Glass and Silk
Chapter sixteen
Henry
The shop was narrow and dark. A bell above the door rang when he entered.
The smell hit him first, much like his mother’s stillroom: dried things, beeswax, oil of clove.
Shelves ran floor to ceiling on both walls, packed tight with jars and bottles and bundles tied with string.
A counter stood at the back. Behind it, a man.
The man was perhaps fifty, thin, stooped at the shoulders. He wore a brown apron and was measuring powder into a jar. He did not look up.
“Be with you in a moment.”
Henry crossed the floor. The boards complained beneath him.
He did not stop at the counter but went around it into the man’s working space and ran his eye along the shelves behind.
A tabby cat asleep on a wooden chair raised its head, saw him at close quarters, and shot from the chair with a shriek.
The shopkeeper whipped around. “Sir!”
“Your Grace.”
The brass scoop dropped out of his hand and rolled half a turn before it stopped. “I—I beg your pardon?”
“I am the Duke of Iredell.”
The man bent at the waist, hands clasped at his chest. “Your Grace. I am honoured—”
“Was it this one?”
Henry held a jar between them.
“I don’t—I don’t understand—”
“The lady you turned out of your shop four days past was my wife.”
The blood went from the man’s face.
“No need to apologize to me, good man. Tell me. Did you sell her this one?”
“No, Your Grace.”
“A pity.”
Henry let the jar fall.
It struck the boards and burst. A dark powder bloomed across the floor. The shopkeeper jerked forward to catch the glass, then jerked back, remembering who had dropped it.
“Your Grace.”
Henry was already reaching for the next. He held it in his hand and turned it once. The label was in a careful hand. The paper was yellow with age.
“Was it this one you sold her?”
“Please forgive me, Your—”
“Was it?”
“No, Your Grace.”
He opened his hand. The jar burst on the boards. A smell came up at once, sharp and green, and clung to the air between them. The shopkeeper had a hand at his mouth.
“This one?”
“Please!”
“Tell me!”
“No, Your Grace.” His voice had gone thin.
“I shall not stop, you understand, until I find the one you sold my wife. I cannot bring myself to believe you would disrespect her and her station so foolishly.”
He let the jar fall.
The shopkeeper flinched. He had begun to shake.
“Please! She didn’t look like a duchess. She told me, but I couldn’t believe her. What kind of duchess—”
“What kind of duchess?” Henry repeated. He was already reaching for another. “Go on. Finish the sentence.”
“Your Grace, I meant only—”
Henry pulled the jar down and held it loosely between thumb and forefinger.
“What kind of duchess wears a plain dress and walks in without a footman at her elbow? What kind of duchess does not bring her card? Yes. I see your difficulty.”
“Thank you, You—”
He opened his hand. The jar fell. Glass and seed scattered across the boards.
“She is the kind of duchess whose word is to be believed when she gives her name. She is the kind whom a man in trade owes the courtesy of doubt, if doubt must be exercised at all, rather than the courtesy of contempt.”
He took up another jar and turned it slowly in his hand. The man went very still.
“Have you a wife?”
“Your Grace?”
“A wife. A daughter. A mother yet living.”
“A wife, Your Grace. Two daughters.”
“And what should you wish for them, were they to walk into a shop on an errand they had set themselves, and find behind the counter a man such as yourself?”
The shopkeeper did not answer.
“Quite.” Henry replaced the jar on the shelf so delicately that the glass made no sound against the wood. The man’s eyes had not left it.
“Now hear me. You shall close this shop early. You shall present yourself at Iredell House at four o’clock this afternoon.
You shall bring with you a full apology, written in your own hand, addressed to Her Grace the Duchess of Iredell.
You shall express in the plainest possible terms your regret for your conduct.
You shall read it aloud to her on your knees. Is this clear?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Four o’clock. Not five minutes after.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Henry stepped over the wreckage and took up his hat from the counter.
“And clean up this place. It is a disgrace,” Henry said, and walked out into the street.
The bell rang behind him.
The carriage to Bond Street took a quarter of an hour. Henry sat with his hat on his knee.
Madame Renard’s establishment had a quieter sort of door than most. Plain glass. A single bonnet on a stand in the window, lavender flowers that reminded him of his wife’s scent. The two girls at the long table inside looked up when he entered. The taller of them rose at once.
“Your Grace.”
“Where is Madame Renard?”
The girl’s mouth opened.
The other girl was already moving toward the rear of the shop. Henry followed without waiting. She glanced back once, saw his face, and walked faster. She led him down a short passage to a door where she lifted her hand and tapped lightly upon it.
“Madame—”
Henry placed his hand on the door above her own and pushed it open.
Madame Renard sat at a small writing table by the window, a measuring tape draped across her shoulders, a ledger open in front of her, and a cup of chocolate steaming at her elbow. She looked up when the door swung inward, and her mouth produced a smile that died in stages.
“Your Grace. What an unexpected—”
“Are my wife’s dresses ready?”
The smile vanished from her face.
“Your Grace, I—”
“Where are her shoes? Her bonnets? Where are the morning wardrobe and the ball gown? Where is anything bearing the name Iredell to be found in this shop today?”
The cup rattled in its saucer, and Madame Renard’s hand closed around the edge of her writing table.
“Your Grace, I beg your pardon. I have had a great many orders this season.”
“Have you begun?”
“I, um—”
“She was here the better part of a week ago. Show me what you have done to date.”
Her eyes had gone very wide, and she rose to her feet, smoothing her skirts with hands that would not be still.
“The patterns… the patterns are drafted, Your Grace. The work is… in the queue.”
“In the queue.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“Behind whom?”
She swallowed. No words left her mouth.
His palm came down upon the writing table with a force that made the cup leap in its saucer. The chocolate slopped over the rim and spread across the open page of the ledger. Madame Renard stepped back until her shoulders met the wall.
“Behind whom? Who could possibly be more important than the Duchess of Iredell?”
“Your Grace, if I may explain.”
Henry stood to his full height and crossed his arms.
The woman’s voice shook as she said, “The reason we haven’t started is that Her Grace left in a rush. I was waiting—”
Henry took a step closer. The madame tilted her head back to look at him.
“You were waiting for my wife, a duchess, to seek you out and do your bidding?”
She swallowed again. “Of course not, Your Grace. But calling on her would be… inappropriate when she had not invited us.”
“Is that so? Then tell me, why did she leave in such a hurry?”
Her eyes widened. “I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me correctly. Why did my wife rush out of here? Could it be because you ignored her? Offended her? Showed her anything but the utmost respect she deserved?”
Her mouth opened and stayed open.
“Answer me!”
She flinched. “Of course not. I was only trying to be helpful. I gave her my opinion and advice about dresses that might suit her.”
All the muscles in Henry’s body tightened. “My wife is a reasonable woman with the patience of an angel. She would not depart if you had not greatly affronted her.”
The woman’s head lowered. “I meant well.”
Henry stepped away from the desk.
“What did she order?”
“Your Grace?”
“My wife. What did she order?”
Madame Renard fumbled with her ledger, her fingers carefully avoiding the chocolate.
“Two walking dresses, Your Grace, and the ball gown for Lady Carstairs’s. Day slippers in two colours, evening slippers in white satin. Gloves.”
“The first complete set of morning and day dresses shall be in my wife’s dressing room three days from today. And the ball gown for Lady Carstairs’s shall be delivered within a week. You will dress my wife as a Duchess of Iredell ought to be dressed.”
The pen had rolled from the ledger and lay on the floor between them. Her hands were pressed flat to the wall behind her.
“I beg your pardon, Your Grace, but one week for a ball gown by itself would mean—”
“You took my wife’s measurements a week ago. By your own account you have drafted your patterns and done nothing further. You have wasted the time you were given.”
His voice dropped, very low. Madame Renard flinched as though he had shouted instead.
“You will not waste what remains. The account is open. Do not make me return.”
“Y—Yes, Your Grace.”
Henry took up his hat from the corner of her writing table and walked out without sparing her another glance.
In the carriage Henry drew off his gloves and laid them on the seat beside him.
It had been about the disrespect, plainly and entirely. They had not insulted his wife so much as they had insulted his name. That was what he had defended this afternoon: the name.
He looked out at the wet street.
He had been a duke when the ton would not have him to dinner, when ladies crossed the room at Almack’s, when no door in Mayfair would open to him the Season after Margaret died. And he had been a duke when the Alliance of Dukes did not acknowledge his wedding to his fourth wife.
What chance, then, had a poor baron’s daughter from Hampstead, walking into a Bond Street shop?
For an instant, with the rain striking the glass beside him, he saw her walking into that shop in her grey wool and her new shoes, alone, and giving her name to a man who laughed at it.
He let out a grunt and shifted in his seat.
She did not deserve his pity. She deserved a great deal better than that.