"At Clara? Don't be absurd. She was absolutely right. She knew my heart wasn't in it. She knew I was acting. I followed your instructions to the letter. Exactly as one follows instructions. That isn't how it ought to be. It ought to happen of itself, because nothing else is bearable."

"Stop," she said. "Stop right now." She needed to run far away, the way her forebears ran from difficulties. She needed to run because with every fiber of her being she longed to say yes. And that was a quick route to self-destruction.

"When I left that party, I was shaking," he said. He looked down at his hands, at the beautiful tan gloves. He set them on the counter. Her hands, still braced on the counter, were not so very far away. She had only to reach a very little way to touch him. She kept her hands where they were.

"I realized it was because I'd been on the brink of the worst mistake of my life," he said. "A mistake that would have ruined two lives. I realized that Clara had spared me. She'd saved us both. She was right. I could never be the husband she deserves. For me there can't be anyone but you."

Don't do this don't do this don't do this.

There was a weight on her chest. It hurt to breathe. "Don't be an idiot," she said.

"Listen to me," he said.

"No, because you're not thinking."

"I've done nothing but think," he said. "Last night, all this day, while I wandered up and down St. James's Street, waiting for the mobs to leave, so that I could talk to you. I've had plenty of time for second thoughts, and I haven't any. The opposite, in fact. The more time I've had, the surer I've felt. I love you, Marcelline." He paused. "You said you loved me."

He wasn't going to stop. He wasn't going to give up. He was obstinate. Hadn't she already learned that, over and over again? When he wanted something, he went after it, single-mindedly, and he was not over-scrupulous in his methods.

He was like her, in other words.

The irony was too rich.

She slid her hands from the counter and folded her arms, protecting herself. "I told you that doesn't matter," she said. "You can't marry me. I'm a shopkeeper. You can't marry a shopkeeper."

"n.o.blemen have married courtesans," he said. "They've married their housekeepers and their dairymaids."

"And it never turns out well," she said. When gentlemen married far beneath them, their wives and children paid for it. They became outcasts. They lived in limbo, unable to return to their old world and shunned in their new one. "I can't believe you think this is sane."

"You know it's the only sane thing," he said. "I love you. I want to give you everything. I want to give Lucie everything she needs-not merely dolls and fine clothes and schooling, but a father. I lost a family, and I know how precious it is. I want you and I want your family and I want to be part of your lives."

She heard the desperation in his voice, the urgency, and she wanted to weep.

"I know the shop is your pa.s.sion," he said, "and it would kill you to give it up-but you don't have to. I thought about that, too. In fact, I've been thinking about your shop for weeks."

She didn't doubt it. She didn't doubt that he meant every word.

"I have ideas," he went on eagerly. "We can do this together. Other n.o.blemen have business interests. I can write, and I've the resources to create a magazine. Like La Belle a.s.semblee, but better. I've other ideas about expanding the business. You said you were the greatest modiste in the world. I can help you make all the world realize it. Marry me, Marcelline."

It wasn't fair.

She was a dreamer, yes. All of her kind were. They dreamed impossible dreams. Yet she and her sisters had made some of them come true.

It was a beautiful dream he offered. But he saw only the beautiful part.

"Other n.o.blemen's business interests have to do with property," she said. "And great schemes. They own mines and invest in ca.n.a.ls and the new railways. They do not open little shops and sell ladies' apparel. The Great World will never forgive you. These aren't the old days, Clevedon. These aren't the days of the Prince Regent and his loose-living set. Society isn't as tolerant as it used to be."

"Then Society is a great bore," he said. "I don't care whether they approve of my going into trade. I believe in you and in what you do. I want to be part of it."

He didn't know what he was saying. He didn't understand what it meant to lose Society's regard and his friends' respect, to be barred from the world to which one ought to belong. She knew all too well.

Even if he could understand that and accept it, there remained the nasty little business of who she really was.

She had no choice. She had to be the sane one. This was one dream she couldn't dream. He was watching her, waiting.

She unfolded her arms.

She put her hands together, like one offering a prayer, and said, "Thank you. This is kind and generous, and, truly, you do me a great honor-I know that's what one is supposed to say, but I mean it, truly-"

"Marcelline, don't-"

"But no, your grace, no. I can never marry you."

She saw his face go white, and she turned away, quickly, before she could weaken. She walked to the door that led to the back rooms, and opened it, and walked through, and closed it, very, very gently, behind her.

Clevedon walked blindly from the shop, down St. James's Street. At the bottom of the street he paused, and gazed blankly at St. James's Palace. There was a noise in his head, a horrible noise. He was aware of misery and pain and rage and the devil knew what else. He hadn't the wherewithal to take it apart and name its components. It was a kind of h.e.l.l-brew of feelings, and it consumed him. He didn't hear the shout. He couldn't hear above the noise in his head.

"What the devil is wrong with you, Clevedon? I've been shouting myself hoa.r.s.e, running down the street like a d.a.m.n fool. One d.a.m.n fool after another, obviously. I saw you come out of that shop, you moron."

Clevedon turned and looked at Longmore. "I recommend you not provoke me," he said coldly. "I'm in a mood to knock someone down, and you'll do very well."

"Don't tell me," Longmore said. "The dressmaker doesn't want you, either. By gad, this isn't your day, is it? Not your week, rather."

The urge to throw Longmore against a lamp post or a fence or straight into the gutter was overpowering. The guards would probably rush out from the palace gates-and there Clevedon would be, in the newspapers again, the name on every scandalmonger's lips.

h.e.l.l, what was one more scandal?

He dropped his walking stick and grasped Longmore by the shoulders and shoved him hard. With an oath, Longmore shoved back. "Fight me like a man, you swine," he said. "I dare you."

A moment later, they'd torn off their coats. In the next instant, their fists flew, as they tried, steadily and viciously, to pummel each other to death.

Marcelline sent Sophy out into the showroom to close the shop.

Though she was so tired, tired to death and heartsick, she knew better than to go to bed. Lucie would think she was ill, and she'd get panicky-and very possibly do something rash again.

In any case, Marcelline knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. She needed to focus on making beautiful clothes. That would calm her.

She was trying to redesign the fastening for a pelisse when Sophy came in. Leonie trailed after her. Sophy hadn't said anything before, but she'd given Marcelline a searching look. Even wearing a card-playing face, it was hard to hide one's emotions from one's own kind.

The two younger sisters had come to find out the trouble and comfort her as they always did.

"What happened?" Sophy said. "What's wrong?"

"Clevedon," Marcelline said. She jammed her pencil into the paper. The pencil broke. "Oh, it's ridiculous. I ought to laugh. But I can't. You won't believe it."

"Of course we will," Sophy said.

"He offered you carte blanche," Leonie said.

"No, he asked me to marry him."

There was a short, stunned silence.

Then, "I reckon he's in a marrying mood," Sophy said.

Marcelline laughed. Then she started to sob.

But before she could fall to pieces, Selina Jeffreys came to the door. "Oh, madame, I beg your pardon. But I was just out-I went to get the ribbons from Mr. Adkins down the bottom of the street-and when I came out of his shop, there were the two gentleman fighting down at the palace, and people coming out of every shop and club, and running to watch the fight."

"Two gentlemen?" Leonie said. "Two ruffians, you mean."

"No, Miss Leonie. It's his grace the Duke of Clevedon and his friend, the other tall, dark gentleman."

"Lord Longmore?" Sophy said. "He was here only a little while ago."

"Yes, miss, that's the one. They're trying to kill each other, I vow! I couldn't stand to watch-and besides, there was all sorts of men coming along to see. It wasn't any place for a girl on her own."

Sophy and Leonie didn't have Jeffreys's delicate scruples. They ran out to watch the fight. They didn't notice that their older sister didn't follow.

Sophy and Leonie returned not very long after they'd gone out.

Marcelline had given up trying to create something beautiful. She wasn't in the mood. She looked in on the seamstresses, then she went upstairs and looked in on Lucie, who was reading to Susannah from one of the books Clevedon had bought.

After the visit to the nursery, Marcelline went into their sitting room and poured herself a gla.s.s of brandy.

She'd taken only a few sips before her sisters returned, looking windblown and sounding a little out of breath, but otherwise undamaged.

They poured brandy, too, and reported.

"It was delicious," Sophy said. "They must practice at the boxing salons, because they're very good."

"It didn't look like practice to me," Leone said. "It looked like they were trying to kill each other."

"It was wonderfully ferocious," Sophy said. "Their hats were off, and their coats, too, and they were trampling their neckcloths. Their hair was wild and they had blood on their clothes." She fanned herself with her hand. "I vow, it was enough to make a girl swoon."

"It put me in mind of the Roman mobs at the Coliseum," Leonie said. "Half of White's must have been there-all those fine gentlemen, and all of them shouting and betting on the outcome and egging them on."

"Leonie's right," Sophy said. "It did look to be getting out of hand, and I was thinking we ought to find a safer place to watch from. But then the Earl of Hargate came out of St. James's Palace with some other men."

"Straight through the crowd of men he came, pushing them out of his way-and he must be sixty if he's a day," Leonie said.

"But he carries himself like Zeus," Sophy said. "And the men gave way, and he ordered his grace and his lordship to stop making d.a.m.ned fools of themselves."

"They weren't listening," Leonie said.

"It was the bloodl.u.s.t," Sophy said. "They were like wolves."

"None of the other men had dared to try to break it up," Leonie said.

"But Lord Hargate waded right into the fight," Sophy said. "And he got in the way of Longmore's fist. But the earl dodged the blow-oh, Marcelline, I wish you'd seen it-and then he grabbed Longmore's arm and pulled him away from Clevedon. And one of the gentleman with him-it had to be one of his sons-the same features, build, and coloring. Whichever one it was, he took hold of Clevedon."

"And then the earl and his son dragged them away."

"And one of the other gentlemen was threatening to read the Riot Act, and so we came away." Sophy drank her brandy and poured some more.

"I'm sure we needn't wonder what it was about," Marcelline said. "Longmore avenging his sister's honor, or some such."

"Why should he need to?" Sophy said. "Everyone thought Lady Clara avenged her own honor very well. Anything Longmore did would be anticlimactic, don't you think?"

"Then what provoked fisticuffs in St. James's Street?" Leonie said.

"Don't be thick," Sophy said. "It's not as though men need a sane reason. They were both in a bad mood. One of them picked a fight. And I'll wager anything that now it's over, they'll be getting drunk together."

"Why was Longmore in a bad mood, Sophy?" Marcelline said. "You said he'd been here, after Clevedon left."

"He came to plague me about the ball and call me a traitor for spying for Tom Foxe on his sister and friend. I pretended not to know what he was talking about. Oh, Lord." Her pretty countenance turned repentant. "Oh, Marcelline, what horrid sisters we are. We hear of a fight, and off we go, little bloodthirsty cats, and there you are, your heart breaking-"

"Don't be ridiculous," Marcelline said. "Save the drama for the newspapers."

"But what happened, dearest?" Sophy set down her gla.s.s and knelt by Marcelline and took her hand. "What did Clevedon say and what did you say-and why are you pretending your heart isn't broken?"

Clevedon House Sunday 10 May, three o'clock in the morning The house was dark, everyone abed but one. In the library, a single candle flickered over a solitary figure in a dressing gown whose pen scratched rapidly across the paper.

The Duke of Clevedon had done his best to beat Longmore to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp. Afterward they'd emptied one bottle after another. Yet he'd come home all too sober. It seemed there wasn't enough drink in all the world to dull the ache in his heart or quiet his conscience and let him sleep.

Nothing to be done about the heartache but endure.

His conscience was another matter.

It drove him to the library. Then, even before he took up his pen to write to Clara, he knew how it must begin: Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repet.i.tion of those sentiments, or renewal of those offers, which were last night so disgusting to you.

It was the start of Mr. Darcy's letter to Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, Clara's favorite novel. He could easily imagine her reluctant smile when she read it. He continued in his own words: I was wrong to make an offer, and you were right in all you said, but you said not half enough. Our listeners should have heard the thousand ways I've taken you for granted and tried your good nature and the ways I've thought only of myself and never of you. You've been true to me for all the time I've known you, and for all that time I, too, have been true only to me. When you were grieving for the grandmother I knew you dearly loved, I abandoned you to jaunt about the Continent. I expected you to wait for me, and you did. How, then, did I return your patience and loyalty? I was neglectful, insensitive, and false.

He wrote on, of the many ways he'd wronged her. She'd brought joy and light into his life when he was a lonely, heartbroken boy. Her letters had brightened his days. She was dear to him, and always would be, but they were friends and no more. Surely he'd known in his heart this wasn't enough for marriage, but it was the easy way and he took it. He'd been false to her and false to himself, because he'd been a coward, afraid to risk his heart.

He acknowledged all his thoughtless and unkind acts, and concluded: I'm sorry, my dear, so deeply sorry. I hope in time you'll forgive me-though I can't at the moment suggest a reason to do so. With all my heart I wish you the happiness I ought to have been able to give you and a hundred times more.

He wrote his usual affectionate closing, and signed with his initial, as he always did.

He folded up the letter, addressed it, and left it in the tray for the servant to take out with the morning mail.

Then, only the heartache remained.

Chapter Seventeen.