Bel ignored her. “Well, even if your schedule will accommodate frivolity, mine will not. The Society is planning our demonstration of chimney-sweeping machinery on Friday. There are leaflets to be printed, invitations to be delivered. I must speak with Cook about the refreshments, and—”
“Isabel.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. It was a weighty, authoritative gesture, and it made Bel keenly aware of how childish she sounded. “It’s an opera,” he said calmly. “Not a bacchanal. Why does the idea distress you so?”
“I… I don’t know.” And she honestly didn’t. But it did distress her, greatly. She didn’t like being in this shop, perfumed as it was with Toby’s amatory past. She wished they could just leave. “I don’t need a new gown,” she tried again. “I have a closet full of gowns at home.”
Toby dismissed them all with a shake of his head. “Debutante gowns. Virginal, modest, pretty. You’re a married lady of wealth and influence, and you ought to look it. Worldly, bold, exquisite.”
Bel frowned. None of those words described her in the least.
Madame Pamplemousse tugged at her again. “Come then, my lady.”
“Just a moment,” Toby told the modiste. “Isabel, tell me about your demonstration. What is its purpose?”
Had she not told him a dozen times? Didn’t he listen to her at all? Her voice clipped and impatient, she answered, “To demonstrate the modern advances in flue-cleaning machinery. To convince the influential ladies of society that climbing boys are inefficient and obsolete. To keep poor children from suffocating to death in chimneys.”
“Yes. And worthy goals, all. But do you really think the machinery’s efficiency will be the persuasive factor? No, of course not. Perhaps if you were inviting housekeepers it would be, but the ladies of the ton care little for function. They care for fashion. To persuade them to take notice of automated brushes, you must make those brushes appear beautiful, desirable, and au courant. More to the point, you must appear beautiful, desirable, and au courant—and therefore, worthy of emulation. The first two qualities, God has already provided. Let us entrust Madame with the third, hm?”
Bel gave up. It seemed ridiculous, the idea that her purchasing an opulent gown would somehow save the lives of miserable waifs. But the argument was so tangled now, she didn’t know how to unravel it.
Toby spoke to the Frenchwoman. “She needs rich color, and sparkle, and the most stylish cut.”
“Yes, yes,” Madame tutted, herding Bel toward the room’s fabric partition.
“I want her shining like the jewel she is,” Toby called after them as they ducked behind the velvet drapery.
“First I was an angel,” Bel muttered as two young maids beset her, prying apart hooks and unlacing tapes. “Now I’m a jewel?”
“My lady,” the modiste said in a lilting whisper, “be happy your husband admires you so and wants others to admire you, too. Take care you do not drive him to call you unpleasant names. Take care you do not drive him into another’s arms.”
One of the maids made a comment in French. Bel couldn’t understand the exact words, but she gathered the general implication: The girl’s own arms would be open and available, should Bel fail to heed Madame’s advice.
More giggling.
Bel growled.
“What’s that giggling about?” Toby called in a teasing voice. “Must I come back there and supervise?”
The maids tittered at the suggestion.
“No,” Bel answered sharply. “All is well.” Except for this unreasoned, bitter jealousy in her heart. She flung her arms wide to aid the young women in removing her clothes. “Let’s do this quickly, please?”
Madame Pamplemousse lifted her voice. “Sir Toby, be seated. There are newspapers behind the counter, should you require diversion.”
“Are there?” The sounds of his footfalls and rustling paper filtered through the draperies. His tone became one of amused discovery. “Yes, indeed there are. Including the most diverting publication of all… The Prattler. What are they saying about me today, I wonder?”
Bel winced. “Toby, don’t. Don’t torture yourself. It doesn’t matter what they say. No one reads that horrid thing anyway.”
“But of course they do,” Madame Pamplemousse said. “Everyone in London reads The Prattler.”
“Not just everyone in London,” Toby added. “Since polling began, it’s the best-selling paper in Surrey, according to Colin Brooks. Perhaps I ought to deliver copies when I ride out there each morning.”
“You wouldn’t,” Bel said.
“No, I wouldn’t,” he replied. “Because—according to today’s edition—I’m not riding to Surrey at all.”
“What?”
“It says right here, I’ve been completely absent from the hustings. My entire candidacy is a sham.”
“What? But that’s absurd!”
“Is it?” Toby’s slow footfalls crossed the room.
“Yes, of course it is. You’ve been gone from dawn to dusk every day. Where else would you have been spending your time?”
He paused. “Do you really wish to know?”
A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)
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