“Cooper! You’ve got what you need, now go!” Mr. Gordon flicked the measuring tape in his direction and it snapped like a whip.How did he do that?
Cooper had no time to waste, so he rushed out and hurried through the corridors in the shop and warehouse to the little storeroom where he was sure to find Jem, the errand boy who all but lived there. Perhaps he had another home, but as far as Cooper knew, he never went to it.
Jem was almost indistinguishable from the sacking stuffed with wadding that served as his bed, tucked into an alcove between the storeroom and the pressing room. Not more than twelve years old and small for his age, Jem had developed the talent of falling asleep wherever he was almost as soon as he closed his eyes and waking up to full alertness just as easily.
Cooper stooped on his haunches and shook his shoulder gently. Jem’s eyes shot open and he stood so fast he almost knocked Cooper over. The lad had all his clothes on. “Take this to Lord Bridlington’s in Berkeley Square.”
“Should I wait for a answer?” Jem asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.
“No. At least, she didn’t say.”
The boy rammed his cap on his head, yanked his coat off the peg above his sleeping mat and thrust his arms through a garment that was in no way adequate protection from the bitter winter wind. Then he ran off, letter in hand, before Cooper could offer him a warm scarf.There’s holes in his shoes,Cooper thought, seeing the flash of the soles of his feet as he sprinted away.
He didn’t know for certain what Miss Dawkins had written to Lady Bridlington, and at that hour, he doubted the lady would read it. She’d get it in the morning, and that might be soon enough to conjure up some reinforcements. He guessed that the question was about bringing seamstresses back from their days off to work, and paying them well above their usual wage. It was how Madame Pauline’s operated—unlike Meyer’s. Mr. Meyer squeezed every bit of effort out of his employees and paid them as little as he could get away with. Many stayed only to gain enough experience to apply for a position at Weston’s. Cooper had tried for one initially, but his stupid unruly tongue had let him down there as well. He’d actually had the nerve to criticize one of Weston’s designs and offer a suggestion of how to improve it.
Cooper sighed and fetched his own warm cloak from the peg in his usual workroom, which he shared with two other tailors who were off in their lodgings no doubt enjoying a comfortable rest. He would have to be quick about his errand. She was counting on him. She, Miss Pauline Dawkins, the woman who, for some reason he couldn’t quite fathom, he just happened to care about probably more than she would ever know. He would get her and her employer out of an impossible predicament—or die trying.
CHAPTER 6
Augusta found almost every position uncomfortable. Standing hurt. Sitting hurt. Lying down was worst of all. All normal, the doctor had said. It was only to be expected when one was eight months along. Still, she couldn’t help thinking that much of her perception of discomfort arose from the enforced idleness everyone seemed to think necessary. If she had work to occupy her, she wouldn’t notice every little annoying pain. But everyone—from her husband to the dowager to all the servants in Lanyon house—did their best to ensure that she did nothing. If she so much as bent over to pick up a handkerchief she dropped, at least two footmen would rush out from who knew where and a chair would miraculously appear near to hand, as if the negligible exercise must have exhausted her. They expected her to spend all day lying upon a sofa, a vinaigrette clutched in her hand.
She could never make herself behave that way. She was a countess now, but she was still Augusta, the lady who had fled an abhorrent marriage to take her chances as a seamstress in London. In her brief employ at Madame Noelle’s she’d become accustomed to hard physical work, to hours bent over a needle placing tiny stitches in fine silk—and she’d found it perverselypleasurable. Of course, she was not so naive as to be unaware that pleasure in such work arose largely because she had chosen it rather than having it forced upon her. Still, she missed it. The work had been a way to measure the value of each day. So many bodices sewn, sleeves set, petticoats trimmed, flounces added.
Although she no longer spent hours sewing, she’d found other ways to be useful since her marriage nearly two years ago. She took much more of a role in Madame Pauline’s than most people thought. The judgmentaltonassumed her to be simply a lofty designer who sent her sketches to the modiste to have them constructed by menials. In fact, Augusta spent a few hours in the workrooms whenever she could, telling her husband that she’d gone shopping or to visit Lady Mariana—who she knew would never betray her secret. Once she reached the bustling workshop, she delighted in looking over the fine craftsmanship of the seamstresses Pauline had employed, making suggestions, helping in small ways.
Augusta had discovered long before she knew she was with child that she couldn’t live the usual life of a noblewoman of theton.George understood that. He was the same in his way. He also labored for his causes, for the things he was passionate about. And in support of her, he gave of his effort and energy for her business in any way he could. In turn, she interested herself in his pursuits, making some of the clothes for the disabled children he housed and fed—above and beyond those produced in the workrooms of Madame Pauline’s.
Augusta paced restlessly around her bedchamber, as she had every night for the last three nights. George had been sleeping in his own room at her request—not because she didn’t want his company, but because she didn’t want her tossing and turning to keep him awake.
He’d protested, of course. “I had something to do with this, you know!” he’d said as he wrapped his arms around her from behind and placed his hands gently on her bulging abdomen.
Augusta had turned her face to the side and closed her eyes, leaning her head back to nestle next to his cheek. The warmth of his breath always soothed her. But then, a moment later that rascally infant started squirming around, getting its foot stuck up under her ribs and kicking so that it made her shriek.
“Darling! Are you all right?” George had said.
“Of course! I think it must be a boy, eager to come out and start running and playing.”
Such jokes only mollified Bridlington temporarily.
The larger she got, the worse it was. Lately, every time she paused in the middle of doing or saying something because of some pain that was sharper than usual the earl’s face blanched in panic until she was able to assure him that no, the baby was not about to come. These were just aches to be expected.
Of course, she knew where his true anxiety lay. He was mortally afraid that a child of his would be born with a clubfoot. Augusta had spent many hours assuring him that this was unlikely, and that if it turned out to be the case they would deal with it much more humanely than his father had.
The muscles in her belly squeezed uncomfortably.I can’t stay here any longer. I have to act,Augusta thought with a look at the clock on the mantel. Near midnight. And bitter cold outside. But if she didn’t do something, she would lose her mind.
Of course, she’d have to take someone with her. She was walking toward the door to her dressing room when it opened from the other side and Phyllida Carp, her dresser, bustled into her room. Phyllida, whom Augusta had known as Miss Carp at Madame Noelle’s, had lost her position when her hands became too arthritic to do the fine sewing required by the modiste. She therefore wasn’t suited to work at Madame Pauline’s either.Rough-edged though she was, she did have an unerring eye for fashion and took eagerly to the role of dresser Augusta offered her. Although when Augusta had first come from Devonshire to work at Madame Noelle’s and Miss Carp had greeted her with a certain amount of disdain, she soon recognized the true qualities of the penniless baronet’s daughter. She saw that Augusta had real skill, and more importantly, an eye.
“My Lady, I ‘eard you walkin’ up and down like a restless spirit, and I thought, I did, ‘Her La-ship needs a bit of air to settle her,’ so I says to myself, Miss Carp, you just go and get her bundled up warm and yerself too and go out and take a turn around the square.” As she spoke, she fetched Augusta’s warmest cloak from the armoire as well as her boots and a long, knitted muffler. Once her mistress was suitably attired, she fetched her own pelisse and hat.
“Sweet Phyllida, you know me so well,” Augusta said, laying a hand on the elderly lady’s arm. “I hate to make you go out so late when it’s so cold!”
“Hush M’Lady. A bit o’ cold won’t do me no harm.”
Augusta shook her head. “You can’t fool me. I know you hate it. But I’d be so grateful. We’ll have to be quiet. I don’t want to wake his lordship.”
She shouldn’t be doing this,Augusta thought, knowing how the cold would inflame Phyllida’s joints and give her such pain. But ever since Augusta had saved her from penury when Madame Noelle let her go, and then paid her considerably more than her position as a seamstress ever had, Phyllida had become her mistress’s fiercest protector.
They crept down the long hallway to the back stairs, so familiar to Augusta from the days when she and Mariana had come and gone stealthily from the house, bent on mischief.
