Chapter One
Whenever had a knife twirled so fast it became a vicious, glittering blur of metal?
Never.
Gibb Alford, the Duke of Menteith, had expected to be bored. Or on guard against any female who had somehow wangled her way into the spectacular. Or, although he devoutly hoped it wouldn’t be so, both. Not that any woman should be there, but he was by now much too cynical to expect what should be so to actually be thus.
What he also hadn’t envisaged was this unfamiliar tug of arousal directed toward the main act of the night. Who was a female, although he presumed an invited one. One who stirred his senses in a manner he’d almost forgotten.
Gibb didn’t do arousal. Not now. Or, he amended, he hadn’t. He stood on the terrace, amidst his peers but alone, a glass of the finest French brandy in his hand. In silence he watched the Chinese firecrackers and flaring sconces set around the lawn vie with the moon and stars for brightness, and willed his body to behave. Not for the first time he wondered what he was doing there. Why wasn’t he at home on his beloved Scottish estate? At times being a conscientious peer was annoying to say the least.
Someone bumped into him and apologized as Gibb scowled. He didn’t want his concentration spoiled, or his brandy spilled by an idiot like Algernon Follet.
As Follet swayed, Gibb held his goblet out of the way. Good brandy was not to be wasted. Gibb watched his fellow spectator stumble away, miss the fishpond by inches and lurch round a statue, before he ignored the man and instead turned his attention back to what was happening on the lawn. Only to tug at his suddenly too tight cravat because of what he once again saw in front of him.
In the middle of the perfect, manicured, luscious grass, a wooden platform had been erected in front of a large, plain white, thick canvas screen. Before it, the curvaceous raven-haired beauty who had attracted him minutes earlier stood with her arms outstretched, her crimson lips wide and an invitation to every man in the vicinity to stop, stare and give her their undivided attention. Dressed in something made of two-tone material, the like of which he’d never seen before, with hidden slits up each side, she presented a picture of contradictions. Gibb was sure she made each and every one of the audience imagine what the gown might or might not conceal.
The illusion of material not really there was very clever, Gibb mused. The flesh-colored silk that swung loose from her shoulders matched her skin, so he couldn’t see where skin finished and material began. The bodice fit snug around her generous breasts in such a way he had to wonder just how it stayed in place. Her lustrous hair swung loose over her shoulders in a riot of curls and sparkling jewels hung from her ears and around one ankle, just above one of a pair of sandals that from a distance appeared flimsy and delicate. In her left hand she held a wicked-looking knife—a stiletto, he noticed—now still and unmoving. Even so, it shone in the twinkling lights that surrounded her.
The last firecracker sizzled and died, and with just the flickering torches to light her, the woman bowed to the assembled men. “I need,” she said with a husky, seductive French accent, “a man.”
The howls and catcalls would have overwhelmed anyone without a strong determination. She waited, arms folded and with an amused look on her face, until there was once more silence. Then she raised one eyebrow. Even at the distance he was, Gibb realized the woman was toying with them. Teasing them about something they thought would happen and she knew would not.
To his annoyance, his body tightened even more. He did not want this reaction to an unknown woman. Hell, he didn’t want it with regards to anyone known to him either. Gibb Alford wanted no one to disturb his well-ordered life. The life where his mind never let him shy away from the sole thing that tore into him. His wife was dead and he was to blame. He was never going to be put in a similar position again.
Never.
The lady fixed her gaze on one of the men near to the front and beckoned to him in what some might call a seductive manner. Gibb chose to interpret it in a different way. Her body language showed nothing of seduction, except for that curled finger. Was it a come-hither gesture? He thought not. However, it worked. Young Lord Denby Crowe bowed in an extravagant manner and swaggered toward her.
God, Gibb mused, he felt old and jaded. Why could they not see the act for what it was? Entertainment, not innuendo. Why was he here? Because it was better than sitting alone in an empty house and wondering why it had all gone wrong. Here were no scheming mamas or desperate debs who saw him as a challenge or a poor wounded widower who needed a new wife. To his horror, not long before, a brazen and giggling chit had even accosted him outside the card room at one of the few soirees he’d felt compelled to attend and suggested he looked at her daughter.
No, no and no.
With an inward shudder of distaste at the memory, Gibb returned his attention to the vista in front of him and the very different woman in their midst.
“Take off your coat, my lord,” the woman said with a slow and throaty drawl to her… Her what? Victim? “Pass it to one of your colleagues so it does not get in the way.”
Crowe did so, smirked at his friends and stood with one leg bent in a suggestive manner before he put his hands to his cravat.
She shook her head. “Oh no, m’sieur, I would not do that. That is a good guard in case my aim is wrong.”
Lord Crowe stiffened and half turned. “Aim?” he croaked. “What aim?”
“Scared?” she taunted Crowe.
Am I the only one to see the derision in her eyes, Gibb wondered? To realize she held them, if not in contempt, damn near it.
“Are you worried that perhaps women do not have as good an eye as men?” the woman asked with a lilt of humor in her voice. “Or indeed that we are better?”
Denby flushed. “Not a bit,” he said tersely. “You’re a mere woman.”
“You think that means I will not hit where I intend?” She quirked one eyebrow and mocked him. “Oh dear. I suspect only time will tell.” The knife in her hand soared into the air, whirling almost lazily as it did so. It appeared as if she would cut her palm as she caught it.
Gibb gulped as she put her hand out and caught the stiletto without even looking. The insolence, the certainty she had nothing to worry about hit him like a cannon shot. A woman in command of her senses. Not someone to rely on a man, or demand attention. However, she had secured his. All of it. He couldn’t remember the last time anything had done that, let alone a woman.
Not even his wife.
From behind Gibb someone shouted out, “Women can’t aim and hit to save themselves with anything. Aim for his bollocks and hit his brain.”
She laughed and gave a gamine grin that to his surprise went straight to Gibb’s groin.
“As I am the exception to your absurd rule, that is exactly what would happen, for we all know where a man’s brain is located.” The amusement that followed was good-natured and she curtsied. “Let us begin. Sir, I hope you can assure me you will stay as I direct?”
Denby scowled and pointed his finger toward her. “What are you, anyway?”
Gibb had wondered when Denby was going to get around to asking that.
“Ah, that is a question many have asked,” she said in that husky throaty voice Gibb had noticed earlier, then laughed. “Wait and you’ll find out,” she advised him as she once more twirled the knife in her hands. Even from where he stood, Gibb could accept and admire her mastery of the weapon.
So it seemed could Denby Crowe, who was getting paler by the second. Gibb had an amused idea that the man might vomit or run. He hoped he didn’t as the spectacle unfolding on the lawn looked as if it was definitely going to be the highlight of the evening, if not his whole sojourn in the capital.
“My name is La Belle Evangeline,” the woman said in a slow and husky undertone. “Stand with your back to the screen, and then be careful you make no abrupt movement.”
All of a sudden Gibb understood what she was all about. Her stiletto was not for security or effect, it was part of her act. A knife-thrower. He’d seen one, once many years before, although then it had been a man holding the knife. Now it seemed there was a woman about to do the tricks and at one of his fellow members of the ton, not at a partner.
It could be interesting.
It was.
Gibb had no idea if it was the way she caressed the knife like a lover, or how she was in control of what happened that sent his body into an unexpected and uncomfortable state of arousal. Whichever, he wasn’t amused by his visceral reaction. He didn’t need it, didn’t want it and as sure as hell had no intention of acting on it. Danger for danger’s sake should not be and would not be in his present, or his future. If it were up to him, he would never be privy to emotions that arose from such a thing.
Or from anything else.
With that resolution firmly in his mind he willed his body into rest—he was not entirely successful—leaned back on a marble pillar and prepared to be entertained.
Denby Crowe stared wide-eyed and stood as rigid as the statuary dotted around the grounds. Gibb watched, entranced as La Belle Evangeline, with a grin he decided was best described as wicked, leaned toward the man.
“Do not worry,” she purred in a voice that curled around Gibb like hot chocolate. “I rarely miss.” She paused and contemplated the knife she held. Picked up another and spun it between her fingers. The blades seemed ten times longer than before and forty times as dangerous as they shone and glinted in the flickering lights. “And if I do it will be a very sudden death.” She waited for the beat of three as the crowd erupted into nervous laughter. “Not, alas, the little death, but one of greatness and finality. So I suggest, my lord, you do not deviate from my desires.”
Within seconds, knives were thrown toward Crowe from every direction. When the sultry knife-thrower told him to spread his legs and not to flinch, Gibb wouldn’t have been surprised to see him run. She was more than most men could control, and most would not attempt to.
He could. He wouldn’t.
To Denby’s credit he didn’t move—although it was more likely a result of sheer terror than bravery—and Gibb joined in with the applause as the last knife stuck, quivering, into the screen behind Crowe, a mere three or so inches from his bollocks.
Evangeline kissed her volunteer’s cheek and held his hand so they could bow together.
The audience cheered once more, resumed their chatter and began to wander back indoors, no doubt to replenish their glasses. Gibb had no intention of drinking anything else. He considered his duty done and therefore as soon as he could find his host he’d make his farewells and head home.
He watched with interest as, once Evangeline and Crowe disengaged, she slapped the man’s hand away from her breast. Whatever she hissed at him, and he was certain hissed was the correct word, Crowe wasn’t fazed and once more tried to touch her. The knife she held up appeared as if by magic and, amused, Gibb saw Crowe hold his hands in the air and walk away with a brisk step. It seemed La Belle Evangeline knew how to look after herself. Strange, Gibb mused, that his own erection didn’t diminish at the thought of her with a readily available knife. Was he unhinged or was it just the novel experience of desiring someone without wanting to? Complicated thoughts for so late at night. Whatever, it was all immaterial. He refused to let his uncomfortable arousal take charge. He would not be at the mercy of his vagarious body.
Gibb turned back toward the house and hunted for his host. Enough was enough. Time now to go home and ponder why his body had chosen to react to La Belle Evangeline and no one else since—
Stop it now. It is over and you do as you wish. And he did not wish for emotions to hold sway. Never again would he allow that, whatever they were. It led to anguish, tortured thoughts of ‘what if’ and ‘if only’ and people hurt. He hadn’t been able—or cared enough—to curb his wife’s wild side, and she’d died because of it. Because of him.
Never again would he put himself in the position of being responsible for someone else’s happiness and wellbeing.
* * * *
Within minutes Gibb once more emerged onto the terrace, but this time he continued walking and headed toward the gardens and a gate at the bottom. His own property was a few minutes away on foot, via the mews and a nearby square. Rather than cross the lawn in full sight of the house and perhaps be accosted and delayed, he avoided the shorn-to-within-an-inch-of-its-life greensward and headed toward the shrubbery that skirted the boundary wall. That way no one could detain him.
As he thought back over those who had sought him out during the few days he’d been in London, Gibb decided the sooner he returned to Scotland the better. At least there the calls on his time were husbandry ones and the women who demanded his attention were not interested in amatory things. The minister’s wife about the church flowers, the schoolmistress over the need to ensure the children of his workers attended their lessons on a regular basis and his best friend’s wife over neglected invitations to dine. With, she underscored, no ulterior motives except the pleasure of his company. Ladies, married or single, who thought to have any interest in him other than his mind would soon quake under his uncompromising attitude.
Gibb took no prisoners.
But then, he trusted Beck and his French wife, Veronique.
Gibb made a mental note to respond straight away the next time they extended an invitation and at least attend a few of those dinners. He had no excuse except apathy and a lack of the necessity to stir himself to be polite and a good neighbor. The ride over to their comfortable house was less than half an hour from where he lived and Veronique had emphasized there was a bed with his name on it if he wished it. And yet he had never availed himself of their hospitality since…
Since…
Really, it was a wonder his friends hadn’t given up on him.
His mind on things he needed to do before he could begin his travels once more, it was several seconds before he realized something had disturbed his musing. He was halfway down the impressive garden when noises to one side of him made him stop mid-stride and listen with care. Someone squealed briefly, as if whoever uttered the alarm was cut off. Then he heard someone else speak in a harsh, deep voice. A man to a woman? The sole woman about had been Evangeline, the knife-thrower. Was Crowe harassing her again?
Gibb struck off at a tangent through the shrubbery along a narrow grass track. If his memory served him right from the few times he’d been in the grounds over the years, it ended in a soil-covered clearing.
Just before he reached the area, the moon came out from behind a cloud and he was able to take in the scene in front of him.
It was Evangeline, now dressed in a neat, conventional walking dress and jacket, her bonnet on her back, held in place by ribbons around her neck, and a large carpet bag on the ground beside her. However, it was not she who needed rescuing. As he slowed and without a sound stood behind a convenient bush, the man grabbed her and pulled her hair so her head tilted backward.
“Who the hell are you to show me up in front of my peers?” The words shot out of him in staccato bursts. “A French whore. Ha. You should beg for my attention.” The man put one hand on her breast and laughed. “Can’t stop me now, eh?”
“Let go of me, you couchon.” She spat out the insult with enough venom to make any sane man take note and back off. Not so her assailant. He attacked once more and she lifted her leg and kicked him and caught him—fair and square—between the thighs in his most vulnerable area.
“Ooft wha…” The man swore as he bent his legs, straightened and wheezed. “You little bi—”
Gibb now saw her attacker was indeed Lord Crowe. Crowe wheezed and got no further. One minute he stood upright and menacing, the next he seemed to fly through the air to end up on his back in the dirt several yards away.
Gibb blinked as Evangeline moved swift and sure to put one boot-clad foot on Crowe’s chest and point a knife at his gonads. She was fast.
“You know, m’sieur?” she said almost conversationally. “In my country sweetbreads are a delicacy much appreciated. I would enjoy trying them.” She licked her lips in such a suggestive way Gibb’s body became taut with tension. “After…” Her voice trailed off and the knife moved an inch or so closer to Crowe’s skin.
Gibb winced and his hands moved involuntarily to cover himself. His stomach lurched. She seemed a mite too knowing of just what made a male cringe.
“That part of an alleged English aristocrat would fetch an excellent price and set me up for life,” Evangeline said in the calm and precise way she had spoken in before. “I almost wish you would do something else so I have an excuse to go ahead and cut your bollocks off before I attack your sweetbreads.”
Crowe blanched and covered his groin with both hands, in much the same way Gibb himself had.
“You?” Crowe sneered. “You wouldn’t, you’d never get away with it. My word against a French whore’s? No contest.”
Gibb decided it was time to make his presence known, and strolled into the clearing. “Oh I think there would be, Crowe,” he drawled, every inch a duke. “After all, whose word would they take? Yours or mine? Think about it, a lord or a duke? I assure you I’d tell the truth. All of it.”
“What?” Both Crowe’s and Evangeline’s heads whipped round at the sound of his voice. Crowe looked discomforted, Evangeline amused.
“You’d back her? A…” Crowe’s voice faltered as the knife shone while Evangeline twisted it between her hands. Crowe swallowed convulsively. “A woman,” he croaked at last.
“Oh, yes.” Gibb smiled and was amused to see it made Crowe appear even more worried. He didn’t think his smile so alarming. “I am a gentleman. Now, if the lady is willing to let you get up unscathed, I suggest you run away as fast as your spindly little legs will let you and forget everything about this encounter. Every little thing,” he said with deliberate menace in his voice. “Banish it from your mind as if it never happened. For I warn you, if I hear anything detrimental about the lady, I will be the one to offer your sweetbreads to the French, not her. And remember, even though I may not be in London very often, I still hear things.”
He stood back and nodded to Evangeline. “It is up to you. If you prefer to extract revenge, be my guest. I’ll turn my back. Or hold him down, whichever you prefer.”
She gave Gibb a swift, gamine grin before she looked down at Crowe. “Such a difficult decision,” she mused in a flat voice, devoid of any emotion. It was enough to send shivers up Gibb’s spine and he was the innocent party. No wonder Crowe lost what little color he had left and swallowed several times.
“Is he worthy of my knife or my leniency, I wonder?” She tilted her head to one side and put her index finger on her lips in a parody of someone in deep thought. “After all, I have other ways of making him suffer.”
Her foot danced lower until Gibb decided it was mere inches away from Crowe’s staff. It appeared evident that Crowe decided her question might not be mere rhetoric and stayed still and silent.
They all remained like that in a frozen tableau for several seconds, then Evangeline laughed in a harsh tone, so unlike the pleasant notes Gibb had enjoyed before.
“I must learn to curb those impulses,” she said, her voice once more that attractive husky voice Gibb had noted earlier. “So sad, but I have been told on more than one occasion to control my violent tendencies.” With a regretful sigh, she lifted her knife to point it away from her victim, before she stood upright. “I have decided he is not worthy of my attention. He may go.” She sounded as imperious as a queen issuing the edict of ‘off with his head’.
Gibb nudged Crowe with his toe. “You heard the lady. I’d make a run for it if I were you, before she or I change our minds.” He took a step backward, put his hands around Evangeline’s waist and held her fast. She glared at him over her shoulder but didn’t speak. The heat from her body seared his fingers, even through her plain, ordinary dress, and a tantalizing caress of something arousing swept over him once more. He did his best to ignore it. Unwanted and unfounded, he told his traitorous body. Not the companion, the place or the time. Plus it never would be, unless this was a lady who would agree to a no-strings, no-emotions coupling. Somehow, having seen her fiery temper, he didn’t think that was a likely scenario. She stiffened then relaxed in his grip before she gave a curt nod.
“As he says.”
Without expression, Gibb watched as Crowe scrambled to his feet and staggered away back toward the house. He wondered idly what excuse Crowe would give for his dishevelled appearance and shuffling gait.
It was neither his problem nor his priority, Gibb decided. The stunning woman in front of him was.
“At the risk of attracting your ire, which in all sincerity I hope I will not, may I escort you away from this den of idiots?” He held out his arm and waited.
To his amazement and delight, she giggled. “Better idiots than iniquity I think, but here it is difficult to separate the two. Even so, I do believe you may.”
Evangeline wondered if all her wits had deserted her. Was this a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire? Her instinct told her no, her common sense told her to be careful because it could be. She took a swift sideways glance at the tall, dark-haired, smoky-eyed male next to her, noticed the play of muscles under his tight-fitting exquisite gray evening jacket and shivered. He was not someone to be toyed with. She made sure her stiletto was reachable with ease.
Now she saw him more clearly, Evangeline was certain she remembered seeing this man watch her demonstration. He had stood out of her immediate eye line and looked somewhat uninterested. As if he had been there under protest. The sort of person she liked to pick on, even if the best outcome she achieved was to shake them up a little. If he had been closer to the front she would have beckoned him forward, not the idiot she’d ended up being saddled with. Now she was thankful she hadn’t been able to give in to that whim, because he would have turned her into forcemeat. Evangeline decided she needed her wits about her. He was a powerful stranger, albeit one who had come to her aid, and she still had no idea who he was. Her mind made up, she would ensure her knife remained in her hand, ready to use if required.
The man next to her glanced down at her weapon and chuckled.
“I promise not to make any sudden moves. I also swear I am not interested in your body. I desire to see you safely away from here and imbeciles such as Crowe. Some people think the courage they gain when alcohol-fueled is enough to deem irresponsible acts acceptable.”
“Thank you.” Evangeline looked him up and down. He seemed sane, rational and normal, but then who didn’t? “I appreciate your restraint.” She took a deep breath. She had to ask. “May I be so bold as to inquire who you are?”
He hit his forehead with one palm. “Grief, yes, I forget we haven’t been introduced.” He bowed very formally. By someone else it could have been a mockery. From him it was not so. Her toes curled into her sandals. “Gibb Alford, at your service. Otherwise known as the Duke of Menteith. I prefer to be called Gibb by my friends.”
Oh my. Evangeline had heard of him of course. No one who spent any time around the upper echelons of society, even on the very fringes, could fail to do so. The mad duke, the misogynist duke, the tortured duke and, from those of a romantic bent, the duke with no heart. The one thing she hadn’t heard about was why he was so named. “I haven’t seen you around,” she said as he unlatched a door in the wall and stood back to let her precede him through the gap. “Are you new to town?”
Evangeline picked up her carpetbag, stepped into the mews beyond the garden and wondered how he would respond. Open and with nothing to hide, or with the bare minimum of information? After all, what was she to him? An entertainer he’d chosen to help out of a situation she could have handled, did handle, but on a whim, chose to let him intervene in? It was so unlike her that for one brief moment she wondered why she had behaved in that manner. To enable the young idiot who’d thought she was easy game to save face? Perhaps, but also, if she were honest, it had been to safeguard her livelihood. Knife-throwing might not be her lifelong goal or ambition but at that moment it was what kept her fed, clothed and with a roof over her head.
Until… She shied away from trying to answer that.
“New?” the duke mused and regained her attention. “I wouldn’t say so. However, it’s rare that I come to the capital unless ducal duty calls. This visit is because I wanted to speak on the Poor Laws. They need updating.” He frowned. “Otherwise I shun it—London—and the machinations of the ton wherever and whenever possible.”
She could understand that. More and more Evangeline wished there was some other alternative to her present lifestyle. But she would be no man’s mistress, or worse, and unless it promised her a better life than she had now, no man’s wife. So far that hadn’t materialized. Plus she had an agenda, and until she completed her self-imposed task nothing else mattered. Knife-throwing gave her a living. The success of her itinerary would give her a life.
Or so she hoped.
“And you?” the duke—Gibb—asked her. “What about you? Why are you here?”
“As the entertainment, my lord,” she said in a lighthearted manner. “What else? La Belle Evangeline, knife-thrower extraordinaire. No more, no less. Although some of your peers tend to interpret that as their entertainment and have to be disabused of the idea.”
“Hence the knife?” He sounded amused rather than worried. “Do you carry many about your body?”
Was his attitude a good or a bad thing? The last thing she needed was a duke getting too close to her and asking questions she could not—or would not—answer.
“Enough, my lord. You have it correct. And I know how to use them in more ways than throwing them around a body, toward a screen, without hitting anyone.” She spoke in a tone that most would accept as ‘ask no more’. Not him, though.
“By hitting someone intentionally, in the place you decide befits the crime?” he asked drily. “Remind me never to annoy you.” He grinned and her heart missed a beat. He was charm personified.
In this mood, if she hadn’t seen him otherwise, she would have said all those reports of his brusque and antisocial attitude were exaggerated.
“Oh, I will. So, that, plus filleting a fish and how do you say, gralloching a deer. I am,” she paused, wondered if it was too much of a potential innuendo and said it anyway, “versatile, my lord.”
“Gibb,” he said firmly. “Nothing else. And I’m impressed. Where did you learn such skills, and such English?”
“In France, my lord. Where else?” That was ambiguous enough, was it not? “My maman was insistent I spoke your tongue well enough to understand and be understood. No one knew what might have to be done to safeguard a life.”
He nodded. “Your maman was a wise woman. The revolution plus the long-lasting problems with Napoleon were bad times, and my name is ‘Gibb’.” He waited and she firmed her lips. He essayed a faint smile. “She did a good job—your maman. And Gibb.”
Evangeline shook her head. Why was he so insistent? “That is not seemly.”
He stopped walking and turned her to stand in front of him before he took hold of her chin and tipped her face upward to look at him. This close, the dark amber flecks in his eyes showed in the moonlight. Tiny strands of gray glittered in his hair as a gentle breeze ruffled it.
He was, Evangeline thought, the epitome of a gentleman.
“Call it a ducal decree. Can we not be friends?” The intensity of his gaze was at odds with his body language, which showed indifference. A strange conundrum.
“Friends? Perhaps. Who knows? They are not something I have a lot to do with at the moment.” Although if it were possible she would welcome it.
He smiled so briefly she wondered if she imagined it.
“Nor me,” he said as a strange shadow flickered over his expression, so fleeting that if she hadn’t been watching as close as she was she would have missed it.
“So tell me,” he asked, “are you truly French?”
“What?” The abrupt change of direction flummoxed her for a second. “French? Of course I am.”
“But you speak my language as if it were your own, albeit with a charming accent, and know words such as gralloch? Most would say disembowel, if they said anything at all,” Gibb said easily, in a tone that belied the piercing look in his eyes. “Unusual.”
“I am not most people,” Evangeline pointed out, her heart thumping and her pulse much too fast for comfort. She prayed he didn’t push and ask more. It was impossible to explain why her maman had insisted she learned to speak English, and mentioned that the Scots were different. Not unless Evangeline also shared the secret she had recently uncovered. It would be even harder to explain how she had discovered the reason for her maman’s reticence, and thus undertaken to come to Britain. “If you truly wish to escort me home we need to head in that direction.” She pointed across the square they had reached. It would no doubt be easier than trying to dissuade him.
“Bruton Street?” he said, surprised, as they crossed the square and skirted the gardens, which were locked at dusk every night. “You are also a modiste?”
Did it have to follow that because she lived in a street famed for the designers of exquisite clothes for ladies to wear, she had to be of that ilk? “Not at all, I live above Madame Coeur.”
“Who?” He now sounded more interested than paying lip service to their conversation.
Damn.
“Eloise,” Evangeline said briefly. “She is the modiste.”
“Ah. I do believe I have heard of her,” his lordship said in a wry tone. “Many of my peers have, ah, ladies who would like to be dressed by her.”
That she understood. Eloise was very exclusive and dressed those she wished, not those she did not. “You should know the name, for she is the one person by whom people cannot demand to be dressed, however much money they have,” Evangeline said matter-of-factly. “Exclusivity is her byword, and she chooses her clientele with great care.”
“And is she French also?”
What was it with him and her nationality? “As French as I am.” Actually, she thought as they turned the corner into Bruton Street and saw her front door a few yards ahead, Eloise was, she had long decided, more French than she.
Evangeline made her farewells thankfully. He had been kind enough to intervene on her behalf. Now she hoped he would be kind enough to leave her alone.