Augusta turned purple. Even Zoe looked taken aback.
“Out!” Augusta snapped. “Out!”
“Certainly not,” Marchmont said. “I am in charge of launching Zoe into Society, and she can’t make a respectable show if she isn’t properly mounted. We can’t have her riding in Hyde Park looking like a quiz, on a borrowed horse on a borrowed saddle and wearing a borrowed habit.”
At the moment, in her borrowed finery, she made anything but a respectable show. It was the first time he’d ever seen her not wearing day dress, with her bosom covered. At present, it was on full display. Overfull display. They had stuffed some lace into the bodice for decency’s sake, but it was obviously too small, and the lace was being asked to do more than the laws of physics allowed.
Zoe laughed. “Oh, it’s a word play.Mountmeans two things. Very funny, Marchmont. I’ll be happy to let you mount me.”
The two younger of her sisters covered their mouths.
Augusta and Gertrude glowered.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your presentation lessons,” he said. “But the matter can’t wait. We’re due at Tattersall’s in an hour.”
“What is Tattersall’s?” Zoe said.
“The grand mart for horses,” Priscilla explained. “It’s quite close to Hyde Park Corner. They’ve room for more than a hundred horses, as well as carriages and harnesses and hounds.”
“The auction is not untilMonday,” Augusta said. “And Tattersall’s is for men only.”
“Like a gentleman’s club,” Priscilla told Zoe.
“Women donotenter,” said Gertrude. “Unlike a gentleman’s club, they let in persons of high and low degree, including some of unsavory character.”
“For a lady to go is unthinkable,” said Augusta.
“True,” said Marchmont. “But the rules do not apply to me. I thought it unwise and dangerous to choose a horse for Zoe without her participation. I’ve made arrangements. What’s the good of having a duke in charge of these matters if he doesn’t use his…er…duke-ness?”
“Baksheesh,” Zoe said. “It works magic, I know.”
He knew what baksheesh was. He’d learned about it when she’d told her story to Beardsley. London was not altogether different from Cairo in that way. Bribes worked wonders.
“That, too,” he said. He didn’t know or care what the special arrangement had cost. He left financial wrangling to Osgood. “But we have a limited time. Can you get out of that contraption quickly?”
“Oh, yes.” She lifted up her gown, reached under, and started wriggling about as she hunted for the petticoat ties.
“Zoe!” Gertrude cried.
“Someone help me get out of this,” Zoe said.
“Not here!” Augusta shrieked.
Zoe paused, the front of the dress pulled up to expose her knees and more. Her garters were plainly visible. They were red.
She did not appear to be wearing drawers.
She let the garment fall, dragged up the train, and ran out of the room. “Jarvis?” she called. “Where is Jarvis?”
He muttered something about making sure she didn’t tumble down the stairs and followed her out.
It was the feeblest excuse. The truth was, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. It wasn’t simply the expanse of smooth flesh on display, either. It was the way she moved in the hooped skirts, the way they exaggerated the sway of her hips, and the way the skirts billowed about her. She was like a ship under full sail, gliding along the passage as though she glided on water.
He was dimly aware of her sisters saying something. He shut the door behind him, to shut them out.
She had the train over her arm, but the way she held it hiked up the skirt on one side. He remembered what he’d seen, what he knew: under those hooped petticoats was only air and skin.
His mouth went dry.
