Page 5 of The Model Debutante
The next morning, refreshed by a good night’s sleep, undisturbed by dreams of hallooing gentlemen and Macedonian generals, Tallie woke to a sunny day feeling considerably more optimistic than she had for some time.
‘Better?’ asked Zenna over the breakfast table. They were alone, Mrs Blackstock was out marketing and Millie was tucked up in bed, for as she rightly said, beauty sleep was essential in her profession.
‘Mmm.’ Tallie spread preserve on her toast with a lavish hand and contemplated the advertisements on the front page of the morning paper. ‘How much money would it take to set up in one’s own shop, do you think, Zenna?’
‘As a milliner?’ Zenna bit thoughtfully into a forkful of ham. ‘Rent for the shop – and that would need space for a workroom; redecoration and fitting it out. Girls for the workshop, materials. A lot of money. Not as much as I would need for a school, but a lot. You would need a loan, or,’ she added with a wicked twinkle, ‘a protector.’
‘I suspect that was how Madame D’Aunay got started, by prudently investing a farewell present from such a person.’ Tallie confessed. ‘But I have absolutely no intention of taking a lover so I can borrow money for a hat shop from him.’
Zenna choked back a gasp of laughter. ‘It would certainly be a most original reason for abandoning the path of virtue. What are you doing today? I have the two Hutchinson girls all day and I plan to go for a nice walk in Green Park with them, conversing in Italian throughout.’
‘That does sound pleasant, they seem such an amiable family from what you have told me. I have rather a pleasant day too,with hats to deliver to both Lady Parry and Miss Gower and they are quite my favourite clients.’
Once outside Tallie found it was hard to maintain such a cheerful mood. In the morning sunshine the brown walking dress and pelisse were every bit as unsatisfactory as she had thought the day before. There was nothing for it but to purchase a dress length and make a new gown, because she really could not feel that she looked the part to be calling upon Society ladies. She looked in the windows of Hardin and Howell as she passed them and regretfully decided that the Parthenon Bazaar was likely to prove more suitable for her budget. Some economies were possible and if she did not take a hackney to her clients’ homes but walked instead, that would save a few shillings.
She was soon regretting the decision to walk while managing the three hat boxes she collected at the milliners. Although her first call at Bruton Street was not far and the boxes were light, they were unwieldy and the sight of a young lady carrying any parcel in the street let alone three hat boxes, was sufficiently unconventional for her to attract several impertinent stares.
Feeling increasingly flustered Tallie was tempted to change her plans and call at Miss Gower’s in Albermarle Street first, as it was closer. But Miss Gower was eighty three and would not be pleased to be disturbed before eleven o’clock. No, it would have to be Lady Parry and her two hats.
Tallie turned cautiously around the corner from New Bond Street, thankful that her destination was almost in sight. Inelegant though it was, she had found that by balancing two hatboxes on top of each other and then holding the ribbons of the third in her fingers she could just manage. It did nothing for her vision forward, however, and she was already getting a crick in her neck from peering around her pile of gaily striped boxes.
The collision happened just as she reached the entrance toBruton Mews. For one startled moment she thought she had walked into the wall, because the obstacle she had hit was certainly solid enough and equally unyielding. One hat box was driven into her diaphragm making her whoop for breath, the top one fell off and rolled into the road and she managed to drop the other at her feet.
Doubled up, making unseemly gasping noises and with her eyes streaming, Tallie was conscious of an immaculate pair of boots in front of her. Rising out of them were well-muscled legs in buckskin breeches. Her eyes travelled upwards past a plain waistcoat revealed between the flaps of an equally plain riding coat, past a crisp white neck cloth to a firm, well-shaven chin and the enquiring, and frankly appreciative, gaze of the owner of these altogether admirable attributes.
It was too much. Coming on top of yesterday’s shock and the knowledge that she had made a serious error of judgment in deciding to walk, Tallie was swept with an irrational wave of anger. How dare this man stand there, looking cool, calm and assured and openly scrutinising her while she made an exhibition of herself?
‘Look what you have done,’ she gasped indignantly as her breath returned. ‘Justlookat that box in the road.’
Before the man could respond a carriage clattered out of the mews rather too fast and drove straight for the gaily striped cerise and white hat box lying in its path.
‘Oh no.’ Tallie took a hasty step forward to try and snatch it up by its trailing ribbons, only to find herself unceremoniously yanked back onto the footway. She struggled against the grip on her arm, but to no avail. The carriage’s near side front wheel caught the box and rolled it over, flipping the lid off. Lady Parry’s exquisite new promenade hat fell out into the mud of the gutter and came to rest there like a wounded bird of paradise.
‘Ouch!’ Her arm hurt and at her feet lay the result of hours ofwork and the product of the finest materials, its curling feathers reduced to a sodden mass.
The man released her arm without apology. ‘It appeared to be preferable to have the hat under the wheels of the carriage than to have you in that position.’ He stepped into the road and picked up the hat, dropping it into its box and handing that to Tallie before removing a large white handkerchief from his sleeve and rubbing the mud off his gloves with it. ‘My valet insists on checking that I have a clean handkerchief before I go out. How gratified he will be that for once it was needed.’
Considering that she had collided with him and harangued him, he sounded politely unconcerned. He also sounded, to Tallie’s incredulous ears, hideously familiar. No, surely not – it couldn’t be. Tallie felt her jaw drop and she covered her confusion by groping in her reticule for her own handkerchief.
‘Yes, of course, you are quite right, I am so sorry, sir,’ she managed to stammer as she pretended to wipe her eyes. ‘I must suppose I walked into you. I do apologise.’ She was blushing, she knew it, the wave of heat was rising up her throat, try as she could to control it.
‘You did, but it is of no matter. Canallthese be yours?’ He gestured at the tumbled boxes, one dark brow raised.
‘I was delivering them.’ Tallie was certain that she was crimson. Her mind hardly seemed to be functioning at all, but somehow she had to end this encounter and remove herself and her hat boxes before something triggered his memory. Because with every word he spoke she was more than ever convinced that this was Nick – Mr Harland’s Alexander the Great – the man who had found her hiding naked in the closet.
He never saw your face, you never spoke,she told herself frantically.
‘Hmm. I hardly imagine your employer will be very happy about that,’ he observed dispassionately, glancing at the boxeswhich Tallie had gathered up and were now piled beside her feet, each with at least one unpleasant stain on it.
Tallie glared at him, her anger returning as common-sense asserted itself. Of course he would never recognise her – as far as he was concerned she was a humble milliner’s assistant, someone of a class so far removed from his as to be virtually invisible.
‘No, she will not be happy,’ she agreed between gritted teeth. ‘Have you any idea how much that hat which just fell out costs?’ She knew she should not be addressing a gentleman in such a way, let alone one who had behaved with such chivalry to her the day before, but instinct screamed at her to keep him at a distance. She picked up the hat box and held it, an insubstantial barrier between herself and all that maleness.
He lifted the lid of the box she was cradling in her arms and looked in. It brought him very close to her; close enough to see that his lashes were quite ridiculously long and dark for such a masculine-looking man, close enough to smell a peppery cologne with a hint of limes and certainly close enough to see a flash of wicked amusement in his dark grey eyes as he looked at her flustered and indignant face.
‘Madame Phanie’s establishment?’ he enquired.
‘No, Madame d’Aunay’s.’
