The It Girls Read online

  Lucy’s laugh floated to Nellie over the buzz of voices. She hardly ever laughed lately as she struggled to rear Esme, help their mother, and find someone outside the family with enough panache and power to promote her fashions, but a medical man? One who spent a great deal of time in his office or a hospital, looking down patients’ throats? One who might be a lifelong bachelor and have a knighthood but one who was under public scrutiny for being untrustworthy and even dangerous?

  Lucy could tell Nellie was seething as they climbed into the hansom and their driver started the horse through the dark London streets toward Mother’s house. Lucy could only hope it was because she had not stayed by her sister’s side every minute at the party.

  “Dr. Mackenzie is charming,” Nellie said. “And charmed by you.”

  “And I him. We’ve been friends for a while,” she said, shrugging.

  “Since Esme was one year old, I take it.”

  “Yes, that’s right. Listen, Nellie, if you’ve read any slanders aimed at him, discount them. That’s all spawned by German propaganda and English doctors jealous of his talents.”

  “And his talents include?”

  Lucy turned toward her but kept her voice low so their driver would not overhear. “I don’t care for the tone of your voice. I said we are friends, and we are.”

  “He looks at you with longing and you blush.”

  “Do I?”

  “You care for him—deeply. Did James know?”

  “Why should he? We basically live apart—he’s too busy with pantomime girls to notice much of what I do.” She sighed. “Look, Nellie, leave this alone. Yes, I do respect and love him in a way.”

  “In a way! You’re having an affaire de coeur with him at the very least. Does Mother know? I can’t believe Mother knows and didn’t say a thing to me.”

  “Perhaps she is not a busybody and a moral critic of the highest order. Besides, she knows Morell. I’ve played the piano for him at the house more than once. She, too, enjoys his company.”

  “I know this isn’t my business, but—”

  “Quite correct. You are my sister, not my keeper.”

  “But what if James drags him into the case if you pursue a divorce? It will sully you and the doctor.”

  “James does not have a leg to stand on. I don’t care if the man usually comes out the best in such cases. Morell Mackenzie is an upstanding, gifted, generous, decent man. Despite a childhood back injury, he’s dedicated to his work and he—he’s been so browbeaten lately, that he’s—he’s ill. It is all I can do to keep his spirits up when mine are so low, but it’s helped me, helped us both.”

  Her voice broke. Nellie reached out and grasped her hand.

  “He didn’t seem ill,” she told Lucy, “only tired and melancholy. What kind of ill? Not cancer like the emperor?”

  Lucy shook her head and blinked back tears. “He wears a back brace, but that’s not the worst of it. Heart trouble. He’s very weak at times of—of physical exertion, which he ignores. Because he’s in danger from enemies now, foreign and domestic, those damned Germans and even his former colleagues who were always jealous of his brilliance, he wants us not to see each other anymore, but I cannot desert him. He needs me. Can’t you honor that? Can’t you admit it sounds like one of your romantic novels where the two lovers cannot wed and tragedy is on the horizon? I just pray that someday such suffering of the soul will not be your fate or Esme’s, either.”

  Nellie squeezed her hand as their hansom rattled over cobblestones through the gaslit yet so dim streets of London.

  CHAPTER Seven

  Finally, a nibble from all this fashion fishing, but not as big a catch as Nellie had hoped for, circled back to her again. This was the fourth costume designed and sewn by Lucy that she had worn today for the huge house party given by millionaire Billy Grant at his estate in Devon. Her assignment was to make herself into a living clothes mannequin to display Lucy’s designs and try to get someone well connected to agree to wear a Lucile Ltd. frock in a prominent place. The men had gone outside with their port and cigars, but the women were still mingling in here, so she’d best make her rounds again.

  So many people were here this evening; some she knew, most she did not. She was becoming known as a travel writer for small London gazettes. But better yet, these last few months had been such a heady experience with men noticing her and trying to impress her that she almost could imagine herself the belle of the ball.

  How thrilled she was to have come into her own, as Lucy put it, to have grown into her striking features and richly colored hair and eyes. Sometimes Nellie almost had to pinch herself to believe she was no longer a nervous wallflower, not just an extra person invited to fill out a list of preferred guests. And Lucy’s designs gave her the frame for her blossoming beauty, poise, and growing self-confidence.

  “Oh, there you are, my dear,” the young woman who was eyeing her said. “I was admiring that gown during dinner, quite as lovely as your earlier tea gown this afternoon. I’m told your sister creates all your lovely clothes. You simply seem to float in them, and I noted quite a few of the gentlemen looking and whispering, though I realize it was not only the allure of the gown that caused that.”

  The young, pretty, and chatty Honorable Mrs. Arthur Brand was someone Nellie had pegged as a clotheshorse with social aspirations and a small budget. It wasn’t exactly like catching a duchess, but it was a start.

  “I overheard you say your sister would design specially for a client,” she rushed on, sounding suddenly anxious.

  “Indeed, she would be honored. She would meet you, of course, and hear your needs and wishes. As she’s just establishing her designs, she would be so affordable compared to Worth and those other Paris designers everyone runs to. The fashions would be yours alone, not what others are wearing, though very much in vogue, of course. Lucile is very attuned to matching individual beauty with the perfect frame for their future fame.”

  “Ah, you are a poet and don’t show it, but you have shown me the most marvelous possibility,” Mrs. Brand said, blatantly perusing the gown again.

  She laughed and tucked her arm into Nellie’s as if they were now longtime companions. “Everyone thinks you are so clever with your personality sketches and gazette articles. I read one recently. I do believe your red hair and green eyes are a magnet too, for the men, at least. Oh, I wonder whatever is that much ado out on the patio,” she said, turning them toward the windows. “If they’re telling ribald jokes, I hope my Arthur isn’t among them.”

  For dinner and dancing tonight, Nellie had to admit the gown Lucy had made for her was a dream in softest lilac and cream satin with tiny ribbon roses scattered over the paneled skirt and echoed in the elaborate hemline. The draped satin bustle balanced the beaded bodice. By observation and practice, Nellie had learned to flirt by peeking over the rim of her lace fan and fluttering it to accent the swell of her breasts of the décolleté gown. She had met so many new acquaintances these last two days, several of them admiring men, but it was truly the women she was trying to attract right now with Lucy’s dress, and this eager woman might mean victory at last.

  Nellie was careful with the fluted champagne glass so she wouldn’t splash the expensive fabric. Perhaps she’d even had a few too many glasses of the bubbly liquid, but it all went down so smoothly. At the corner of the ballroom stood a champagne fountain of overflowing, stacked goblets to echo the larger water fountain on the terrace, just outside the sweep of ballroom windows where most of the men had gathered.

  She also wore Mother’s only pearl necklace and the second pair of elbow-length kid gloves of the four she’d brought along. Of course the men also wore gloves for dancing. Properly, no flesh ever touched, at least here in public, though, as ever, she noticed the bedrooms in the country house placed certain people in close proximity. She’d been partnered in dances by several swains—an old word from her romantic readings over the years—but none, she thought with a sigh, who would want more th
an a liaison with her, for everyone knew she had hardly a penny to her name.

  Despite her increasing popularity, she yearned for romance, for someone to truly love and trust, but duty first—and research for the book she longed to write, one about her own travels but with a fictional heroine. This was the least she could do for Lucy, who was desperately trying to make ends meet and launch her business, however déclassé it was for married women to be in trade.

  As shocked as Nellie had been four months ago over Lucy’s affair with Dr. Mackenzie, she felt sympathy for her sister now. Word was the doctor was dying from shame, grief, and heart failure. Recently, after his country house had been ransacked, he had again told Lucy to stay away because he might not be safe even in London where he was living now. His looming loss was breaking Lucy’s heart. Terribly romantic, but terribly terrible!

  The two women moved—with other ladies—toward the sweep of windows to see what was going on outside. Shouts, cheers, maybe jeers floated to them.

  “You won’t believe it, Nellie,” their host Billy Grant told them as he came inside and took her other arm. “Four of the men whose hearts you’ve conquered were speaking of you and ended up—with their too-full stomachs and port glasses—in a scuffle in the fountain, fully dressed!”

  “No! You’re teasing,” Nellie insisted, and her stomach cartwheeled. Would this hurt or enhance her reputation?

  “I’m not teasing. And I’d advise you not to go outside right now or that lovely gown might end up soaking wet if one of them insisted on embracing you.”

  “You see,” Mrs. Brand said calmly, as if men fought and made fools of themselves over Nellie every day, “even gentlemen admire your costumes, although they are acting more like ruffians right now. But I must be certain my Arthur is standing clear. Stay there, dear, and please tell your sister I’ll call upon her very soon.”

  The shouting and splashing sounded louder as a footman opened the door for Mrs. Brand to go out. Were other gentlemen joining in the fracas? Was she dreaming this? Elinor “Nellie” Sutherland had smitten hearts and caused this upheaval?

  Wait until she told Lucy, but she wasn’t sure she was going to tell Mother.

  “I think they’ve had enough fun,” Billy said as he raised and kissed her gloved hand. “Before someone drowns and all for love, best I put an end to this. Oh, Clayton, keep the object of the war company until I can return law and order, won’t you?” he said and headed back toward the door.

  A nice-looking, blue-eyed man a head taller than Nellie bowed slightly over their briefly linked hands. Oh yes, although she hadn’t been formally introduced to him, she’d overheard him talking about his travels to several others, trips sounding extensive, expensive, and so exciting. How she yearned to travel more than she had—and write about it all too. Though he must be in his thirties, he had a head of thick, wavy silver hair. He clinked his glass to her goblet.

  “Clayton Glyn at your service,” he said in a pleasant voice with another charming smile. The man had perfect teeth. “Enchante, Mademoiselle Sutherland. I am grieved not to have made your acquaintance before now, even at another gathering, but I’ve been traveling in the Far East and have just returned. I’ve barely spent time at my estate in Essex. When I overheard who the hubbub was about outside, I came in to meet and to protect the paragon of beauty to be certain she does not become a damsel in distress.”

  She liked the sound of all that, the formality, the bit of perfect French, the touch of his gloved hand, and his protective nature. He’d actually used one of her favorite romantic lines from books she’d read and would, no doubt, use in hers, At your service. And he didn’t want her to be a damsel in distress, as if he yearned to rescue her. His eyes seemed to drink her all in as he drained his beverage, then reached to set hers aside on a table as if she’d already agreed to dance with him in this suddenly not crowded room, while the orchestra calmly played yet another waltz.

  She smiled and nodded as if all his praise was her due. Good heavens, had she gone conceited as well as tongue-tied for once?

  “So I admit,” Clayton Glyn went on, “I had to see the object of affection of the four men scuffling in a fountain. In my travels I have seen famous fountains such as Trevi in Rome and the Fontaines de la Concorde in Paris—and those at Versailles.” Then with a wink and a tip of his head, he said, “But suddenly, that one outside has become my favorite, since it’s taken all your beaus away so that I may meet you and have you to myself for a few moments. Shall we dance?”

  Nellie’s heart raced. A world traveler. One who probably loved Paris. Who had an estate. One who must be unattached. And she was so drawn to the slight hint of arrogance in his voice and attitude—so noble and superior, above all the fray.

  For once, she was indeed speechless.

  Lucy was beside herself over the rumors that Dr. Morell Mackenzie was dying. He had written her to stay away after he was certain he was being watched by German spies—or possibly, someone hired by the Royal College of Surgeons of London who felt he had betrayed their trust. But if he were truly fatally ill, she had to see him one more time.

  She’d agonized over this, but then, ever since James had deserted her, she was used to agony. Not that he’d gone but that he’d left ruin in his wake. Could she risk a divorce and still have her dream of designing and selling fashions—and for fashionable women? That had obsessed her during the day and kept her awake at night.

  And now she knew she must go at night. The fact Morell had once given her carte blanche to visit him at his office at any time, allowing her to immediately be taken into his waiting room ahead of patients, had spawned rumors. He was an attractive catch, so she’d been closely watched by some of his patients. But he had taken leave from practicing medicine at this difficult time. It was a great wrench for him, and she understood that, too. She had to risk all, not only to see him tonight, but also to not give up on her dream of serving others. Oh, not by healing bodies, but by healing women’s hearts—possibly her own, too, with her fanciful, fabulous designs.

  Previously, she and Morell had met mostly after dark. The doctor’s own driver would come to call, taking her to their meeting spots. Mother was in a snit when she went out unchaperoned. But tonight, Lucy was taking Mother’s lady’s maid, Bradford, with her to add an aura of respectability to her visit.

  A hired hackney took them to Morell’s Eaton Square town house in no time. It was chilly outside, though it was early September. Nellie was in Devon at a large gathering, ever the extra, clever guest, one who had no dowry or title and wealthy prospects so that ladies with such did not find her threatening amid their suitors or followers. Lucy wished she could pay her sister to model and promote her tea and evening gowns. Poor Nellie.

  Poor herself. Lucy hated living in the hinterland of being neither wed nor single. Despite everyone’s warnings against becoming a divorced woman, she was becoming desperate enough to file a case against James.

  Lucy looked both ways on the gaslit street when they arrived at Morell’s town house. He had written a farewell letter to her in a shaky hand, stating that he believed he was being watched by hostile elements and she was to keep safe and keep away . . . that he treasured the hours they had spent together . . . their conversations, her playing the piano for him, her friendship, admiration, and devotion that had helped to sustain him through difficult decisions and times . . . their mutual, precious love. He had never married. If things had been different, would it have been possible that—

  “You are to wait for us here,” she told their driver. “However long.”

  “I understand, that I do. Used to waiting, missus.”

  Followed by Bradford, Lucy climbed down, went to the door, and lifted the knocker, banging it down, once, twice. What if his butler would not let her in? What if Morell was too weak to see her or—or had died already? No, then there would be a black wreath on the door and black drapings in the few lighted windows.

  The door opened. Rodgers, his butler, stood
there. Morell had done away with much of his staff, but for a cook and a valet and this faithful man.

  “Mrs. Wallace!” he cried. “Dear me, I did not know you were coming.”

  “Please let us in, Rodgers. I have to see him. Will he see me?”

  “I—well, please come into the library, and I’ll inquire. He’s not himself now, you know.”

  “I do know,” she said. He nodded and escorted them into the library and helped them with their wraps.

  As Rodgers disappeared silently upstairs, Lucy told Bradford, “If he comes here, I’ll ask you to wait on the bench in the hall. If I go up to see him, I will come for you here when I’m ready to leave. I do not—not know how ill my friend is.”

  “Miss Esme told Simpson she remembers the doctor fondly too, just like your mother,” the girl said in her clipped Cockney accent. “She may be only six, but Miss Esme’s got a fine memory, that she does.”

  Lucy didn’t even care if the servants had been talking about this, or Esme, either. All that mattered was seeing him, saying some things, and—

  “The doctor will entertain your presence upstairs, Mrs. Wallace,” Rodgers said as he came back in. “So sad to see one who has healed others ill himself.”

  “I dare say,” Lucy agreed as she followed him out. And, she thought, what did she dare say to the man waiting upstairs who had been kinder to her than her own husband ever had?

  Morell’s bed was mussed, and he’d obviously just had Rodgers help him from it into a high-backed leather chair as he was still settling a blanket over his legs. Lucy had been here twice before, in happy—passionate—times. He wore a nightshirt under a blue silk robe. He had not shaved for several days, and silvery stubble shone on his sunken cheeks; his eyes were shadowed, but they lit to see her. A fire burned low in the grate, and a single gas lantern glowed next to his bed.

  She bent to kiss his cheek, then sat on the large ottoman next to his chair and reached for his hands. They were cold and trembling. Imagine, the skilled surgeon of many examinations and operations, trembling.