How strange that she felt more indignation for the genial tilt of his lips toward Madame Sandrine, than the deaths of three people. What sort of woman was she becoming?
“Madame Sandrine’s father, Charles, is my tailor,” he explained, a pleased smile toying with the corner of his mouth. “He spent a span with me in Newgate. I’ve known the family for some time, including Sandrine’s husband, Auguste.” He put undue emphasis on the word.
“Before we were tailors, my family were smugglers,” Madame Sandrine announced proudly. “But my father was wounded by the police and incarcerated. He always tells me that he could not have survived in an English prison without the Blackheart Brothers. And even after that, Monsieur Blackwell bought and leased us this palace in the West End, and now we are among the most elite tailors and dressmakers to the ton. The only payment he accepts is the exclusivité of my father’s expertise, and now, mine for you, Madame Blackwell.”
“Merci,” Farah murmured, swinging back to regret for her ire at the French woman as she still stared into the eyes of her husband. How was it that she was beginning to consider him more of a philanthropist than a philistine? Was he corrupting her somehow? Or was she finally seeing the truth? That the Blackheart of Ben More just might have a very big heart, indeed.
“I think this dress will stun the nobility, and leave them stupefied with envy and lust,” Madame Sandrine announced with relish.
“I’m just glad it’s not crimson, like everything else you drape,” Farah said to her husband as she glanced at her transformation in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors across from the raised podium on which she stood. The creation of blue silk evoked the midnight sky, as it wrapped her bosom and waist in bejeweled gathers before cascading from her hips in a dark waterfall. The shamelessly cut bodice was lent a hint of respectability by folds of a shimmering diaphanous silver material draping from a choker of gems about her neck and flowing down her shoulders like moonbeams. To call them sleeves would have been a mistake, for all they concealed.
Madame Sandrine threw a teasing look over her shoulder at Blackwell. “How fitting that the color of blood is the one you prefer the most.”
“Not for her,” Dorian rumbled.
The seamstress lifted a winged eyebrow, but didn’t comment. “Voilà. I believe that is all I’ll need from you today, Madame Blackwell. I can have these finished in the morning, and in the meantime I have a lovely soft gray frock hemmed with tiny pink blossoms that will bring out the color in your cheeks.”
“Thank you, Madame Sandrine. I apologize for the imposition upon your time.”
“Nonsense!” The woman gathered herself from the floor in a pool of skirts. “In this shop, time stops for Dorian Blackwell, and now his femme, as well.” Gingerly, she helped Farah out of the dress, leaving her only in her corset and underthings. “Next I shall bring an assortment of lingerie.”
“Oh, no, that’s quite all right,” Farah protested. “I have plenty of respectable—”
“Yes, bring them,” Dorian interjected. “Only your best.”
“That goes without saying. A newly wedded husband wants nothing to do with respectable undergarments.” The dressmaker tossed a lascivious smile toward Farah. “I have just the things that will keep the mistresses’ beds empty and cold.” She bustled out, sweeping the blue gown with her.
Mistresses? Farah glanced at Blackwell. He wouldn’t ever have mistresses, would he? No. He could barely bring himself to lie with her. But what about the future? What if he developed a taste for sex that she could not fulfill? What if he found someone whose touch did not repel him?
A brightness glimmered back at her from where her dark husband sat in the shadows. A look not of laughter or joy precisely, but a rearrangement from his usual cold calculation. A sense of reclining and recreation, and dare she say joviality?
“Don’t tell me you’re enjoying this,” she warned.
His smug look became a full smirk.
“She thinks you have a harem of mistresses.”
“I believe you’ve pointed out before, it’s a common misconception.”
“I’m fairly certain Madame Sandrine would like to apply for a position within the ranks,” Farah muttered.
“I find that jealousy becomes you, wife.” The suggestion in Dorian’s voice caressed all the way down to her respectable knickers.
“Don’t flatter yourself.” She was not jealous. Though, she had to admit, the suggestion that she couldn’t please a husband such as the Blackheart of Ben More enough to keep him from straying hurt more than she’d expected.
“You can assign me a great many sins, but self-approbation is not among them.” Dorian’s voice danced with amusement, and Farah had to fight back a threatening smile.
“If self-approbation were your only sin, you’d be an honest and virtuous man,” she quipped, lowering her lashes to hide her enjoyment.
“You weren’t looking for virtuous when you found me,” he said softly.
She made a sound of mock outrage, and chucked a balled-up stocking at him and he caught it. “You know full well I didn’t find you! You took me captive!”
“Is that how you remember it?”
“That’s what happened,” she insisted.
“I recall being quite captivated when first we met,” he said lightly. “Helpless, I daresay.”