Heiress in Red Silk, Hunter, Madeline [good beach reads TXT] 📗

feet could be heard outside. Forestier fiddled with a pen. A frown slowly formed.

“I did not think you would find the funds,” he finally said. “I should have been more explicit at the dinner. But Mademoiselle, well, she, how do you say—” He shrugged and gave an apologetic smile.

“Flustered you.” Bedazzled you. Made you stupid.

He should have insisted Rosamund accompany him today, so Forestier would be flustered again. He should tie them together until a bedazzled Forestier signed the damned agreement.

“You see, the other, the one I mentioned, offered more.”

“How much?”

“Not more money. The same ten thousand.”

“What kind of more?”

“A few shares in the company. They are of little value unless the business becomes very big.” He smiled. “Perhaps you can offer the same? It has appeal, of course. A way for me to participate in that success if it comes.”

Kevin barely controlled his annoyance. Forestier now was asking for part of the company.

Would Rosamund have the same reaction? Or would she conclude this last-minute change was a small price to pay?

This was the problem with having an equal partner, something he had lost sight of because there seemed no way out. And because she bedazzled him and made him stupid. Here he was, trying to box against an unknown opponent while one hand was tied.

“I ask you to delay your decision by twenty-four hours,” he said to Forestier. “I need to consider this additional change in our negotiations.”

* * *

Rosamund strolled along the Galerie de Bois, admiring the luxuries displayed to the world, content with her shopping thus far. Some delicious fabrics and notions would arrive at her hotel this afternoon, along with a roll of buckram far superior to what she could easily buy in London. Even better, some interesting drawings rested in her reticule.

Sketching them had taken some doing. Kevin had warned that decent women did not sit in the cafés, so each time she saw a detail of interest she memorized it, then hurried to a park bench to draw it out before it faded from her memory. One bonnet with a very unique crown had almost defeated her skills with the pencil, but she finally recorded it correctly.

She paused in front of a shop that sold women’s hats and shawls. Not daring to take out her pencil and paper to draw, she resorted to studying the hats while she memorized their smallest details.

The proprietor came to the window to rearrange the shawls strewn among some birch branches propped amid the hats. He glanced her way several times, then more pointedly stared. He looked as if he thought she was stealing his designs.

What nonsense. He had his genius right there for anyone to see, so his styles were hardly secrets. His hats bedecked many crowns in the gardens and restaurants. How could he hope to keep them to himself and his clients? She never duplicated a hat she saw anyway. Not even the ones printed in the plates. She only borrowed bits and pieces of ideas at most.

His dagger gaze irritated her enough that she entered the shop. She looked at everything while the proprietor grew increasingly agitated. One hat had lovely, pale green silk covering its brim, pleated in a most unique manner. She wished the man would go away so she could examine how that pleating was done.

“I would like to try this on.” She pointed to the hat, then her head, and looked hopeful.

Her English and her request appeared to reassure him. He invited her to sit and placed the hat on her head after she removed her bonnet. She admired herself in his looking glass. He said something in French.

“It is a little small. How soon can you make another that fits?” She tried some hand gestures to communicate what she meant.

He gave her a blank stare. She probably looked like that when someone addressed her in French.

She tried to figure out how to communicate her desire. She asked again. Very slowly. More blankness, plus a little shrug.

A male voice spoke right behind her. A long blur of French rolled over her head. She recognized the voice and looked back at Kevin. The proprietor rattled something back, and the two of them chatted around her.

“He said he can alter this one and deliver it to the hotel by this evening,” Kevin said. “Is that even possible?”

“Yes, it can be done. That is fine. Please ask him the price.”

More French. The proprietor’s hand appeared in front of her with a slip of paper. Kevin bent over her shoulder. “That comes to around two pounds.”

She took her pencil out of her reticule, crossed out the figure, and wrote another. “Tell him that if he alters it, he must stretch the underlying straw, so it is not worth as much.”

Kevin gave the milliner that bad news.

The man examined her offer. Shock. Dismay. A lot of French. She did not look at him or Kevin, but squinted at the hat, giving it a very close scrutiny.

With more sighs and mumbles, the man scribbled on the paper and placed it firmly on the table in front of the looking glass. She did not need Kevin to translate.

She noted that the final figure was one quarter lower than the first. She removed the hat and handed it over with a smile and a nod.

Before she could take matters in hand, Kevin had paid and left the hotel’s information. She tied on her bonnet and stepped out of the shop.

“Did I embarrass you?” she asked when Kevin joined her.

“Not too much.”

“I suppose that isn’t done in shops like that.”

“France is still poor from the war. I don’t think you are the first woman to demand a lower price. He probably hoped that because we are English, we would not quibble over ten shillings.”

“I certainly hope your sort of English don’t. Otherwise, why have my shop off Oxford Street?”

She gave the gallery structure more of her attention and realized why she had been drawn to these shops. “The windows are