Enchanting Pleasures Read online

  And Quill took one look at Gabby and got up abruptly, leaving the room without making a proper farewell. If even his brother noticed Gabby’s uncivilized manners, it demonstrated that she truly was in need of correction.

  “Is Madame Carême a friend of yours?”

  “What?” For a moment Peter didn’t follow Gabby’s question.

  “Madame Carême. You said we would visit her after breakfast.”

  “No. Madame Carême is a mantua-maker, a modiste, as they call them in France. She is considered the best in London. We must obtain a wardrobe for you at the earliest possible moment, so I have requested an appointment for a fitting.”

  “Oh, that’s not a problem,” Gabby replied comfortably. “We had twenty of these white gowns made up in India. I had them copied from a brand-new issue of Le Beau Monde. That’s a magazine that discusses fashion,” she explained.

  “I am more than aware of Le Beau Monde,” Peter said. He himself had been featured in its pages more than once. “However, that design does not suit you.”

  “It doesn’t?” Gabby felt a tugging at her sleeve and looked down into Phoebe’s imploring eyes. Suddenly she remembered how much misery Phoebe’s short skirts were causing her.

  “All right,” she agreed. “May Phoebe accompany us to Madame Carême’s establishment? Perhaps we shall both order some new garments.”

  Peter agreed. He rather liked Phoebe. She was a child who seemed to know her place, and although she should, by all rights, be in the schoolroom, she was handling the unexpected pleasure of eating with adults with composure. He noted with approval that she had had several bites of blackberry jelly and then put her toast to the side. A lady is never too young to pay attention to her figure. Gabby, on the other hand, seemed to be eating her third or fourth piece of toast.

  He couldn’t resist. “Do you think it advisable to eat quite so much jellied toast?” He himself had had a spare breakfast, merely a cup of tea and a slice or two of a late apple. Quill, of course, ate like a peasant. He always had. Peter delicately added a trifle more sugar to his tea, taking care not to tinkle the spoon against the bone china of his cup.

  Gabby looked at the toast in her hand with surprise and then put it to the side. “Thank you for the advice,” she said, smiling at him.

  Well, at least she’s amenable, Peter thought. Perhaps he would be able to transform her. Like a work of art.

  “I should never have known that blackberry jelly makes one ill if one eats too much,” Gabby continued. “Does it give you a stomachache or”—she paused—“a different sort of problem?”

  Peter choked on his tea. He cast a quick look at the footman, but Phillip’s face was carefully schooled to utter calm. Peter decided not to answer that particular question.

  “If you are quite finished, I shall order the carriage,” he said, as his gaze deliberately slid over her head.

  Gabby chewed on her lip. Was it just her imagination, or did both Dewland brothers have conversational impediments? Then her brow cleared. It was likely that blackberry jelly caused a digestive problem. One could not imagine Peter uttering an indelicacy.

  She carefully folded her napkin and placed it on the table.

  GABBY’S INTRODUCTION TO the establishment of Madame Carême was a shock to everyone concerned. As a stiffrumped butler ushered them into a pale golden-colored audience chamber, Madame Carême herself appeared from an inner door and effusively greeted Peter. In fact, they seemed to be close friends, and within seconds Peter was lavishly complimenting her on the ravishing ensemble that someone named Lady Holland had worn to the duke’s birthday the previous day. Madame Carême appeared not to have noticed Gabby’s presence beyond a nod of greeting. And Phoebe might have been invisible.

  Gabby sighed and looked about. One side of the room was bedecked with mirrors. Phoebe was sitting primly in a chair next to the maid who had accompanied them, so Gabby wandered over to the mirrors. To her amusement, she found that they were arranged in a kind of three-way style so that a person standing before them could see her front and both sides at the same time.

  As she looked into the mirrors, Madame Carême and Peter came up behind her. Madame Carême gave her a much nicer smile than she had at first and took her hand. “I must apologize,” she said. “I had no idea that you were Monsieur Dewland’s affianced bride.”

  Gabby smiled back. It was nice to know that Peter was so esteemed.

  “Your future husband has the taste of an angel,” Madame Carême was saying. “His dress is always tasteful, and yet it has that touch of fantasy, of the pleasant creation, that turns a toilette from merely customary to brilliant.”

  Gabby blinked and looked at Peter, who was also reflected three ways in the mirrors. His clothing seemed to be neat and dark. In fact, she much preferred his dress today to the rather gaudy embroidery and gold lace that he had worn to court. Madame Carême seemed to be waiting for her to say something, so she said, rather weakly, “Indeed, Peter is very elegant.”

  “Elegant!” Madame Carême’s accent thickened. “You can have no conception, Miss Jerningham! Monsieur Dewland has explained to me that you have just arrived in England—but you are marrying the man who establishes male fashion in London. If your betrothed chooses a single-breasted white waistcoat in the evening, you can be sure that most gentlemen will wear precisely the same garment the following evening.”

  “You exaggerate, my dear Madame Carême,” Peter broke in. “You do me too much grace.”

  “I am French,” Madame Carême replied loftily. “I have no need to exaggerate. I speak the truth, always. There was a time when you were younger, my dear monsieur, when it was not clear who would dominate gentlemen’s fashions. As I said, you were young. But now that you have come into your full powers—well, I would defy anyone to go against your dictates.”

  Gabby looked round-eyed at Peter.

  “Madame Carême is inflating my small influence with the ton,” he declared with a sweeping bow, pressing his lips to the very tips of the Frenchwoman’s fingers. “All I can say is that the depth of your compliment is returned by the fact that I am entrusting my future bride to you, Madame Carême, to no one but you!”

  “Yes,” Madame Carême said, turning back to Gabby. Her face was not quite as happy as it had been a moment ago. She looked Gabby up and down from the top of her head to the tips of her half boots.

  “It will be a challenge,” Peter said persuasively. “A challenge such as only the very top modiste in all of London could take on.”

  “True.” The modiste circled Gabby, as if she were a tiger circling a goat.

  “White is out of the question,” Peter said.

  “I shall have to give this a good deal of thought,” Madame Carême announced. “I shall take a month, or perhaps even longer.”

  “We hoped for no less. May I ask the smallest of favors, my dear Madame?” Peter lowered his voice. “Have you any garment that might be quickly made over to fit Miss Jerningham? I am unable even to take my betrothed into the park for a drive. In fact, I ordered a closed carriage on the way to your establishment, as I am sure you will understand.”

  “An excellent precaution. I doubt that I can help you in an immediate sense with much beyond a day dress or two, my dear monsieur. I am afraid that Miss Jerningham is a trifle, a trifle—”

  To Gabby’s great pleasure, Madame Carême was interrupted before she could reveal the trifling problem that Gabby presented. The door swung open and in walked a gentlewoman accompanied by a maid.

  “The Duchess of Gisle,” intoned the butler, in a satisfied sort of way.

  Madame Carême turned in a flash. “Your Grace! I had no idea that you had returned to London!”

  Peter also rushed to her side, exclaiming happily.

  Gabby watched enviously. This duchess undoubtedly presented Madame Carême with no trifling problems. Her gown looked to be made out of handkerchief cloth, and it was abundantly clear that the duchess’s figure was as flawless as the re
st of her.

  Peter was chattering with greater animation than Gabby had ever seen on his face. She swallowed. Perhaps this beautiful duchess was the reason that Peter was reluctant to marry. Perhaps he was terribly in love with her and was even now pining away. They looked exquisite together—the duchess was just as polished and gleaming as was Peter. They would have had beautiful children.

  And they seemed so intimate. Likely they were in love before the duchess was forced to marry another. Gabby had to blink away a sudden tear. How painful it must have been for Peter to watch his beloved marry someone else, probably an old, even a hunchbacked, duke!

  Just as Gabby swallowed hard, imagining Peter’s agonized face during the wedding, the duchess walked up to greet her. Gabby’s romantic side had painted her in the last stages of grief, but common sense told her that the woman seemed to be glowing with happiness.

  “How do you do?”

  The duchess reached out her gloved hand, so Gabby took it, wondering whether she was supposed to shake it—or kiss it. She literally had no idea how one behaved toward duchesses. Perhaps she was supposed to curtsy? Finally she gave the duchess’s hand a brief shake and dropped it.

  “This is my betrothed,” Peter was saying. “Miss Jerningham arrived from India only yesterday.”

  Gabby could tell that it was hard for him to introduce her, presumably because of her gown.

  But Her Grace seemed to notice nothing wrong.

  “I, too, just got off a ship! My husband and I are returning from Turkey. We have been traveling for almost a year, and I returned without a garment to my back.” The duchess turned to Madame Carême with a smile. “That is why, dear Madame, I ventured to visit you without an appointment. I was desperate!”

  She turned back to Gabby. “Please forgive me for interrupting your engagement with Madame, Miss Jerningham. Tell me, how are you finding London?”

  Gabby responded despite herself to the duchess’s merry blue eyes. “I like it very much,” she said. “Although I have seen little of the city so far.”

  “Why don’t we take a brief walk down Bond Street after your appointment is concluded? That is, if you do not have other plans.”

  Peter was stricken by the suggestion. Gabby could see that. He didn’t want her to be seen around London until Madame Carême supplied her with better clothing.

  “It seems I am to be Madame Carême’s latest creation,” Gabby said lightly. “I would not wish to ruin her reputation by being seen in this gown before she has had a chance to transform me.”

  Peter groaned silently, and Madame’s eyebrows flew up. “There is little chance that anyone would mistake your gown for one of mine,” she pointed out.

  But the duchess looked understanding. “Surely it would not be amiss to take a brief drive in the park? If only because I have always had a foolish desire to see Calcutta, and I would love to hear your description of it.”

  For Her Grace, it seemed, anything was possible—except the appearance of Gabby’s white dress in public. Within seconds Gabby had been whisked off to the inner recesses of Madame Carême’s establishment and stripped of her clothing by Madame’s assistants. They appeared to be somewhat surprised by Gabby’s lack of a corset.

  “My father doesn’t believe in corsets,” Gabby explained. “He thinks that women ought be able to dress themselves.”

  Madame shuddered at the thought. She stared at Gabby in the mirror. “We will try whalebones. I shall do my best,” she said rather despondently.

  “I am certain that you will turn me into a pink of the ton,” Gabby said reassuringly.

  “Nonsense—only gentlemen are pinks,” Madame responded. But she seemed to cheer up, and then she cocked her head and said, “Of course!” With a snap of her fingers she sent away a girl, who returned with a flimsy dress in a dusky-orange color.

  “I made it for the countess of Redingale,” she confided. “But the silly girl is over a month late in requesting it. I believe that she overspent her allowance again. Giving the gown to you will teach her that she cannot trifle with the top modiste in London.”

  “Absolutely,” Gabby said rather faintly. One of Madame’s helpers was lacing her tightly into a corset. Her breasts were pushed up and out, and her waist became impossibly small. Gabby had a glimmer of hope. Perhaps Madame Carême’s magic would remake her into a vision of sophisticated beauty.

  Someone threw the walking dress over her head. It settled in a puff of muslin.

  “Not terrible,” Madame commented.

  The gown had a high neck with an insert of brown velvet and faint brown stripes down the skirt. It was as unlike Gabby’s starched white gown as possible, given that it moved in the faintest breath of air. The only thing keeping the skirt from floating up was the line of fur at the hem.

  To Gabby’s eyes, it positively screamed sophistication. “I—” Gabby took a small breath, all that was allowed given her tight corset. “I have always thought that orange was a pretty color, Madame.”

  “Orange! That is orange blossom, not orange! I do not compose in such a color,” Madame Carême responded scornfully. “And the very best chinchilla fur around the hem,” she added.

  But Gabby was getting used to her sharp tongue. “My only fear is that there’s a bit too much of me for this lovely gown.” Gabby felt as if the whalebone corset was pushing her breasts up around her collarbone. The gown seemed to strain in the front section.

  In a split second Madame had the girls snipping away under Gabby’s arm and the dress was eased over her head again.

  “Not right, not right,” the modiste murmured to herself. She had taken to circling Gabby again. “I shall have to give it more thought. This color does not set off your hair to its best advantage, for example.”

  Gabby looked in the mirror. One of the girls was rapidly pinning her fallen hair back up on her head.

  “And,” Madame continued, “the skirt of the gown is too narrow for you.”

  Gabby couldn’t see anything wrong with the gown, barring the fact that she could hardly breathe.

  “We shall have to start a new fashion,” Madame said. “For you, these French designs are not the best. And in order to be a match for Monsieur Dewland, you understand, you must be at the very pinnacle of fashion.”

  She seemed to be distressed, so Gabby tried to console her, although she herself couldn’t see anything wrong with the gown. “Great achievements never come easily, Madame. Think of the person who first invented this infernal corset. It cannot have happened overnight, all the weaving and winding of whalebones, tapes, and cloth.”

  For the first time since she walked into the establishment, Gabby had the sense that Madame Carême looked at her—Gabby—not at her clothing. Madame looked struck for a moment.

  Gabby twinkled at her. She was starting to rather like the irascible Frenchwoman. “I can see it,” she continued. “You shall transform me from a…a mouse into a queen, and when I enter the ballroom on Peter’s arm, all the London folk will fall to the side and gasp. They will have one question, and one question only, on their minds: Who made Miss Jerningham’s gown?”

  Gabby was getting quite caught up in her own story. She lowered her voice. “I won’t tell them immediately,” she promised. “I shall keep them poised in anticipation, longing to know the name of the modiste who effected my transformation.”

  The corner of Madame’s mouth twitched. “You don’t give a bean about clothing, do you, Miss Jerningham?”

  “No,” Gabby admitted. “But I am willing to try to care, given that it seems important to Peter.”

  “There is one great truth to fashion,” Madame said frankly. “If a woman has no sense of presence, the most beautiful clothing in the world will do nothing for her. I have clothed a debutante in an exquisite creation and known—known—that men would pay no attention to her that evening. But you—well, men do pay attention to you, do they not?”

  “I have no idea,” Gabby replied. “My father rarely allowed me to enc
ounter members of the male gender. And it’s really of no consequence, given that I am to marry Peter.”

  “Yes,” Madame said. Her face seemed troubled for a second. “Be that as it may,” she said, “I shall make a new fashion for you. And I guarantee, Miss Jerningham, that I will make the men of London beg to kiss the tips of your slippers.”

  “That sounds very pleasant,” Gabby observed, grinning.

  Madame gave one of her rare snorts of laughter. “You are an Original, Miss Jerningham. I am feeling very, very different about this commission than I did earlier.”

  “Thank you,” Gabby said.

  WHEN PETER SAW his future bride walking before him out of Madame Carême’s establishment, her arm tucked into that of the Duchess of Gisle, he felt as if his life were passing before his eyes.

  Gabby looked like a pumpkin: a round, round pumpkin. The cloth of her gown was ready to split around her chest. In fact, Peter was mortified to find out just how much of a chest the girl had. Women shouldn’t be so well-endowed. He shuddered to think what his future wife would look like in an evening gown, without fabric to cover up all that flesh. As Gabby walked before him, her skirts bunched at the hips, and the fur at the bottom of her gown swung back and forth. Her stride is too long, Peter thought. She does not walk like a lady.

  What’s more, rather than asking the duchess polite questions or showing any recognition that she was speaking to one of the most important ladies in the ton, Gabby was chatting about India. India! Peter’s skin crawled. There was nothing more tedious than people who talked about India. Plenty of men around London were available to do just that. The last thing one wanted from a woman was more wearisome details.

  His future wife clearly had no sense of nuance. She had no grasp of the consequence and hierarchy that structured London society. He shuddered to think what his friends would make of her and how they would laugh at him behind his back.

  Gabby was still chattering away. Oh, God, she seemed to be lecturing Her Grace on the grammatical structure of the Hindi language. Peter ground his teeth silently. His throat felt bitter.