He followed Zoe into the shop, staring hard at her back, at the stains and dirt and ripped ruffles of the carriage dress. He concentrated on these and thrust the unwanted images back into the dark place they’d escaped from.
Madame Vérelet’s was a large shop. As he finally took note of his surroundings, he felt as though he’d entered an enormous birdcage. What seemed like hundreds of females fluttered about the place, bobbing and clucking, picking up buttons and ribbons, pretending to be busy sewing or putting trimmings into drawers and taking them out again. They opened books and flipped through pages, then shut them. They bent their heads together and whispered. They darted furtive looks from him to Zoe and back again, again and again.
Madame Vérelet bustled out from a back room quite as though she’d been deeply engaged in important business there for this last hour. A man less cynical than Marchmont might be taken in. Another man might believe that Madame was too elegant and dignified to take any notice of public disturbances on her doorstep. Madame, after all, was a great artist, not one of the rabble who gathered at accident scenes.
Marchmont, though, hadn’t any doubt that she’d been gawking out of the shop window along with all her employees, and had hurried into the back room only when she saw him coming.
She made him an elegant curtsey. “Your Grace,” she said.
He gave the little wave of his hand. “Everyone out.”
“Out?” said Zoe.
“Everyone butyou,”he said. The women darted for the door leading into the back of the shop, where the workrooms were. They all tried to squeeze through at the same time, with a good deal of pushing and elbow thrusts. Madame did not fly, but she did not linger, either. She shoved aside one girl who didn’t get out of her way quickly enough.
“Miss?” said Jarvis.
“You, too,” said Marchmont.
“She is required to stay with me,” said Zoe.
“Out,” he told Jarvis. She hurried after the seamstresses and shopgirls.
Zoe folded her arms. Her face took on a mulish expression.
He knew this expression. He’d seen it scores of times. She’d worn it a moment before she’d picked up the cricket bat. He was aware of this, in the churning stew that was his mind; but since it was a stew, he wasn’t capable of calm and logical thinking. The pose and the expression only made him angrier.
He didn’t wait to hear what she’d say.
“Are you utterly mad?” he said, his voice low and taut. “Are you deaf? Are you completely without brains? Did I not tell you to get away from that coach?”
“You had the horses to deal with,” she said with a calm he found maddening. “I could not leave the boy there. He was hanging out of the door. I knew he was hurt. He might have been bleeding. What if he bled to death while you dealt with the horses? What if the coach fell on him?”
What if it fell on you?
“He wasn’t bleeding,” he said.
“You didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t need to know!” he snapped. “It was a thoroughly decrepit coach and four, and if it had fallen on you, it would have smashed you to pieces! And that’s if you were lucky. If you’d got a piece of it stuck in your gut, you’d die by inches.” Such accidents happened all too frequently, the victims lingering in agony for days, sometimes weeks.
“The same could have happened to him,” she said. “What would you have me do?” Her voice rose. “Nothing?”
“Yes!”
“That is completely unreasonable!”
“I don’t care. When I give an order—”
“An order?” Her eyes were a stormy sky flashing lightning. Hot pink color flooded her cheeks. “You do not order me!”
“Yes, I do. You’re my responsibility. I’m in charge of you.”
“In charge?” she said. “Of me?” Her voice went up another notch. “I did not agree to this. I did not agree to be stifled!”
“Oh, very good. Give the shopgirls an earful.”
“You were the one who chose this place. You are the one who chose to make a scene. You did not care who was listening. I do not care, either. You cannot shout at me.”
