Lady Eunice wrinkled her nose. “Are you the assistant or the modiste?”
“The modiste. I am Mlle. LaChapelle, at your service.”
“And I’m Mrs. Ipsley,” said the client.
Neither Lady Eunice nor Mlle. LaChapelle acknowledged the interruption.
“You’re the one who designed the gowns that made such a splash at last night’s soirée?” Lady Eunice asked, using the wording Sybil had given her.
Mlle. LaChapelle puffed up like a peacock—or a whale, rather—and made an amusingly unconvincing expression of humility. “Oh, you are too kind. I would never be so bold as to claim that my designs were… but yes, that was me.”
Sybil snorted beneath her parasol. Those were not Mlle. LaChapelle’s designs. Those had been inferior copies of Mme. Blanchet’s creativity and craftsmanship. But LaChapelle had no compunction about claiming another artist’s work as her own.
“Hmm.” Lady Eunice tilted her head, taking in the shabby Cheapside shop windows and the out-of-place grandeur of the modiste’s red silk gown. “Are you taking on new clients?”
“For custom design work?”
Lady Eunice stared down the bridge of her nose in offended hauteur. “Of course.”
Mlle. LaChapelle had told Sybil she was booked for weeks, and poor Mrs. Ipsley had fared no better. But when faced with fashionable, wealthy Lady Eunice, Mlle. LaChapelle simpered as though she were addressing the Queen.
“Bien sûr,” she said, beaming. “Rearranging my schedule will be of no importance. What time would you like to drop by tomorrow?”
“I wouldn’t,” Lady Eunice said flatly.
Mlle. LaChapelle looked as though she’d taken an arrow to the gut. Or a harpoon to the fin. “But I thought—”
“Obviously I cannot return here.” Lady Eunice sniffed in disdain. “I must insist all consultations and fittings take place beneath my roof. Come with me now, so that I can show you my current wardrobe. We can then discuss how you might improve upon it.”
“Come with you… to your residence… at this very moment?”
It was the chance of a lifetime. Mlle. LaChapelle was clearly tempted, and also just as clearly hesitant to act on her desire.
“Of course, if you are too busy to take on additional business…” Lady Eunice let the implied threat dangle.
“Non, non,” LaChapelle said in a rush. “It is not that. I’ve an entire floor full of sewing girls overhead, and I—”
“Surely you do not employ featherheads who cannot sew a straight line without you lurking over their shoulders.”
“No, of course not, they are the definition of efficiency. It is only that—”
“Have you no assistant?”
“Well…yes, I…” LaChapelle glanced over her shoulder toward the interior of the shop. “Anne! Come at once.”
Anne appeared with an alacrity that indicated she had been hovering on the other side of the threshold. The panic in her face further indicated the assistant had felt far more at home clinging to the shadows.
“Perfect. Now that that’s settled, you can come with me. Mayfair is too far to walk. We’ll take my coach.”
Mlle. LaChapelle wavered. Riding in the coach with Lady Eunice was an even larger carrot dangling before her. Why, anyone might see, and think them friends rather than client and shopkeeper.
“Anne,” said the modiste. “Do you think you could supervise—”
“No,” gasped her white-cheeked assistant. “I am certain I could not possibly—”
“Why, Lady Eunice,” called a well-dressed young lady heading up the street in their direction. “As I live and breathe, it is you. What are you doing in Cheapside?”
“I was just asking myself the same thing,” Lady Eunice said with a tinkling laugh. “I’ve come to poach Mlle. LaChapelle before any of my friends do. I’m hoping she’ll outfit my entire wardrobe for the rest of the season.”
