Young maids came in one at a time, with material raised for the exacting older woman’s appraisal. “Non. Non. Non!” She turned them around with a finger. “Saxon green. Get that away from me.”
With the latest batch rejected, the servants rushed out to their employer’s frustrated mutterings, and a party of new servants and their selections filed forward.
Madam Amalie considered a silk satin. “Theezmay do. Leave it.”
The girl curtsied and made way for the next.
“Her Grace n’estpas une pomme!”
But as the soft green material was lifted, revealing a glimpse of his wife’s nearly bare form, he discovered a newfound appreciation for an outing to the modiste.
No, Her Grace was not an apple, but she tempted the same way that first succulent fruit had.
“Apportez-moi la soie verte!”
As a rule, he never accompanied a lover to the modiste. Bloody demanding things they were—the tripsandthe women. All the clinical questions about preference, which accessory went with which gown. He’d see the fruits of their labors after, in his rooms—or theirs.
The difference this morn was that Daria was no ordinary woman. No, not in all the ways, but one singular way set her apart from all ladies, for the rest of his life.
She was his wife.
After Argyll’s abysmal showing last eve, DuMond, good friend that he was, did him the boon of reminding him—ladies wanted gifts. Baubles, to be precise.
“Oui. Oui. Magnifique!”
Daria stood encircled by seamstresses, fabric snapping and fluttering as they moved about her like bright-winged insects.
As the twisted universe should have it, he attended his wife’s fitting with lust-filled eagerness—and the woman he wished to adorn as a celebration of their union had bare toes that twitched.
Argyll rubbed at the back of his neck.
Damn me.
In an aggravating twist, Argyll discovered there existed someone who loathed a trip to the seamstress even more than he did.
His wife.
The whole bloody thing would have amused him, had he been of a mind to laugh.
Oh, he’d hand it to his wife—she did her best to put on a show for his benefit.
But as fabric after fabric was swept over and layered and draped about her, the truth was there on every strained line in his expressive bride’s face.
She was deuced miserable, wretchedly so.
As if on cue, from over the heads of two maids draping her in an apple-red crimson, Daria’s gaze caught his.
“No, no, no,” Madam Amalie insisted in rapid French. “It must be one of these colors.”
Daria turned to him.
Not pleading. Assessing.
Something lodged sharply between his ribs.
She was not asking to be saved.
She was asking whether he would choose her.
