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‘Don’t worry about that. His lordship gave me five sovereigns and my passage all found, so I’m right and tight until you can sort things out with your bankers.’ Maggie shook out the separate pieces of the walking dress. ‘Will you put it on? This’ll show his lordship that he’s dealing with a lady.’
‘A pigeon in borrowed plumes is still a pigeon and not a peacock,’ Cleo said, holding out her hands. ‘Look at them. Madam keeps tutting over them. They are brown and I have calluses and my nails haven’t all grown to the same length yet. And my hair is in no style at all and my face is tanned and...’
‘Do you care so much what he thinks?’ Maggie was busy unfastening Cleo’s gown.
‘He? You mean Quin? No, of course not. I am above such things.’ Liar, you want him expiring with desire, you want him struck dumb with your beauty and elegance. You want...him.
‘We can study the hair styles of the ladies at Gibraltar and I can try to copy them. You might even be able to find someone to cut your hair. And there are sure to be merchants with all the cosmetics and creams that English ladies use.’
‘The problem is going to be getting ashore to do all this studying and shopping.’ Cleo stood still while Maggie tossed the skirts of the new gown over her head and then helped her into the bodice, taking care with the pins and the basting stitches.
‘I’ll fix him,’ Maggie said as she stepped back to study the set of the bodice. ‘If he says we cannot go, I will take him aside and tell him it is essential for female reasons. He won’t ask what, he’ll be too embarrassed.’ Maggie grinned.
‘You are obviously far more skilled at managing men than I am,’ Cleo said as she put her own gown back on.
‘They are all quite simple really,’ Maggie said as she began to pin the sections of the garment together. ‘It is just discovering how their brain works and then making that a target. His lordship is a gentleman and so he does not want to embarrass a lady. Simple.’
Simple? Quin? I do not think so. Cleo began to measure out braid and ribbon and wondered if she dared risk crossing him again. But what can he do to me? He has promised to take me to London and things can hardly be worse between us than they are at the moment, surely?
May 15th 1801—the Thames, London
‘Home,’ Maggie said. She leaned on the ship’s rail and inhaled deeply.
Cleo huddled into the thick shawl she had bought at Gibraltar and shivered. Inhaling lungfuls of smoky, damp, river-smelling air was a treat she could well do without.
‘Good to be back in a city without heat and dust, isn’t it, Maggie?’ Quin joined them at the rail, looking, to Cleo’s surreptitious glance, exceedingly smart. She had thought that all English gentlemen were incapable of getting themselves dressed without the attentions of a valet, let alone turning themselves out in prime style, but Quin managed it. He had even had his hair cut at Gibraltar.
‘Is this winter?’ Cleo asked, convinced that her nose must be blue. They had avoided each other since the ship had passed through the Straits into the Atlantic, unless mealtimes and accidental meetings made exchanges—carried out with painstaking courtesy—essential.
Quin had agreed without argument to Maggie’s stammered request for an essential shopping expedition and had even arranged for them to go with the Governor’s married niece and one of her footmen as guide and escort.
Cleo had enjoyed Mrs Denver’s company even though she was disconcerted to discover that Quin knew her.
It had been even more disconcerting to have to carry on a conversation with a woman who assumed that Cleo knew just as much about Quin as she did. No, she had never danced with Lord Quintus, but she was certain he was most accomplished. No, she was not familiar with his family, but she was sure his brothers were all that were charming. No, she had no idea what Lord Quintus’s plans were after he arrived in London. Except courting a bride, she could have said, but instead, bit her tongue.
‘Did you not buy a cloak with all that shopping you did?’ Quin asked now. She must have shivered, or perhaps it was simply her question.
‘No. It never occurred to me it would be this cold.’
‘This is summer, but I have to admit it is not as hot as it might be for mid-May. I’ll find you something warmer.’ Quin strode off and came back five minutes later with a black cloak of fine wool with a deep-blue lining the colour of his eyes. He swirled it around her shoulders but left it to her to fasten the clasp under her chin. ‘It is a good twenty inches too long for you, be careful not to trip.’
Cleo told herself she was glad of his impersonal touch. ‘Thank you. I will take care not to trail it in the mud.’
