They went quickly from one shop to the next: linen drapers and furniture warehouses, shops specializing in lighting and shops specializing in mirrors.
He and Noirot received all the prompt, obsequious attention she’d wanted and more. The shop owners themselves came out to wait upon his grace, the Duke of Clevedon. They were prepared to move heaven and earth to get him precisely what he needed and to have it delivered that very day. If they hesitated, he had only to say to Noirot, “We had better try the next shop—Colter’s, is it?” As soon as a competitor’s name was mentioned, what had been impossible a moment ago became “the easiest thing in the world, your grace.”
Once the shopping began, there was no more personal conversation. Noirot hadn’t time to debate about what to purchase or wait to be shown the latest this or that. When she entered a shop, she had to know exactly what she wanted. And so, in those short intervals while they were traveling in the privacy of his carriage, the talk was purely practical, all about furnishings and what size was best, and what colors set off what.
He should have been bored witless. He should have been frantic to get away, to his club, to a card game, to a bottle or two or three with Longmore.
The Duke of Clevedon was so far from bored that he never noticed the time passing. At some point, they’d stopped to eat from a basket his cook had prepared for them. He couldn’t say when that was, an hour ago or five.
Then they left a warehouse, and when they reached the pavement she said, “Mon dieu, it’s done. I think. I hope. That’s everything, isn’t it?”
He took out his pocket notebook, and it was only when he had to squint at it that he realized evening had fallen. He’d stepped out of the shop and joined the flow of activity on the street without noticing that it had grown dark. He’d been too intent on his own plans and calculations. While she was occupied with choosing articles for her shop, he hadn’t been idle.
Now he looked about him at the gaslit streets. The shops would soon be closing, but the streets were busy, the pavements crowded with people passing to and fro, some pausing to look in the shop windows, others going inside—no doubt to the despair of shopkeepers eager for their dinners and the quiet of their hearths. Before long workers would spill from the various establishments, some hurrying home, others to their favorite chop houses and public houses.
What was the last place he’d wanted to hurry to? he wondered. When had he been eager for his own hearth-side?
“If we’ve forgotten anything, it’s minor,” he said.
“We’ll see soon enough,” she said.
He told his coachman to take them back to the shop on St. James’s Street.
After what seemed an eternity of crawling through London’s streets at a snail’s pace, Marcelline climbed down from the carriage and faced a darkened, empty shop.
“I can’t believe they’re all gone,” she said. She heard her voice wobble. She couldn’t remember when last she’d felt so deeply disappointed. “I thought—I thought—”
“We were more efficient than we guessed,” he said. “I’ll wager anything they’ve gone home—to Clevedon House, I mean—for a well-earned dinner and rest. As we shall do—as soon as we’ve had a look round.” He took out a key and brandished it. “I am the landlord, you know.”
Enough light entered from the street to allow them to make their way into the shop without tripping over furniture. After a moment, Clevedon got a gas lamp lit, then another.
Marcelline stood in the middle of the showroom, her hands clasped tightly against her stomach, against the butterflies quivering there—eagerness mixed with anxiety at once. She turned, slowly, taking it in: the gleaming woodwork, the elegant chandeliers, the artfully draped curtains, the furniture arranged as though in a drawing room.
“Does it pass the test?” Clevedon said. “Satisfactory?”
“More than that,” she said. “My taste is impeccable, I know—”
“Really, Noirot, you must strive to overcome this excessive humility.”
“—but to see it in its proper setting…” She paused. “Well, I shall need to rearrange the furniture tomorrow morning. Leonie is very good with numbers and legal gibberish, and her eye for artistic detail is better than most, but she can be a little conventional in her arrangements. The showroom is most important, because that’s what our patrons see. The first impression must be of elegance and comfort and the little something else that sets me apart from others.”
“The little touches,” he said.
“Nothing too obvious,” she said.
“The French would say je ne sais quoi,” he said. “And so would I, because while I know it’s there, I can’t for the life of me say what it is.”
She let herself look at him, but only for an instant. “You’ve come a long way from Paris,” she said. “Then you claimed not to notice such things.”
“I’ve tried not to notice,” he said. “But everywhere I look, there it is. There you are. I’ll be glad to be rid of you. When a man sinks to reading fashion journals—no, it’s worse than that. When a man finds himself plumbing their depths, seeking arcane knowledge of no use to him whatsoever…Oh, it’s your corrupting influence. I shall be so glad to see the back of you Noirots, and return to my life.”
“It annoys you to be a guardian angel,” she said.
“Don’t be absurd. I’m nothing of the kind. Come, let’s see the rest of the place.”
They moved more quickly through the rest of the shop: the offices and work and storage areas. He would be eager to be gone, she thought. For a time the details of setting up a shop, the details of trade might have offered an interesting change of pace for him. But he was no tradesman. Money meant something entirely different to him, insofar as it meant anything. And she supposed he was tired as well of being the subject of tedious gossip, and tired of having his household disrupted.
Little did he know how small a disruption that had been, compared to what her family typically did. Her ancestors had torn whole families apart, lured the precious offspring of noblemen from their luxurious homes to vagabond lives at best, abandonment and ruin at worst.
She had seen all of the new place that mattered, she thought, when he led her, not back the way they’d come, toward the entrance, but to the stairs.
Then it dawned on her what she’d missed. The first floor was to contain work areas: a well lit studio for her, a handsome parlor for private consultations with clients, and private work spaces for Sophia and Leonie.
The second and third floors had been reserved as living quarters.
And that hadn’t crossed her mind, not once while she shopped today.
“Good grief, I hope you’ve a mattress or two you can spare from Clevedon House,” she said. “A table and chairs would be useful, too, though not crucial. We’ve camped before. I can’t believe I forgot to buy anything for us.”
“Let’s go up and see what’s needed,” he said. “Maybe the absconders left something.”
He led the way, carrying a lamp.
He didn’t pause at the first floor but continued up to the second.
At the top of the stairs, he paused. “Wait here,” he said.
He crossed to a door, and opened it. A moment or two later, the faint light of the lamp gave way to soft gaslight.
“Well, well,” he said. “Come, look at this.”
She went to the door and looked in. Then she stepped inside.
A sofa and chairs and tables. Curtains at the windows. A