"For the fee?"
"No," she said. "Not for the fee. And I would be obliged if you would not offer me one. A woman can be paid for an evening, or she can choose to give one. She cannot do both at once, and I find I would rather do the second."
She was at the door before he spoke again.
"Miss Hathstone."
"Your Grace?"
"Thank you for the clock," he said.
"I did not touch your clock."
"No," said the Duke of Fenwood. "You asked me who gives the order."
Wormsley had it by Saturday. It came out of the Farcourt stables, as such things always do, by way of a groom's sister who was in service at the Kitsons'. By Monday morning it had acquired the guinea, and by Tuesday a good deal that had never happened at all.
Mrs. Gauthorpe came into the shop on the Wednesday to cancel the pelisse. She was perfectly pleasant about it, and the pleasantness was the art of the thing. She stood at the counter in her good bonnet and said that she had thought better of the color. Of course, she would settle for the cutting out already done, and she did settle to the penny. She never once looked towards the workroom door where Catherine was standing with a hem over her arm.
"The color," said Mrs. Locksley when the door had shut.
"Let it alone, ma'am."
"I shall not let it alone! That is nine guineas walking down the market square in a bonnet I trimmed myself." Mrs. Locksley put both hands flat on the counter. "Two more will go this week. Lady Kitson will not, because Lady Kitson has never in her life done what Mrs. Gauthorpe did first."