Notorious Pleasures (Maiden Lane #2)(49)

“There,” the head seamstress said, sitting up. She eyed the hem critically. “We’ll take that up and then add some lace to the sleeves and bodice. It’ll be very fine when we finish, my lady, never you fear.”

Hero dutifully pivoted to eye the dress from the side. Such a perfect dress. If only the woman inside was as perfect. “I’m sure it will be very nice.”

“We’ll require three more fittings, I think. May we call upon you next Tuesday morning, my lady?” The seamstress and her helpers were already extracting her from the dress.

“That will be fine,” Hero murmured.

“I shall come to that fitting as well,” Lady Mandeville announced. “We can discuss the family jewelry and what pieces you might want to wear.”

“Of course.”

Hero met her own eyes in the mirror as the seamstresses worked around her. Calm and gray. She’d committed a sin. She wasn’t sure she could ever resurrect her perfect facade again. She should be wracked with guilt and despair and yet… and yet, doing what she had done with Lord Reading yesterday had felt fundamentally right.

Soul-deep right.

That feeling was perhaps the most disturbing thing of all.

It took another half hour to dress again. Lady Mandeville chatted lightly as Hero made her toilet, and if the older lady saw anything odd about her future daughter-in-law, she made no sign. The seamstresses left after carefully packing away Hero’s wedding dress, and then Lady Mandeville rose as well. She drew on her gloves, watching as Wesley crossed the room to fetch a jacket for Hero from the wardrobe.

“Are you sure you like the dress, my dear?” Lady Mandeville said softly.

Hero looked at her kind face and had to blink suddenly. She didn’t deserve this wonderful woman as a mother-in-law. “Oh, yes.”

“It’s just”—Lady Mandeville touched Hero’s shoulder lightly with one finger—“you seem rather melancholy this afternoon.”

Hero smiled, pulling the crumbling shards of her facade about her. “Bridal nerves, I expect.”

Lady Mandeville looked uncertain, but in the end she nodded. “Of course. But if you would like to talk to me about anything—anything at all—well, I do hope we’ll have that sort of a relationship.”

“I hope so too,” Hero said in a rush. How she longed to confess all her doubts and worries! But Lady Mandeville would no longer look at her quite so kindly if she knew how Hero had deceived her son. “Thank you.”

Lady Mandeville gave one last tug to her gloves. “Good, my dear. I’m glad. Now, don’t keep Thomas waiting too long. I know he expects to take you driving this afternoon.” So saying, the lady bid her farewell and left.

Hero donned a pretty green jacket with Wesley’s help.

Wesley stood back to admire her work and nodded, satisfied. “My Lord Mandeville will be quite taken with you today, my lady.”

Hero smiled slightly. “Thank you, Wesley.”

She descended the stairs and found Mandeville already waiting for her in the sitting room.

“My dear,” he said as she entered. “Your beauty puts the sun to shame.”

She curtsied. “Thank you, my lord.”

“And how are the wedding plans progressing?” he asked as he guided her from the sitting room and down the front steps. “I hear the dress is nearly finished.”

“Yes, only a few more fittings.” Hero glanced at Mandeville curiously. This might be the most personal interest he’d ever shown in her. “Your mother told you before she left?”

He nodded and he helped her into his open carriage. “My mother loves a wedding. You should’ve seen the flurry she was in when Caroline was married. I think her only disappointment now is that a son does not require a trousseau.”

Hero glanced at her hands folded in her lap and hid a smile at the thought of Mandeville being outfitted in new stockings and chemises. “I quite like your mother. She’s been a great help with the wedding plans.”

“I am happy to hear it.” He concentrated on the ribbons for a moment, guiding his lovely matched bays into the crowded London street.

Hero tilted her face up surreptitiously. The sun was out today, a welcome last stand of autumn. The London traffic ebbed and flowed around the carriage in a giant stream. A heavy miller’s cart trudged along ahead of them, and sedan chairmen deftly wove in and out of slower pedestrians, their passengers jogging along in upright boxes. A few soldiers on horses clattered by, ignoring the shouted insults of a pair of butcher’s boys who’d been splattered by the horses’ hooves. A single tattered woman bawled a song by the side of the road, her two children at her feet with hands outstretched.

“She likes you, you know,” Mandeville said.

“Your mother?”

“Yes.” He slapped the reins as the carriage cleared the miller’s cart, and the horses stepped into a trot. “She has a dowager house, naturally, but I find it’s easier if the two of you get along.”

“Of course,” Hero murmured. She straightened the edge of her glove. “Did she like your first wife?”

Mandeville glanced at her warily. “You mean Anne?”

Was it such an odd question? “Yes.”

He shrugged, returning his gaze to the horses. “Mother manages to get along with nearly everyone, it seems. She never showed any outward dislike or disapproval.”