Rebecca gave an unabashed grin, skittering to a stop next to Kendra. Harding emerged, holding her caped redingote and hat.
“Thank you, Harding.” Rebecca gave Kendra a significant look as she shrugged into the coat, then said, “You know, Madame Gaudet is excellent with the needle. I believe many ladies of the Beau Monde patronize her. I would not be surprised if Lady Dover had been a client.”
“Becca is correct,” Alec said, and descended the stairs without his usual grace. He kept one hand on his ribs. “I can attest that Lady Dover patronized Madame Gaudet’s establishment. What did you learn from Weston?”
Lady Atwood made a sweeping gesture to Kendra and Rebecca like she was shooing chickens. “There is no time to discuss that now. We must leave. Come along.”
Behind them, the Duke clapped Alec lightly on the shoulder. “While the ladies are at the modiste, I shall tell you what transpired, my boy. Let’s go to my study. We might as well be comfortable.”
Madam Gaudet’s establishment was located on Bond Street, which was as ultra fashionable in this year as it was in Kendra’s own. The building itself was a three-story, cream-colored sandstone with wide windows on the ground floor, skinny rectangular windows on the next level, and bricked up windows at the top—a clever way to get around the much-despised window tax that the Crown had imposed on its people more than a century before.
Above the slanted roof peaks, the sky had become dark again, the clouds pregnant with rain yet to come. Still, the dismal weather wasn’t a deterrent to shoppers. Bond Street was bustling, the thoroughfare loud with the clatter of wheels from fashionable carriages, public coaches, and large service wagons hauling goods. The steady clop of horses’ hooves rang against the cobblestones. All tiers of society—Kendra was beginning to recognize the different classes based on their dress—walked up and down the sidewalks.
The coachman unfolded the steps, and they’d just descended to the ground when a loud commotion drew their attention to the street. Two horses pulling a cart suddenly reared up, whinnying. The cart lurched dangerously to the side and its driver let out a fierce yell.
“Blast ye! Oi almost got ye, ye bleeding twat!”
The young man who’d run across the wide street and nearly gotten clipped by the horses and cart responded with a rude gesture that spanned centuries.
“London,” sniffed Lady Atwood, her mouth thinning with disapproval. “’Tis constant mayhem.”
She marched toward the dressmaker’s shop. A bell attached to the door jingled when they entered the room, the air heavy with the scent of lilac and gardenia. Long oak worktables were positioned in front of shelves laden with round barrels tipped sideways, allowing an assortment of luxurious fabrics to spill out in a decorative display. There was a low table, several chairs, and a sofa angled in front of an elegantly carved marble fireplace. A homey fire burned in the grate.
On sunnier days, Madame Gaudet probably relied on the natural light from the enormous multipaned windows facing the street to brighten the shop’s interior, Kendra thought. Today, oil lamps had been lit around the room.
“Bonjour! Bienvenue!”
A woman emerged from the yellow silk curtain stretched across a doorway on the other side of the shop, sending the fabric fluttering behind her. Madame Gaudet was a petite, attractive brunette of indeterminate age. At first glance, Kendra probably would’ve pegged her at thirty-five, but on closer inspection, she revised that to at least ten years older. No matter her age, the dressmaker was her own best advertisement, wearing a simple apricot-hued gown that she carried off with the kind of sophistication that seemed embedded into the genetic code of the French.
“Lady Atwood.” Smiling, Madame Gaudet clasped the Countess’s hands and gave both of her cheeks an air kiss, a shocking amount of familiarity in this day and age. She spoke with a French accent that had been softened by her years in London. “Vous êtes magnifique! Toujours aussi ravissante. Vous éclipsez toutes les autres femmes! You must confess your secret to me, oui? I am becoming haggard in my old age, whereas you only become more youthful.”
Flattery never goes out of style, Kendra thought wryly as she watched Lady Atwood beam.
“You are too kind, madame. May I introduce Lady Rebecca, goddaughter to the Duke of Aldridge, and Miss Donovan, my brother’s ward. Miss Donovan needs an entirely new wardrobe, one befitting her station.”
Madame Gaudet’s gaze was shrewd as it slid over Kendra. Then she clapped her hands and called for a young maid to take their cloaks and parasols, and sat her clients at the table to warm themselves in front of the fire.
“You will have tea or a small sherry, oui? To take the chill out of this wicked day?”
“Tea would be lovely, thank you,” accepted the Countess.
Again the modiste clapped her hands for the harried young maid to fetch a tray. While they waited, Madame Gaudet distributed fashion plates and magazines for them to examine, explaining the trends coming out of Paris now that the war was over.
“Notice the V-neckline, so parfait to show off a woman’s décolletage, oui? And see how the waistline is higher, and the skirt is fuller? I will need to take Miss Donovan’s measurements . . . Giselle!”
A pretty young girl of perhaps seventeen floated through the yellow silk curtain. “Yes, madame?”
“Bring more fashion plates for Her Ladyship. Merci.” She turned to Kendra. “If you will follow me, mademoiselle?”
The little Frenchwoman ushered Kendra through the yellow silk curtain. On the other side was a room with half a dozen young girls industriously stitching gowns by hand. The room had only one window and a scattering of oil lamps. Kendra predicted that every seamstress in the room would need glasses or be out of their job by the time they hit forty.
Madame Gaudet led Kendra into another small room cluttered with stiff patterns and headless dressmaker’s dummies, with bolts of material stacked haphazardly in a corner. She wasted no time, immediately undoing the buttons on Kendra’s dress.
Kendra decided not to waste time, either. “I heard Lady Dover was a client of yours.”
The Frenchwoman’s fingers stilled, but continued to slip the buttons through the buttonholes in a moment. “Oui. Such a terrible tragedy.”
“What was she like?”