you, my dear, but I’d just stopped to admire your…tart.” The man’s rich, redolent voice camouflaged a suggestive undercurrent.
“Oh, this here’s no ordinary tart,” their seamstress replied coyly. “It’s so creamy and sweet and delicious. Such a shame you’ll not be havin’ a taste, as I can see how badly you’d like to!”
The twins stepped apart, composing their expressions as Alice entered. Sure enough, the young blonde had the flushed lips and mussed hair of a young hoyden who’d been quickly bedded while away on her morning errands. Alice bustled to the small table in Camille’s studio and set the fresh tart on it, filling the room with the rich scents of vanilla and cinnamon.
“Shall we celebrate our auspicious new beginnings over breakfast?” Colette proposed with a wave of her hand.
“I—why, yes! We shall!” Camille took small china plates and forks from her cabinet. “We’d like you to join us, Alice. You can pass along Rubio’s latest prophecies—”
“And don’t deny you were there!” Colette teased. “We heard the bedsprings!”
“And fill us in on that dapper man you addressed outside the shop.”
Alice dropped into the nearest chair at the table, looking from one twin to the other. “Whatever could ya mean? I merely passed the time o’ day with—”
“Dish it up!” Colette insisted. She was watching their shopgirl, eager to devour the thick wedge of custard tart Camille had cut for her, as well. “If it weren’t for your gossip, we’d know precious little about the goings-on in the neighborhood.”
“And aren’t we thankful that our clients want so many new gowns for the summer season, we’ll be swamped for weeks?” Camille chimed in. No sense in letting their seamstress believe they’d discussed anything but business in her absence. “At least you, Alice, have the freedom to sally about town flirting with whomever you choose! We married women must maintain our decorum, as befits the Bentley name and station.”
Alice smiled wryly before devouring a hefty forkful of tart. “Which explains why ya kept your maiden name for the shop, eh? Am I mistaken, or does LeChaud Soeurs translate to mean ‘sisters in heat’?”
Colette nearly choked on her custard. “Nice try, Alice. I believe we were quizzing you, about that man you spoke to outside.”
“And can we help it if our father’s name was Gaston LeChaud? He was our English mother’s choice—a legendary ladies’ man—not ours,” Camille added pointedly.
Alice rolled her large brown eyes over another mouthful of custard. “Well, then, I’ll confess to ya that our mystery man, he had the blackest o’ black hair, swept back from an exotic face—high cheekbones and chiseled lips like a statue’s. A wicked thin mustache, too. And ya heard how he flirted with me! What else is there to know?”
“And he was just passing by the shop? Staring at your tart?”
“Well, actually…I had the impression he was waitin’ for someone,” Alice mused. She folded a stray lock of straw-colored hair behind her ear as she saw him again in her mind’s eye. “Were it rainin’, I would’ve thought he’d stepped beneath the shop’s awnin’ to stay dry.”
“Well, if that’s the best gossip you’ve got, I must get to my drawings. And while I do that, please make the final alterations on the gowns for Lady Etheridge.” Camille put on her own gown again, vaguely unsettled by her shopgirl’s words. Yet what did it matter if a man had been standing in front of the shop? Gentlemen often stopped in to surprise their wives and mistresses, knowing a new gown from LeChaud Soeurs carried a certain cachet because its designer hailed from Paris.
When the front bell tinkled and the door shut with a firm whump, they all three jumped. Colette smoothed the front of her dress and fixed a businesslike smile on her face as she went to greet their customer.
“Yes, good morning! Lady Bentley, I presume?”
Camille blinked. She and Alice peered around the studio doorframe as Colette gave a little curtsy and replied, “I am Colette LeChaud Bentley, at your service, sir. And what might we show you? The latest sketches from my sister’s Parisian collection, perhaps, or—”
“You are already showing me what I’ve come to see,” the stranger replied with a dapper bow. His lip quirked suggestively as he gazed at Colette and then reached for her hand.
What sort of remark was that? Camille felt a jolt of apprehension—or was it envy?—as the genteel man kissed her sister’s wedding ring.
Alice drew Camille back into the studio, her eyes wide. “It’s him! The foreigner I spoke to outside!” she whispered.
“I’ve heard nothing but complimentary reviews of your gowns, and I’ve come to indulge a very special lady in something…original. Exquisite.” His sonorous voice was soft, yet it filled the front foyer with a male mystique that was having an obvious effect on Colette.
Her businesslike twin’s hand fluttered to her collarbone, left bare above her simple dress of claret crepe. “We specialize in exquisite, sir,” she replied silkily. “You’ve come to the right place!”
“Indeed I have! I am Hadrian Swann, and so very pleased to make your acquaintance,” he said with another courtly bow. “I look forward to our close association, and to giving you the business.”
For the first time Camille could ever remember, her sister stood speechless.
4
Hadrian Swann inhaled sharply. It was all he could do not to devour the delectable morsel of a woman who gripped his hand and gazed so coquettishly into his eyes. But it wouldn’t do, to let his masculine instincts overrule rational thought. It was reward enough to know his arduous trek—his life’s mission—hadn’t been made in vain.
For a long moment he savored Colette LeChaud Bentley’s fine, ripe scent…the tilt of her mussed, upswept hair…a button left undone where the swell of her bosom played it to best advantage. She showed all the signs of a woman who’d been bedded this morning, and despite the marital dissatisfactions she’d shared with her sister, Hadrian sensed Colette gave as good as she got. His trousers tightened.
Colette Bentley could not suspect he’d overheard the conversation she and her twin had shared while he watched their shadows behind the window glass…their undressing, and then circling each other…the way one had repeatedly touched the other’s breasts. No doubt the LeChaud sisters had been working on a gown, but from where he’d stood it looked like the Bentley wives were intimately touching each other while plotting a most incredible escapade…a deception that told him as much about Rutledge Bentley and his son Heath as it informed him about the flirtatious French women they’d married.
But this was no time for speculating about Bentley and his son, and no time to get sidetracked by his fantasies. Now, while he stood within the domain of these two talented, scheming brunettes, he would give them the business, as he’d promised.
“I wish to surprise a very special lady with something so exquisite she’ll love me forever,” he murmured in a husky voice. “Will you advise me about fabrics and designs that will complement her striking features?”
“Striking in what way, Mr. Swann?” Colette Bentley smiled eagerly as she led him to an entire wall of deep shelves that held dozens of bolts of fabrics. It was a feast for the eye, yet all the rich rainbow colors and the textures that beckoned his fingers paled in comparison to this fetching shopkeeper.
“She is delicate, but has a flawless olive complexion and hair that shines like ebony.”
“And her size? We’ll need her measurements, you know!” An identical twin emerged from a room at the rear of the salon. She looked different from Colette only because she wore a gown of bright pink that displayed an alluring four inches of cleavage, and her glossy brown hair was perfectly coifed above her fresh,