“We’re quite close to the Great Marlborough Street police office,” she said. “It would be no trouble to drop you there, Fenwick. Or, if you prefer, you could continue with us to our destination, and watch his lordship’s horses, and keep a sharp lookout.”
“And what would I be looking out for, I want to know,” the boy said.
“Trouble,” she said. “Do you think you can recognize it?”
“I haven’t the smallest doubt of his abilities in that regard,” Longmore said.
“If you do the job properly,” she went on, “I’ll see that you have a good dinner and a safe place to sleep.”
“Where, exactly, did you have in mind?” Longmore said.
“Don’t fret,” she said. “I wasn’t intending to foist him on you.”
“You certainly won’t foist him on yourself,” he said. “You don’t know a damned thing about him. He’s probably crawling with lice—”
“That’s slander, that is!” the boy cried.
“Sue me,” said Longmore.
“Don’t think I won’t,” the boy said. “There’s no more vermin on me than on you, yer majesty. I had a bath!”
“At your christening?” Longmore said. “But no, I forgot: You don’t have a name.”
“Fenwick’ll do,” the boy said. “She can call me Georgy Pudding Pie if she wants, if she gives me dinner and a bed like she says. But she won’t, will she?”
“Have you heard of the Milliners’ Society for the Education of Indigent Females?” Sophy said.
The boy narrowed his eyes at her. “Yeah,” he said in wary tones.
“You know someone there, it seems,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“I’m closely acquainted with the women in charge,” she said. She could hardly be more closely acquainted: She and her sisters had founded the organization last year. “If you know of that place, you know we don’t make empty promises.”
They’d reached Bedford Square. “Look here, Fenwick,” she said. “There’s the shop his lordship and I mean to visit.” She nodded toward Dowdy’s. “Do you know the place?”
“They makes clothes for the nobs,” he said. “A girl I know used to work there, but they was all let go for no reason.”
Sophy hoped the girl had gone to the Milliners’ Society. She and her sisters had better look into what had happened to Dowdy’s discharged seamstresses.
But one thing at a time.
“While his lordship and I visit the shop, you’ll mind the horses as well as the business of everybody about you,” she said briskly. “Give a long, sharp whistle to let us know if we’re about to be interrupted. Do the job satisfactorily, and I’ll do as I promised. Have we a bargain, Fenwick?”
“No tricks?” the boy said.
“No tricks?” Longmore echoed. “The brass of the brat!”
“Do I look like the tricky sort to you?” Sophy said.
The boy gave her a long, searching look. He spent some time peering into the tinted lenses. “Yes,” he said. “Not to mention you got a grip like a manacle.”
She smiled. “There, I knew you were a sharp one. But no tricks.”
She released his arm. He made a great show of massaging it, and checking for broken bones. He muttered about “mad gentry morts” and “bruiser lordships.”
“Never mind the grumbling,” Longmore said.
“I don’t mean to spend all day shopping with a female. Either you’ll do it or you won’t. Make up your mind. I don’t have time to dawdle here, palavering about it, all day.”
“Be yourself,” Sophy told Longmore when he joined her on the pavement after a lengthy conversation with Fenwick—about the horses, she supposed, and what would happen to the boy if he failed his assignment.
“Myself?” he said. “Are you sure?”
“I need you to be you,” she said. “Lord Longmore, Lady Warford’s eldest son. The son of Dowdy’s favorite customer.” That was why she’d had to pursue and enlist him. She had to save her shop, and that meant going into enemy territory, to find out what Maison Noirot was up against. The easiest and most effective way was to use him as part of her disguise. “No pretending required. Simply be you.”
“I need to pretend you’re Gladys.”
“I’ll seem so like her, you won’t have to pretend. Leave everything to me.”
“And if they chuck you out?”
“Be yourself,” she said. “Laugh.”
“If you were you, yes,” he said. “But Gladys is another story.” He frowned. “This is going to be confusing.”
“Not at all,” she said. “All you have to do is be you. Don’t think about it. It doesn’t need thinking.”
She marched toward the door in the determined way certain gauche misses did.
He moved smoothly ahead and opened it for her.
In her mind she became Cousin Gladys—plain and awkward and sensitive to slights. She marched inside. Mouth set, she looked about her, making it plain that she wouldn’t be easy to please. At the same time, though, she was still Sophy Noirot, evaluating her surroundings with an expert eye, and more than a little surprised … and troubled … at what she discovered.
Though no one could match Maison Noirot’s flair, someone had tried. The walls had been freshly painted pale peach, the trim a creamy yellow, and someone had given thought to a variety of colorful accents. That someone had taken the trouble to arrange the fabrics artistically. Some hung on large rings near the display windows. Others lay on counters, looking as though they’d only a moment ago been unfolded for a customer. A book of fashion plates lay open on a table, inviting perusal. Comfortable chairs stood in small clusters about the room, giving it the snug air of a private parlor. Tables next to them held men’s as well as ladies’ magazines.
The showroom, while not as obsessively clean as Maison Noirot’s, was much neater and less dingy than it used to be.
The explanation, Sophy saw, stood behind the counter.
Dowdy had hired a Frenchwoman. She was pretty and elegant and graceful. Her fair hair was arranged becomingly under a splendid lace cap.
Her poise didn’t falter although her welcoming smile did, a little, as she took in Sophy/Gladys. The woman’s light brown gaze turned with obvious relief to Longmore.
Subtle as the rebuff was, it wouldn’t be too subtle for a sensitive soul, as Sophy imagined Gladys to be. The Frenchwoman shouldn’t have given any sign of dismay. She should have looked as delighted to see her as she would be to see Queen Adelaide.
Many specimens as unpromising as the faux Gladys came into dressmakers’ shops. How one served them made all the difference in the world. The Frenchwoman seemed to see Lady Gladys Fairfax as an ordeal to endure, rather than as an exciting challenge, as Sophy and her sisters would view her. Their faces would have lit up when she stepped through the door.
“Mrs. Downes?” Sophy said.
“I am Madame Ecrivier, mademoiselle,” the Frenchwoman said. “Madame Downes is occupied at the moment, but I—”
“Occupied!” Longmore said,