Still so young.”
Forced to look at her own reflection, Catherine could admit she did look much younger than her forty-five years.
Golden curls, still bright, gathered in a simple twist atop her head with a few loose locks framing her unlined face.
Smooth neck and shoulders. And, yes, as Madame Beauchamp had pointed out, her bosom was of a large size in comparison to her height.
A small waist, with or without stays, and then the flare of her hips, which were not as pronounced as her breasts.
Her legs were hidden by her petticoat, but they were well-shaped, if short. Like the rest of her.
“Madame Lovelock, is it time? Time to shed the lavender, les vêtements de la veuve, how do you say, the widow’s weeds? You have been in the half mourning for—what?—many years. Far too long. It is time for you to start living again.”
Catherine pressed her lips together before speaking. “Yes. Perhaps it is time.”
Because there was a gentleman who was interested in how she dressed. Sir Francis Ffoulkes had been pressing her to discard her lavender for the last three months, ever since he had proposed marriage to her.
Just last week, in her own drawing room, he had said, “What will it look like if you go straight from half mourning to a wedding dress?”
“Edward has been gone for five years. Surely people can have no grounds to say I didn’t wait an adequate amount of time before remarrying?” Catherine smiled. “Would they not say the same for you then?” Sir Francis’ wife had only died a year ago.
Sir Francis frowned. “I do not think anyone would find fault in my behavior.”
“Of course not, Sir Francis.” Catherine stopped smiling. “I myself am very sensitive to propriety. But I have not yet consented to be your wife, so there is no need to worry about what people will say.”
He swept her hands to his mouth and kissed her fingertips. “But I must marry you, Catherine. Why do you delay your answer? Do you hope to inflame my ardor for you?”
“No.” She withdrew her hands and turned away. No, the baronet’s polite ardor was more than adequate. Her ardor was the thing that was absent.
But, surely, that was what she wanted. Was that not the primary reason she had encouraged Sir Francis’ courtship? She did not want to feel the wicked throb that would lead her down the path to oblivion, the path she had trodden all those years ago.
She had not thought to marry again. Not until her lust demon had awoken and begun clawing at its cage, slavering after James, and she realized she needed to be steered away from the temptation to hunt down and seduce a very-silly-but-oh-so-arousing James Cavendish.
The boy-man marquess was pure peril for her, just as Roger had been all those years ago when she had come so close to irrevocable ruin.
That peril, that temptation had been reason enough to accept the attentions of Sir Francis Ffoulkes, whose older and rather solid presence reminded her at times of her husband Edward.
Of course, Sir Francis had not the goodness nor the wisdom nor the tenderness of the late Mr. Lovelock.
But he seemed safe. Calm. Quelling. She needed to be quelled.
Sir Francis, so respectable, could quell her.
Yes, marriage could save her as it had once before. But she had still not agreed to marry Sir Francis.
Madame Beauchamp lifted her hands from Catherine’s shoulders and clapped them together twice.
“Magnifique. There is a blue silk, when I saw it, I said if only la Veuve Lovelock would consent, it is the exact shade of her eyes. Someone bring it, immédiatement!”
A lovely rich-blue silk cascaded off a roll and over Catherine’s chest.
“Parfait!” Madame Beauchamp cooed and named a price for the dress.
Catherine might have appeared serene, but Kate Cooksey, the farm girl who still lived inside her, blanched.
Madame Beauchamp had named a sum that was more than Catherine had paid for her last three ball gowns put together.
But she could afford it. And, what’s more, Madame Beauchamp knew she could afford it.
Catherine nodded her consent.
“Bien su?r. And I warn you, it will be au décolleté audacieux.” With a trace of her finger over Catherine’s chest, Madame Beauchamp indicated the dress would be cut so low as to barely cover Catherine's areolas. “It will be a masterpiece of daring. This will bring la passion back to your life. L’excitation! You will awaken loins and break hearts everywhere you go! You will be submergée with lovers. And who knows, chérie? Maybe someone will capture your heart, too.”
Catherine shivered and turned away, seeking out the seamstress who would help her back into her own dress.
As the familiar lavender wool slid over her head, she reminded herself—as she had many times over the last six months—she had no interest whatsoever in loins or hearts.
She just wanted a new dress. For Sir Francis Ffoulkes’ house party next month. When she would likely consent to be his wife. That was all.
For her, la passion est morte.
Catherine nodded her thanks to the young woman who had fastened her buttons. She replaced her bonnet, drew on her gloves, gathered her reticule.
She was calm, composed. Unruffled, untroubled. Virtuous widow, worthy mother.
But, deep inside, she could hear the lust demon howling one word.
Jamie.