Page 14 of The Siren of Sussex

Mr. Malik’s mouth ticked up at one corner. Too late, she realized the double meaning in her words. “Do you know, Miss Maltravers, I believe I am.”

Ahmad thrust his hands into his pockets as Miss Maltravers rode away.

She looked different on a horse. Elegant and confident. Entirely at her ease.

In truth, he’d never seen anything like her.

She hadn’t been boasting when she’d said that she was a better rider than the Pretty Horsebreakers. From what he’d seen this morning, Miss Maltravers’s skill as an equestrienne was beyond compare. Galloping down Rotten Row on that great Spanish stallion of hers—a horse that would have intimidated most men—she’d been at one with her mount. Thoroughly in control, while at the same time seeming to exert not one ounce of physical force.

Impressive, to be sure. But it was more than that.

There was an inherent grace to her riding. A feminine ebb and flow that had riveted his gaze. It was almost sensual, the way the lines of her body had been in harmony with every movement. Still and sure, with gentle hands and a quiet seat.

He’d watched her with growing awe, a tightness forming in his chest. Good lord. Did she realize how much potential she had? All it would take was the right dressmaker—the right hairdresser and corsetiere.

The right habit-maker.

Miss Walters had managed to snare a marquess as her protector. What was Miss Maltravers aiming for? A duke? A prince?

If she played her cards right, Ahmad didn’t doubt that she could have whomever she wished.

Turning from the rail, he walked back the way he’d come, down the path toward the main entrance of the park. Raindrops fell intermittently, dampening the shoulders of his coat and the brim of his hat. He was too preoccupied to mind, already consumed by visions of the fabric he’d use—the color, texture, and cut.

At present, there was nothing resembling what he wanted at the tailor’s shop. Miss Maltravers required something new. Something special.

Back on the main street, Ahmad hailed a hansom. “Phillotson’s in Holborn Hill,” he told the driver before climbing into the cab.

Phillotson’s was one of four very good woolen warehouses in the city. Ahmad preferred it to the others purely because it was the largest. There were treasures to be found there if one had time enough to spare.

He didn’t have time today. He was meant to be finishing Lady Heatherton’s evening dress. She expected him to bring it to her in the morning for her final fitting. But his mind wasn’t on Lady Heatherton.

His thoughts were full of Evelyn Maltravers.

That same evening, only minutes before Doyle and Heppenstall’s closed and locked its doors for the night, Miss Maltravers entered the shop, accompanied by her maid.

Ahmad was in his shirtsleeves, a cloth measuring tape draped round his neck. He’d told her to come at closing time. He generally did his habit fittings after hours, when the cutters had retired to their rooms abovestairs and Doyle wasn’t there to loom over his shoulder.

Miss Maltravers stopped just inside the doorway. Her bespectacled gaze flicked from his face to his waistcoat and white linen shirt and then back again. Clad in a shapeless afternoon dress, she looked nothing like the dazzling vision she’d presented on horseback. She appeared nervous, truth be told. Wide-eyed, with a flushed face and trembling hands.

He felt a bit trembly himself. The damnedest thing. It made him gruffer than usual. “You’re wearing your spectacles.”

Her hand went immediately to her face, pushing the offending article further up onto her nose. “Shouldn’t I have?”

“You weren’t this morning.”

“I never do when I ride. I don’t require them for distance. Only for close up. Reading and talking to people and so on. Without them, your face would be a blur, and so would any fabrics you show to me.”

Outside, a rush of foot traffic passed in front of Doyle and Heppenstall’s glass window—customers leaving shops as they closed, and shopkeepers and their clerks locking up and going home for the day. One of the passersby caught the attention of Miss Maltravers’s maid.

“Oh, miss!” she cried. “That’s Sally, from my old employer in Green Street. May I speak with her? I won’t be a moment.”

“Of course,” Miss Maltravers said. “Take as long as you need.”

The maid slipped out into the street, the door shutting behind her.

“A new hire?” Ahmad asked.

Miss Maltravers’s mouth curved in a slight smile. “A parlor maid in my uncle’s house.”