Page 26

“What?”

“That he had an interesting walk.”

“An interesting walk?” Clem repeated with a frown, but Dora was now gazing all around them with a rapt expression. She leaned forward. “What a fascinating bunch of people,” she breathed.

Were they? Clem glanced about. They looked like the usual mixed bunch to him. Some reasonably well-heeled, but the majority of them decidedly seedy. She nodded back at him, her eyes shining.

Well, hell, if he had known all he had to do was introduce her to the shadier side of life to please her, it would have made things a lot easier. French restaurants were clearly not required. He lifted his beer to his lips, still watching her, a faint pucker between his brows. “How is the cooking going?” he asked when he managed to catch her roving eye again. He still couldn’t discern what it was she was finding so fascinating about their fellow diners.

“Oh.” Her face fell at once. “Do not ask. It’s the timing of it all that is my downfall, I think. By the time my mutton chops are cooked, my potatoes are stone cold, and my carrots have turned to a pulpy mush in the pan.”

“Alas, poor Felix!” Clem teased lightly.

She gave a ripple of laughter. “It serves him right, the beast! In any case, I’ve decided it is the laundry that is my greatest bugbear. Men’s shirts, specifically,” she added darkly, taking a swig of her sherry. She plunked it down on the table, warming to her theme. “Let me tell you, starching collars is the very devil of a job! And there are so many exhausting and laborious stages you have to go through,” she said despairingly. “You would not believe it. Tell me, have you ever heard of bluing whites?” Before he could answer, she plunged on resentfully, “And really, why should Felix care what color his undergarments have turned when only he will see them, in any case? None of my own garments cause me such a headache to clean. I cannot for the life of me think why I was not Mrs. Cherwell’s favorite all along!”

Clem considered this. Cherwell … she had mentioned that name before. One of her lame ducks he seemed to recall. “You were not her favorite?”

“Not at all! For Felix is the master of the house and she fairly doted on Harold.” Clem, who believed Allsop to be another lame duck, decided not to comment. “Really, after struggling with their shirt fronts I cannot see why she held them in any affection at all,” she muttered indignantly. “And Felix is not one bit grateful for my efforts.”

“What about Allsop?” Clem could not stop himself from asking.

Her expression softened. “He has been rather a lamb about it, in all honesty. He never complains, even when I make a horrible job of it. In fact, I heard him tell Felix they should start looking for a laundress yesterday.” She colored and hesitated a moment before lowering her voice and adopting a confiding tone. “You will be glad to hear Harold and I have quite laid our quarrel to rest.”

“Oh?” Glad was not the word he would have used. Even he could hear the edge to his tone, but Dora carried on, seemingly oblivious to it.

“He came to me in the kitchen on Wednesday night and apologized for siding with Felix. He takes it all back and means to support me in the future.” Her expression was so open and relieved that he wondered at his own reaction, which was one of outright annoyance.

Mercifully, he was spared from having to comment on their reconcilement as a waiter appeared bearing a tray of their food. After the two plates, a jug of gravy, and a pot of mustard had been set down in front of them, they were alone once more.

“Oh, this looks wonderful!” Dora exclaimed and sent him a beaming smile.

Clem felt his shoulders relax. Getting irritated over a poor specimen like Harold Allsop was patently absurd. “Do you think they will end up sending their laundry out?” he asked, pouring gravy liberally over his steak.

She pulled a face. “Chance would be a fine thing. Felix would not hear of it. The expense,” she intoned in mock horror. “Really, I wish they would simply take to wearing more sensible attire as I do.” She pointed her fork toward her own dress, which was another of her peculiar loose-fitting numbers which draped from her shoulders in a muted green crepe. It had a crinkled look to the fabric and Clem wondered if that spared her the necessity of ironing it. “It is so much more practical.”

Briefly, Clem contemplated what manner of dress she would have her brother and Allsop adopt instead of conventional suits. Handwoven smocks, perhaps? He gave a faint shudder and resolved never to ask. The rest of the meal passed pleasantly enough. Dora turned down a post-dinner sherry with a regretful “better not” and they exited the establishment with her companionably hanging off his arm.

“What will you do for the rest of the day?” he asked, feeling curious. “Not tied to a hot stove or turning a mangle, I hope. Not on the day of rest.”

“No, for both Felix and Harold are out to dinner this afternoon, meeting with some backers for some production they are hoping to stage.”

Clem’s ears pricked up. “Indeed?” In the future, any such plans would need to be run by him, though neither Fields nor Allsop were yet aware of that fact. In any case, it was too early to declare himself just yet. He would be in a much stronger position once he had a ring firmly on Dora’s finger.

“Yes, and that means it was agreed a cold supper would suffice, so I can work in peace on my own secret project this afternoon.”

“Secret project?” Clem forced himself to ask, though in truth he was more intrigued by the other topic.

“I am attempting to alter an old suit of my brother’s,” she confessed as Clem flagged down a passing hansom cab. “It has been a lot trickier than I envisaged but I am sure if I persevere then I will get the fit right. Eventually.”

“To what purpose?” Clem asked, without thinking. Her expression looked at once so wounded that it brought him up short. Of course, the bloody stupid male impersonation nonsense. “I mean,” he said recovering quickly, “your build is surely quite different to your brother’s?”

“Well, not greatly,” she said with a brave smile, but he could see his careless words had shaken her. He had forgotten all about her bloody obsession with her “new act.” “Felix is of slight build and middling height for a man, whereas I am tall for a woman. It means our heights are not terribly disparate.”

“Your height, maybe not, but there are other considerations,” he pointed out. He could see from the way she bit her lip and avoided his eye that he had screwed up quite badly. “Why don’t you let me book you in with my tailor for next time?” he offered extravagantly.

She gasped, her face turning toward his again. “Y-your tailor?” she faltered. “You would do that? Take me to your tailor?”

“Why not?” He braced himself for his stab of regret, but it did not come. How could it, when she was gazing up at him like that, as though he had just offered to buy her a diamond bloody necklace?