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It was a long and convoluted path It took the on when a location became too hot for comfort

In the course of their wanderings, Catherine and Edward Noirot produced three daughters

Chapter One

THE LADIES’ DRESS-MAKER Under this head we shall include not only the business of a Mantua Maker, but also of a MillinerIn the Milliner, taste and fancy are required; with a quickness in discerning, i upon various fashions, which are perpetually changing aher circles

The Book of English Trades,

and Library of the Useful Arts, 1818

London

March 1835

MARCELLINE, SOPHIA, AND Leonie Noirot, sisters and proprietresses of Maison Noirot, Fleet Street, West Chancery Lane, were all present when Lady Renfreife of Sir Joseph Renfrew, dropped her bombshell

Dark-haired Marcelline was shaping a papillon bowMarcelline’s latest creation Fair-haired Sophia was restoring to order one of the drawers ransacked earlier for one of theirthe hem of the lady’s intimate friend, Mrs Sharp

Though it was ossip dropped casually into the conversation, Mrs Sharp shrieked—quite as though a boone off—and stumbled and stepped on Leonie’s hand

Leonie did not swear aloud, but Marcelline saw her lips for

Oblivious to any bodily injury done to insignificant dress?”

“Yes,” said Lady Renfrew, looking s

“To London?”

“Yes,” said Lady Renfrew “I have it on the very best authority”

“What happened? Did Lord Longmore threaten to shoot him?”

Any dress to clothe ladies of the upper orders stayed au courant with the latter’s doings Consequently, Marcelline and her sisters were familiar with all the details of this story They knew that Gervaise Angier, the seventh Duke of Clevedon, had once been the ward of the Marquess of Warford, the Earl of Longmore and Clevedon were the best of friends They knew that Clevedon and Lady Clara Fairfax, the eldest of Longmore’s three sisters, had been intended for each other since birth Clevedon had doted on her since they were children He’d never shown any inclination to court anyone else, though he’d certainly had liaisons aplenty of the other sort, especially during his three years on the Continent

While the pair had never been officially engaged, that was regarded as a mere technicality All the world had assumore froo, and Clevedon continued his life of dissipation on the Continent

Apparently, soreed he’d done so specifically to confront his friend about the long-delayed nuptials

“I believe he threatened to horsewhip him, but of that one cannot be certain,” said Lady Renfrew “I was told only that Lord Long, with the result that his grace pro’s Birthday”

Though His Majesty had been born in August, his birthday was to be celebrated this year on the 28th of May

Since none of the Noirot sisters did anything so obvious as shriek or stuuessed they regarded this news as momentous

They went on about their business, attending to the two ladies and the others who entered their establish, they sent the seamstresses home at the usual hour and closed the shop They went upstairs to their snug lodgings and ate their usual light supper Marcelline told her six-year-old daughter, Lucie Cordelia, a story before putting her to bed at her usual bedtime

Lucie was sleeping the sleep of the innocent—or as innocent as was possible for any child born into their ramshackle family—when the three sisters crept down the stairs to the workroom of their shop

Everyday, a grubby little boy delivered the latest set of scandal sheets as soon as they were printed—usually before the ink was dry—to the shop’s back door Leonie collected today’s lot and spread thean to scan the columns

“Here it is,” Marcelline said after a htWe’re infor in the French capital, has been told in no uncertain terrace expected to return to London in tiement to be announced at a ball at Warford House at the end of the Seasonwedding before summer’s end’ ”

She passed the report to Leonie, who read, “ ‘Should the gentleman fail to keep his appoint’ a hed “Then follow soentleman will be favored in his place”

She pushed the periodical toward Sophia, as shaking her head “She’d be a fool to give him up,” she said “A dukedom, for heaven’s sake How , handsoer” She stabbed her index finger at the column “Him”