“You are abominable,” said Zoe, and she flounced away.
Zoe expressed her disgust with him in the time-honored fashion of women everywhere, by shopping exhaustively.
The sums she spent would have daunted most men, certainly, for she was determined to have everything of the best and most fashionable, from head to toe. Among other things, she bought dozens of corsets. Unlike other modistes, Madame employed her own corset maker, in order to assure a perfect fit for her gowns.
As she’d made clear earlier, Zoe had strong opinions on this topic.
Before she went into the fitting room, she not only explained to Madame precisely how her breasts ought to be most comfortably and attractively arranged but demonstrated, by holding them in the desired position.
“Not in front of the shop window, Miss Lexham, I beg,” the duke said.And not in front of me.
“I forgot,” she said. “I must not take hold of my breasts before others who are not my husband.” She turned to Madame. “I lived in another place, and the rules there are different for what is said and done and what is not.”
“Oui,mademoiselle,” said Madame. “Let us go into the fitting room, if you please.” She kept her face neutral. From elsewhere in the shop, Marchmont heard giggles.
“I don’t want the short kind,” Zoe said as Madame led her to the curtained alcove. “They press the ribs under my breasts, and they do not enhance the shape in the way I wish. I want the kind that comes to here.” She indicated the place on her hips. “And it must have the shape that makes the pretty curve from the waist and makes the bottom—But no. Augusta said I should not mention my bottom. It is vulgar, she said. Jarvis, what is the word they use? For the same thing?”
“That’sderrière, miss,” said a scarlet-faced Jarvis.
“A French word, yes. Now I recall. My French is execrable. What little I learned as a girl, I forgot. Thank you, Jarvis. What I wish, Madame Vérelet, is for the corset to shape exactly to myderrière.When I wear a dress of fine muslin or silk, I want the shape behind to make a curve, very round.” She curved her hands over her buttocks to demonstrate.
“Miss!” said Jarvis.
“Oh, yes.” Zoe released herderrière. “I forgot.”
She disappeared into the fitting room. Madame closed the curtain, but it was only a curtain. Marchmont could hear Zoe talking about her breasts and hips andderrière. He heard the rustle as Madame took out her tape and measured. He heard her murmur the measurements to the assistant, who wrote them down.
His mind instantly produced supporting illustrations.
He remembered the softness and warmth of her body melting against his.
His body reacted as one would expect, his temperature climbing upward, along with his cock.
And that was a bloody damned waste of energy, when the gods only knew when he’d have time for amours, at the rate things were going. He told himself it was only for a fortnight—if he didn’t kill her before that.
He looked round the shop at the hordes of females.
“Someone get me a drink,” he said.
When he returned her to Lexham House, Marchmont promised to call the following day.
“I don’t care,” said Zoe, nose in the air.
They stood in the vestibule while a parade of footmen unloaded parcels from his curricle. Most of Zoe’s frocks would not be ready for several days. However, when the Duke of Marchmont entered Madame Vérelet’s shop, all of her other customers dropped in priority to forty-second place. She had ordered her seamstresses to alter a few garments intended for other ladies who were not the Duke of Marchmont’s protégée.
Zoe was wearing one of these dresses. The duke had ordered her damaged gown burned.
He and she had spent an hour in a shoe shop as well, where she made sure he saw her prettily turned ankles, the evil little tease.
They had bought stockings, too, heaps of them.
He banished from his mind the provocative glimpses he’d had of her legs. Like it or not, he needed to think. With Zoe, a man needed his wits about him.
“It hardly matters whether you care or not,” he said. “I shall come to collect you at two o’clock. If you choose to spend the day in this house instead, you’re welcome to do so. I certainly have sufficient to occupy me. I shall not die of grief because I cannot escort a sulky young woman about London.”
“If you find me so disagreeable, I wonder why you came back into the dressmaker’s shop,” she said.
“What sort of paltry fellow do you take me for, to be put off by a temper fit?” said he. “Especially one of yours. It was hardly the first I’ve seen, and I am certain it won’t be the last. You ever were a pain in the a—Ah, Lord Lexham, I see you have escaped Westminster’s clutches.”
