Leonie Noirot is the youngest of the three Noirot sisters, and the only one still unmarried and able to spend all her energies on running Maison Noirot, the sisters’ successful dressmaking shop in St. James. The eldest sister, Marcelline (from Silk is for Seduction) is currently pregnant and rather indisposed and the middle sister Sophy (from Scandal Wears Satin) is off on an extended wedding trip in Scotland until the scandal surrounding her nuptials dies down. Each sister has their own strengths, in Leonie’s case, it’s finance. She’s a mathematical prodigy, but because she’s also the most practical and level-headed of the three sisters, she knows how important it is that the shop keeps bringing in new customers and stays popular among the fashionable ladies.
While out advertising one of the shop’s many elegant outfits, Leonie is struck mute by the Botticelli painting of Mars and Venus and then by its owner, the insanely handsome Simon Blair, Marquess of Lisburne. He, is in return very taken with Leonie, and decides that his stay in London might not be as boring as he had previously feared. Lisburne is in London to make sure his cousin, the sensitive Lord Swanton, who currently can’t go anywhere without being mobbed by adoring young ladies, doesn’t get into trouble. Swanton published a volume of poetry that became unexpectedly best-selling, and he wants to use his new-found celebrity to do some good, speaking at various charity benefits to great acclaim. Lisburne is worried that someone will take advantage of his cousin, so guards him carefully.
Leonie decides that to really show off the skills of the dressmakers at Maison Noirot is to transform Lisburne’s cousin, the rude, insecure and extremely gawky Lady Gladys Fairfax, into an elegant and sought after swan. Lisburne would rather Leonie focus on him than on dresses, spread sheets and his cousin Gladys, so Leonie proposes a wager. If she can make Lady Gladys so popular the woman receives a marriage proposal in a mere two weeks, Lisburne has to give her his Botticelli painting. If Leonie fails, which Lisburne is convinced she must, Leonie has to become Lisburne’s mistress, and give him two full weeks of her undivided attention.
More on my blog.
So, Botticelli not Veronese? Pity.