CHAPTER FOUR THE WIDOW IN RED #2
The room became attentive. Gabriel suspected several members of the Society were enjoying his discomfort with more enthusiasm than friendship should permit.
He walked slowly around Eleanor, keeping enough distance to avoid touching the skirts.
She stood still while he examined the disguise.
The gown communicated wealth without family supervision, sensuality without desperation and enough independence to explain why a woman might enter a private salon upon a notorious man’s arm.
The colour altered Eleanor’s appearance not because it made her more beautiful, but because it made the beauty already present impossible to ignore.
Her face remained composed, her dark eyes watchful and intelligent. The contrast between restraint and the richness of the gown was far more provocative than obvious flirtation would have been. Gabriel stopped before her.
“The gown is suitable.”
Frances sighed. “Such poetry.”
“The neckline may be too modest.”
Eleanor’s brows rose.
Gabriel reached toward the upper edge of the bodice but stopped before touching her. “May I?”
Every woman in the room became extremely still. Eleanor looked at his hand, then at his face.
“Yes.”
He placed two fingers lightly against the silk near her left shoulder and adjusted the fabric by less than an inch.
The movement exposed no more of her breast than before, yet the contact sent heat through his fingertips.
Eleanor’s breathing changed. He saw the slight lift beneath the bodice and felt the answering pull low in his body. He withdrew his hand.
“There.”
Frances stared. “You moved nothing.”
“I corrected balance.”
“You touched her neckline.”
“That was the correction.”
Eleanor’s gaze remained upon him. “And what does the corrected balance communicate?”
Gabriel made himself answer professionally.
“That you know men are looking and consider their response their own difficulty.”
“Is that what a widow should communicate?”
“At the Mercury Club, yes.”
“She has been taught all her life to prevent men from looking,” Sophia said.
Eleanor folded her hands. “Or to regard their attention as proof that I have behaved improperly.”
Gabriel looked at her. The room’s amusement faded. He had seen the result of that training in too many women. A glance became accusation, desire became responsibility and male entitlement was transformed into female shame with astonishing social efficiency.
“The lesson is not how to invite entitlement,” he said. “It is how to refuse shame.”
Eleanor’s expression altered. Something passed between them, quieter than flirtation and more intimate than the touch at her neckline. Gabriel looked away first.
“Mrs. Grey should wear no gloves once the salon becomes private,” he continued. “A widow has no need to preserve maidenly mystery around her hands.”
Frances immediately reached for Eleanor’s gloves.
Gabriel stopped her. “She can remove them herself.”
Eleanor did so slowly. Whether the movement was deliberate or simply felt deliberate because he watched, Gabriel could not tell.
She loosened each finger before drawing the first glove away, revealing the ink mark beside her thumb.
The second followed. Her hands were not ornamental.
They were scholar’s hands, often stained by work and more accustomed to paper than jewels.
Gabriel found them dangerously appealing.
Eleanor laid the gloves upon a table. “Anything else?”
“Rich colours rather than pastels. Jewellery suggesting experience rather than innocence. No maidenly pearls. Do not hold your fan too tightly. Do not adjust the neckline because someone looks at it.”
“What should I do?”
“Decide whether the attention is useful.”
“And if it is not?”
“Dismiss it.”
“How?”
Gabriel met her gaze. “As though the man has failed to interest you rather than succeeded in embarrassing you.”
She considered that.
“Demonstrate.”
He glanced around the room. “Here?”
“You are the instructor.”
The others looked prepared to remain indefinitely.
Gabriel stepped closer to Eleanor and allowed his gaze to descend.
He did not look crudely. Crudity was too simple.
He looked as a man might when imagining what the gown concealed, lingering upon the curves of her breasts before tracing the line of her waist and hips.
Heat climbed Eleanor’s throat. Her fingers moved slightly, as though she wished to cover herself.
Then she stilled them. She lifted one brow. Gabriel continued looking.
At last, she said, “Have you finished?”
“Nearly.”
“I feared so.”
The room filled with laughter. Gabriel smiled, but his body had ceased to find the exercise amusing. Eleanor looked at him without lowering her gaze or adjusting the silk. The colour along her skin remained, but it no longer resembled embarrassment. It resembled arousal. Gabriel stepped back.
“Excellent,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed faintly. “You sound breathless.”
“I climbed the stairs.”
“There are fourteen.”
“I am a delicate man.”
“No one has ever made that mistake.”
Beatrice checked the clock. “You should leave before Eleanor’s false widowhood expires.”
Gabriel offered his arm. Eleanor placed her bare hand upon his sleeve. The contact was ordinary. He felt it everywhere.
* * *
Madame Sabine Laurent’s salon occupied the upper floor of a discreet house near Portman Square.
Its windows were screened by deep blue curtains, its servants were paid enough to remember nothing and its guest list was assembled according to interest rather than respectability.
Gabriel had attended frequently. Sabine had been born in Lyon, married an English banker at nineteen and become a wealthy widow at twenty-eight when her husband died after mistaking persistent chest pain for indigestion.
London society tolerated her because she spoke excellent English, wore French gowns and never repeated stories unless their subjects had become boring.
Her salon attracted musicians, diplomats, artists, minor royals, scholars, courtesans and political figures who preferred pleasure without official records.
It was the ideal place to test Mrs. Helena Grey.
It was also the first time Gabriel had entered Sabine’s drawing room hoping no one would take an interest in the woman upon his arm.
That contradiction irritated him before they reached the top of the stairs.
Eleanor wore a dark cloak over the red gown, its hood drawn enough to shield her face from servants in the street.
When Gabriel helped remove it in the entrance hall, three nearby conversations paused. He noticed.
Eleanor noticed him noticing. She did not look toward the people staring. Instead, she rested one hand upon his arm and waited while a footman carried away the cloak.
“Well?” she murmured.
“Do not seek reassurance.”
“I sought assessment.”
“You have attracted attention.”
“Have I responded incorrectly?”
“No.”
“Then your concern appears personal.”
Gabriel looked down at her. The garnet pendant rested against her skin.
“It is professional.”
“Of course.”
Her disbelief was becoming irritatingly attractive. Sabine appeared before he could answer. She wore silver silk, black diamonds and the smile of a woman who had recognised entertainment from across a crowded room.
“Gabriel,” she said. “You have brought me a mystery.”
He bowed over her hand. “Madame Laurent, allow me to present Mrs. Helena Grey, recently returned from Florence.”
Sabine turned her attention to Eleanor. The inspection was direct but not unkind. Eleanor received it exactly as instructed, neither shrinking nor overcompensating.
“Florence,” Sabine said. “Then you must be disappointed by English winters.”
“Only by English heating,” Eleanor replied.
Sabine laughed. Gabriel concealed his satisfaction.
“My husband maintained rooms near the Piazza della Signoria,” Eleanor continued. “They were inconveniently warm and filled with statues he claimed to understand.”
“Men always understand statues. They cannot contradict them.”
“Mine preferred them for that reason.”
Sabine’s eyes brightened. “You will sit beside me at supper.”
Gabriel had intended Eleanor to remain beside him.
He smiled. “You will corrupt her.”
“Then I shall return her improved.”
Eleanor looked at Gabriel. “I was promised instruction.”
“You were promised survival.”
“Those objectives need not conflict.”
Sabine led them into the main salon. A quartet played near the far windows.
Guests gathered beneath gilt mirrors and around low tables crowded with wine, fruit and candles.
The atmosphere was more intimate than a fashionable assembly, with fewer chaperones, lower voices and enough concealed corners to encourage private conversation.
Julian and Beatrice had already arrived separately.
Julian stood beside a cabinet speaking to an ambassador.
He wore black and looked as though he considered music an inefficient method of conveying information.
Beatrice sat near the musicians with Catherine and did not glance toward Eleanor.
The protection was present without becoming visible.
Gabriel approved. Then a man in diplomatic blue crossed toward them.
Count Henri de Vauclair had served as an attaché in Vienna, Paris and several smaller courts where political loyalty altered according to dinner invitations.
He was handsome in a polished, careful way, with dark hair touched by silver and eyes that evaluated rooms for influence before beauty.
His connection to the Mercury Club made him useful.
His interest in Eleanor made him intolerable.
“Lord Ashcombe,” Vauclair said. “I had heard you were becoming respectable.”
“Malicious rumours spread quickly.”
Vauclair smiled and turned toward Eleanor. Gabriel performed the introduction.
“Mrs. Grey,” the diplomat said, taking her ungloved hand. “Florence has been selfish to keep you.”