“And he always seemed so somber and buttoned up,” the first voice said. “Who’d have thought he’d leave it all to his little bastard streetwalker?”
“Well, be fair, Iris, we don’tknowshe’s a streetwalker,” a second voice chortled.
“Oh, girls of that class always are,” the first voice said, airy and dismissive. Vivian’s hands clenched around the dress box so hard that the edges of it bit into her palms. “But how did he come to have two?”
“Apparently the mistress was a long-standing habit of his, years ago.” The second voice lowered a bit, but by then Vivian and the maid were just outside the open door and could hear everything clearly. “A dancer, Mr. Morris says, and Huxley kept her in Brooklyn where—”
The maid knocked at the frame of the door, and the voices fell silent as their owners turned to stare at the interruption. Vivian held back a scowl—that was Honor’s mother they were discussing, and she desperately wanted to hear more. But the two women currently looking down their noses at her didn’t look like the sort whose information could be trusted, anyway. Not about someone like Honor.
“What is it, Mary?” one of the women asked. She was the second voice that had spoken, wearing a day dress that hadn’t come from Miss Ethel’s shop, not with those overdone layers of ruffles and bows. Vivian tried to keep her lip from curling in distaste.
“Begging your pardon, Mrs. Morris, but the dressmaker’s girl is here. She says she would like to take a moment to check the fit of the gowns, if it suits you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Morris scowled. “Well, Mary, as you can plainly see, I have a guest, and—”
“Oh, no need to fret about me, Dora,” the other woman said as she stood. She was older than Mrs. Morris but dressed just as showily, with a cloud of expensive perfume floating around her. “It’s high timeI head home to check on the little monsters anyway, or I might risk losing another nanny. But thank you for all the news!” she added, leaning down to drop a kiss in the air next to Mrs. Morris’s cheek. “Lord, who knew a murder would be so entertaining?”
The two women giggled together while Vivian stood as still as possible, hoping none of her thoughts could be read on her face. She didn’t even risk glancing at the maid, Mary, to see how she took such a statement. Her eyes darted to the clock over the mantelpiece.
“Mary, see Mrs. Hartford out,” Mrs. Morris said, leaning back against her chair. The maid curtsied and obeyed silently, leaving Vivian alone behind. Mrs. Morris eyed her. “Why do the gowns need to be checked? Didn’t you have my measurements when you made them?”
There was none of the bored, superior irritation that Vivian expected to hear in her voice. Instead, she sounded uncertain, like a woman at a party who didn’t know how to behave. Maybe she’d never had dresses made for herself before. Or she’d had it done few enough times that she wasn’t sure how it was supposed to go.
The thought lifted Vivian’s confidence a notch. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Morris, no need to worry. I just need to double-check that the hem and hips and all fit properly. We want you to feel as beautiful as you deserve when you wear your new things.”
Mrs. Morris blushed a little, looking pleased at the idea. But a moment later she frowned, her mouth twisting. “And how much extra will that cost me?”
Vivian had to bite the inside of her cheek. All this ugly wealth around her, and her already paying for custom-made gowns, and the woman was worried about the cost of having their fit checked? The muscles across her stomach quivered with held-back laughter. “There’s no extra charge, ma’am.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Morris went from suspicious to smug, as though she had somehow got the better of Vivian by getting a good bargain. Vivian pressed her lips together, stretching them into a wide smile to keepherself from saying anything else. “Well, in that case, absolutely. You may follow me upstairs.”
Vivian’s heart sped up as she remembered the real reason she was there. They didn’t enter through the bedroom itself, but through a gaudy sitting room, its walls dressed in gold paper, chairs gathered before a marble fireplace, and a gleaming chandelier hung low over it all. Vivian tried not to be too obvious looking around. But there was a door immediately opposite and identical to the one where Mrs. Morris was leading her. That had to be Mr. Morris’s bedroom, where the letter Hattie wanted was supposedly kept.
Vivian hoped he was the type to spend all day at his office.
Mrs. Morris led her into the connected bedroom and closed the door. “Well?” she asked, looking uncertain again.
Vivian smiled to put her at ease. “Do you have a—Oh, yes, I see the mirror there. Why don’t you go stand in front of it? I’ll just close the curtains to give you some privacy while you take off your dress. You may keep on whatever you have on underneath.”
As Mrs. Morris stripped down to her silk-and-lace underthings—nothing cheap there either—Vivian kept up her easy chatter. It was a habit she fell into with most of her customers, to put them at ease during the often-intimate process. And it didn’t hurt that folks were more likely to tip well if she acted as friendly as possible. But this time she was more pointed than usual in her questions. After commenting on the weather and some of the paintings while she helped Mrs. Morris slip on the first dress, Vivian knelt and pulled out her tailor’s tape while asking, “And is Mr. Morris still with us?”
She already knew the answer, but it was a tactful question—Mrs. Morris was old enough that she could have been married either during the Great War or the influenza pandemic that followed.
“Oh yes,” Mrs. Morris answered, preening at herself in the mirror. The gown was silk and chiffon, with beading on each layer to catch the light no matter how she moved. Luckily, the fit was already perfect—her constant shifting would have made it almost impossible to check. But Vivian went through the motions to give her time to answer. “Mr. Morris is in excellent health. But rarely at home during the day.” She frowned a little at her reflection, then shrugged. “Thank goodness. I cannot imagine being married to one of those men who is always underfoot.”
“He must be wonderfully important, for you to live in a grand house like this,” Vivian said, keeping her head down as she fiddled with the gown’s hem, her eyes flicking up to the clock on Mrs. Morris’s dressing table. Any minute now…
Mrs. Morris, distracted from whatever had preoccupied her a moment before, smiled smugly at the mention of her house. “Isn’t it grand? Mr. Morris works in shipping and imports, so he’s very busy. And very successful.”
Vivian replied politely, not really paying attention to what she was saying while Mrs. Morris began to describe her furnishings in detail. She had just donned the second dress and launched into a recitation of the number of chandeliers in the house when the pounding came from downstairs. It sounded like someone was beating the front door with a battering ram. Mrs. Morris jumped so sharply that the dress’s fragile hem would have torn if Vivian hadn’t let go quickly.
“What on earth?” the woman demanded.
That was when the shouting began, a man’s voice raised in what might have been anguish or anger or simple excitement.
“Marie!” he bellowed. “We don’t have to hide anymore, I promise. I don’t care what your parents think! Just come down, you’ll see!”
Vivian didn’t have to make herself look surprised; she stared just as wildly as Mrs. Morris at the bedroom door. But she clenched her jaw shut against a hysterical bubble of laughter. Leo was putting on a hell of a show down there.
