How to Be a Wallflower Read online

  He certainly wasn’t admiring.

  “Does England allow women to be solicitors now?” he demanded.

  Cleo had been grief-stricken for nearly a year; irritation was a salutary change. “They do not,” she told him. His eyes drilled into hers. It would be a misnomer to label that gaze condescending: appalled, perhaps.

  Like many other men, he likely believed that women had no place outside the home.

  Arranging her face into an innocent expression, as if she were merely answering a tourist’s inquiry, she beamed at him. “British women are not yet invited to attend university, nor the Inns of Court.”

  Her smile had no effect.

  “Then what in the bloody hell are you doing, butting in with your opinions of a matter that doesn’t concern you?”

  “Rude!” Gussie hissed.

  Martha coughed. “Sir—”

  “It concerns me,” Cleo said, cutting her off, “because you are standing in my establishment, Mr. whatever-your-name-is from America. I own Quimby’s. In England women are allowed to be investors, and I am one of them.”

  “You’ve been doing a rotten job of caring for the emporium,” he retorted, giving each word a sharp edge. “It was an act of pity on my part to offer four thousand pounds for an establishment deep in debt that seems to have kept only happenstance records and can’t account for most of its inventory!”

  “Yes, I can,” Martha interjected indignantly. “I can lay my hands on every feather that enters this workroom. My girls are not thieves, if that’s what you’re implying!”

  His jaw flexed. “It is my understanding that a theater commissions a costume for a fixed amount, am I right?”

  “Yes,” Martha replied hotly, folding her arms over her sturdy bosom.

  “After which, you create the costume. According to your own records, you pay no attention to the profit you expect from each gown. From what I understand, you add feathers and silver embroidery with no consideration to whether an extra feather will take you from profit to loss.”

  Martha’s chest visibly swelled, and her cheeks turned red. “You know nothing of the art of costuming, you . . . you Yankee!”

  He gestured toward the sewing circles. To a woman, the seamstresses were gaping in their direction. “Just how much will the costume they are working on have cost on completion, Mrs. Quimby? Do you have any idea?”

  Martha glared at him.

  “Your opinion is irrelevant,” Cleo said, before Martha could launch into a speech that might reveal how hastily they had agreed to work together. “I am Quimby’s new investor. I offered Martha five thousand pounds immediately, with a thousand pounds a month for the next two years; we will share profits.”

  His brows drew together. “My plans for expansion of Quimby’s will make it far more profitable than it can possibly become here in Britain, where theaters are limited to London. In America, theaters are popping up in every city. I own three in different localities, and I have plans to acquire more.”

  “London is full of theaters,” Martha retorted.

  “They are owned by different people. My theaters will put on the same play, at the same time, in different cities. All costume measurements will be created, Mrs. Quimby, in New York City and sent out for alteration by local seamstresses. I’m sure you agree that it is far more profitable to sew the same gown four times.”

  “Far more boring,” Cleo said coolly. “My plans for expansion do not involve repetitive work. Quimby’s will soon be creating garments for gentlepersons as well as for theaters, and I fully expect my investment to double before the two years are finished.”

  The American’s eyes narrowed. “French modistes dominate that market,” he told her, his tone just a hair from insolent. “Your endeavor will fail.” He looked back at Martha. “This woman will drive your emporium into the ground with her foolish ideas. Trust me, a duchess will never order her clothing from a costume store.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Martha protested. “My clothes are as well made as any of them made by those supposed Frenchwomen. Most of them really are from the East End and putting on a fancy accent.”

  “I grew up with Madame LaClou,” Gussie put in, “back when she answered to Batilda Forks.”

  “A duchess is already acting a role,” the American said, with the insufferable air of lecturing to students at a parish school. “The last thing Her Grace wants is for the hoi polloi to recognize how very little separates nobility from commoners: a matter of silk, a feather or two, and supposed blue blood.” His curled lip showed that he was fully in agreement with his countrymen as regards the aristocracy’s claim to being a ruling class.

  Cleo was struck by the irrelevant thought that, accent or no, he would have made a remarkable stage actor. Thanks to her mother, she had met many leading men, and none of them could dominate a room the way he did now.

  For that matter, he could be a nobleman, stalking the floor of the House of Lords.

  The good news was that she wasn’t her mother or a theatrical director, and didn’t give a damn what this American devil thought of her.

  Even better: she suddenly thought of an idea that might save Quimby’s.

  “Thank you for the counsel,” she said, ladling gratitude into her tone. “So many men try to keep their crumbs of business advice from women, afraid that they will be outdone, I suppose. You don’t understand me, however: I propose that Martha outfit young ladies and their mothers who are attempting to join the peerage. Those women who desperately need the appearance of ladies to match their ambitions.”

  Martha didn’t blink an eye at Cleo’s announcement. “There’s no one better than me at taking a young woman from the country and outfitting her so that every man in the audience thinks she’s a princess. What’s more, I can do it in a week, and modistes require well over a month.”

  The American scowled. “Where’s the profit? You are describing a quixotic, foolish act of charity. You will lose money on each gown, just as you will lose money on those bishop’s robes.”

  “The young ladies whom Quimby’s will serve can afford very expensive garments,” Cleo told him, making her voice kindly, as befitted his ignorance. He was an American. What did he know of the English elite? “London is full of industrialists like yourself, sir. Men whose fortune stems from business, rather than inheritance. Last year, the lord mayor’s daughter married a viscount—and the lord mayor is a fishmonger. A very, very wealthy fishmonger.”

  His eyes sharpened, and Cleo felt a pleasing jolt of energy. He grasped her proposal.

  “As more and more successful entrepreneurs bring their daughters to the marriage mart known as the Season,” she elaborated, “their family members will need to be outfitted, from head to toe. We will make their daughters look like ladies since they—perhaps foolishly—wish to marry gentlemen.”

  One side of his mouth hitched up. “That foolishness may be the first thing we agree upon.”

  “Quimby’s will give the ladies a fighting chance to achieve that dream,” Cleo said, throwing him a dark look. “Their looks and dowry must do the rest.”

  The American had a thoughtful expression as he registered the force of her argument. Which was very pleasing, since Cleo had only thought it up in the last five minutes, driven by the wish to best him.

  “Martha made me look like a proper lady when I played the lead in My Last Duchess,” Gussie said. “I was a fair treat.” She nodded at the American. “You’d have to imagine me, just a slip of a girl from the East End, and Martha no more than one of her da’s junior seamstresses. I was the talk of London. I could have married a duke, iffen I wished!”

  Cleo didn’t care if the American was affronted. He was just the sort of man whom she felt inimical to. To whom she felt inimical? She was never quite sure of her grammar.

  Who she despised, in plainer English.

  No, whom she despised.

  A muscle pulsed in his jaw. “A pipe dream,” he said, turning to Martha. “You’ll end up e
ven more embroiled in debt, trying to outfit ladies as well as actors. You should come to America and do what you do so well, Mrs. Quimby: make costumes for the very best theaters.”

  A pleasant thought occurred to Cleo. She could make certain that her American agents never sold him any commodes. He would be very sorry for his rudeness when he was unable to befit his water closets with the newest piping.

  In his theaters or his own house.

  “What is your name?” she inquired.

  The man gave her a searching look, his brow twitching when he reached her turban. “My name is Jacob Astor Addison.”

  “We have nothing more to discuss,” Martha said. “Even if I hadn’t agreed to new financing, you are not a man I care to do business with, given that you concealed your intention to move Quimby’s to a foreign country—and offered me three thousand pounds that you’re now claiming was four thousand.”

  Mr. Addison’s brows drew together . . . again. At this rate he was going to have a crevice between his brows by the age of forty. “Any chicanery belongs at the feet of your solicitor, Mrs. Quimby. I was very clear about the move, and I offered four thousand pounds.”

  “That’s as may be,” Martha said tartly. “Mr. Worting is no longer my solicitor, just as you are not my investor.”

  “In that case, would you be so kind as to formally introduce me to your new investor, Mrs. Quimby? I’d like to make her acquaintance.”

  His words were calm enough, but his eyes were dark and furious. Gussie might even label his gaze “piercing,” but given Gussie’s frown, her maid had suddenly realized that reality wasn’t romantic.

  Far from being a hero, this man was a growling despot, shocked to find that the world hadn’t fallen into place at his feet.

  “Unfortunately, life is full of disappointments,” Cleo told him. There was something—well, powerful—about him, for all his attire, and she almost dropped a curtsy but kept herself upright. “My name is irrelevant as I have no intention of letting Quimby’s out of my hands.”

  “You bought this establishment in order to thwart me, didn’t you?” he demanded.

  Cleo laughed at that. “Nonsense. I know nothing about you, Mr. Addison. I’ve never heard of you, so I have no interest in thwarting you, though I am happy to support a fellow female business owner. To put it in terms that you will understand: I don’t give a damn about you or your theaters.”

  In the recesses of her mind, her mother frowned; Julia felt that ladies should behave in public, whereas Cleo held that ladies as portrayed on the stage—never cursing, for example—existed only in the male imagination.

  “Then why would you—”

  She cut him off again, because they’d heard enough from the American, with his piercing eyes and uncompromising mouth. “My motives are purely financial, as were yours. Since you’ve offered me business advice, allow me to do you the same favor. It was remarkably careless of you to attempt to buy an establishment and move all the souls who work there across an ocean without ever entering the building or speaking to the owner yourself.”

  If the temperature in the room had been cool, now it was rising sharply. Sadly, it seemed the American didn’t care for financial counsel, no matter how kindly offered.

  Cleo realized she hadn’t felt so cheerful in recent memory. “Quite likely you are often the victim of outright robbery,” she continued, ladling on the sympathy. “You offered four thousand pounds for this establishment, but Mrs. Quimby was offered only three. Mr. Worting was stealing from the both of you, thanks to your cavalier behavior in not speaking personally to the owner of the establishment you hoped to buy.”

  Anger faded from his eyes replaced, to her surprise, by wry amusement. “You’re right. I have a friend here, a duchess, who warned me that British women were not to be crossed.”

  “How nice that you have friends,” Cleo said. She nodded toward the stairs. “Mrs. Quimby asked you to leave, Mr. Addison.”

  His anger hadn’t moved Cleo, but the smile that turned up his lips now? She felt a crumb of discomfort. She never responded to male wiles. Growing up around her mother, it had begun as a defense and hardened into a character trait.

  “I don’t care to leave yet,” he stated, leaning against the wall and crossing his boots. They were sturdy and definitely not the footwear of a gentleman.

  Cleo turned her back on him. “Martha, shall I return tomorrow for a fitting of that gray gown?”

  In truth she meant to bring a solicitor with her and draw up a simple contract that they both understood and agreed upon.

  “No, no, Miss Lewis, I shall come to you,” Martha said, dropping a curtsy.

  “Germain’s Hotel,” Gussie said, giving her friend another hug.

  Cleo walked toward the stairs at the back of the room, telling herself that she was imagining the feeling that Addison’s eyes were on her. She was certain that he planned to offer Martha six thousand pounds the moment she left the shop.

  She was equally certain that Martha would turn down even ten thousand pounds. Addison had no idea what it meant to move a British woman to the wilds of America, taking her away from the establishment that her grandfather had founded.

  She occasionally came across businessmen like him, with few scruples and no capacity for regret. They had no real roots, and assumed that money could sway people to betray theirs.

  Addison didn’t even wait until she was out the door. Gussie was holding Cleo’s pelisse when his voice echoed down the stairs.

  “Quimby’s will suffer, financed by a woman.” He didn’t sound condescending, merely matter-of-fact. “If you indeed plan to take up your investor’s reckless plan, you’ll need more than a monthly contribution. In order to keep your costs down, you must create direct relationships with silk manufacturers in Brussels and feather merchants in Antwerp. Men prefer to work with men.”

  Cleo held up her hand. Gussie, eyes round, didn’t make a sound. Her groom, his hand on the door latch, froze as well.

  Above, Martha snorted. “I’ll hire someone with the needful body parts, Mr. Addison. That’s easily done.”

  “Someone like Mr. Worting? If you came to America with me, Mrs. Quimby, you needn’t worry about thieving employees. You could concentrate on being a costume designer, one who never worries about sordid details such as the price of satin.”

  “I, a woman, built this costume shop into the best of its kind, Mr. Addison,” Martha told him. “Isn’t my skill the reason you want to uproot my business and move me to New York? To this date no one has refused to sell me either silk or feathers.”

  “Your company is on the verge of ruin, because you pay too much for those items. Worting shared your books, remember?”

  “It won’t be from now on,” Martha said with a confidence that made Cleo’s lips curl into a smile. “Me and Miss Lewis will turn Quimby’s into one of the most powerful emporiums in London. I always knew that I could dress the gentry, because I do it on the stage, don’t I? I take their old clothes, pull them apart, and make them better than they were in the first place.”

  “Your skill is remarkable,” Addison said, his voice taking on a silky note. “That is precisely why I wish for you, and only you, to build not just a single costume emporium, but a series of them in America. As I said, I own theaters in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.”

  “Since I don’t know where those cities are, I don’t care,” Martha told him. “Now, if you don’t mind, sir, I need to get back to the bishop’s robes.”

  “If I can’t buy your business directly, I must warn you that I plan to acquire Quimby’s from Miss Lewis,” Addison stated, surprising no one.

  At that, Cleo laughed aloud, not caring if the sound floated up the stairs, and followed her groom out the door.

  “Oh, he is a beast!” Gussie cried once they were safely in the carriage. “A beast! I heard as if those Americans were a rough lot, wild as can be. Martha had a lucky escape, miss, a lucky escape.”

  “I agree,” Cleo s
aid, smiling. “Gussie, will you please summon my solicitor this afternoon? I shall lay out initial terms, and tomorrow we’ll meet with Martha to determine what will best serve her interests.”

  “They don’t even drink tea over in that country,” Gussie said, not listening. “Beasts, not men, miss, and that’s the truth of it! Uncivilized. You could just tell, couldn’t you? Dressed like . . . like a carter, that’s what he was. His neck cloth was that carelessly tied: I could see his neck! It’s the lack of a civilizing brew, miss. The whole place is mad.”

  “Once Napoleon is dealt with, I want to visit Paris. Perhaps after that we’ll travel to America,” Cleo said. “I should like to visit one of Mr. Addison’s theaters.”

  “We’d have to bring our own tea,” Gussie pointed out. “And you said after your mother died that you’d never darken the door of a theater again.”

  “I could make an exception for one of Mr. Addison’s theaters,” Cleo said. It would give her a great deal of pleasure to witness one of the inevitable mishaps that mar a theatrical evening, from a lackluster lead actor to a convoluted, boring script.

  Audiences were so prone to losing patience and letting fly with a volley of rotten vegetables. American audiences were likely even more unruly than the English.

  She linked her hands and smiled out the window.

  Chapter Four

  7, Cavendish Square, London

  Residence of the Duke of Trent

  The same evening

  “Bad day?” the Duchess of Trent asked, gesturing to her butler to hand a glass of canary wine to her houseguest, Jacob Astor Addison. He had the slightly wild-eyed look that her American friends sometimes got after a day wandering about London.

  Merry loved her adopted country, but it had taken several years to adjust to the British knack for condescending while radiating self-righteousness.

  “Yes,” Jake said. He took a healthy gulp and put down the glass. “Extremely irritating. I met one of those eccentric English ladies you were telling me about at breakfast, the ones you suggested I marry.”