Chapter 38
“You look tired,” Kate said, watching her sister straighten up and roll her shoulders after an afternoon bent over the sewing machine.
Liv had been working solidly for the last few weeks on a set of six Bridgerton- inspired bridesmaid gowns for a bridal party, dresses that would come back into the shop afterward to be used as hire-outs.
“This is the most intricate one of them all,” she said, lifting the finished sea-foam-green silk dress carefully from the machine. “Will you try it on for me? I need to check the seams.”
The other five gowns hung together on a rail behind Liv, each a different shade of muted silk, all empire-line bodices with chiffon cap sleeves, delicate embroidery, and jeweled adornments to individualize them.
Kate peered down the neck of her T-shirt to check which bra she’d put on that morning. “You’re in luck,” she said. “Push-up.”
“The dress should do everything for you anyway,” Liv said. “I tried the peach one on at home the other day—Nish thought all his birthdays had come at once.”
Kate laughed, stepping into the changing booth to get undressed in case any customers came in.
“How did women ever get anything done when they had to dress like this all the time?” she said, stepping into the intricate dress and pulling the delicate-sleeved bodice carefully up her arms. Liv fastened the back, hoisting her up in all the right places, which pushed her cleavage up considerably higher than its usual place.
“Oh my God, look at my boobs,” Kate gasped, staring at herself in the mirror.
“I can’t look anywhere else,” Liv said, sweeping Kate’s hair up with a jeweled comb she’d ordered to accessorize the dress. “Come and stand on the stool so I can see it in the light.”
Liv propped the door open to let some cool air in as Kate stepped up onto the alterations stool in the middle of the shop.
“Let me just take some reference photos.” Liv circled slowly around, coming in close for detail. “Could you hold this for the pics?” She handed Kate a fan. “I’m going to send them over to the bride.”
Kate flicked the fan out and gave it a go in the stuffy shop. “I feel like someone should ask me if I’d like a cooling glass of lemonade,” she said, wafting herself.
“You could do with a randy lord,” Liv said.
Kate hadn’t told Liv anything about her deleted scene weekend with Charlie.
They hadn’t seen each other since, communicating through messages and emails rather than calls.
It wasn’t just Charlie’s choice; Kate had found herself fragile and jaded, badly in need of some space from the publishing industry in general and from Charlie specifically.
The online piranha frenzy hadn’t abated; every time she clicked on her Kate Darrowby social media profiles she was swamped with a deluge of comments, questions, and demands to know who the actual author was.
It had become so demoralizing, and so out of her control, that she’d started to avoid looking at all.
Kate fanned herself, preferring to stay in the here-and-now safety of her sister’s company. “I’m quite overcome by the heat, sister dearest,” she laughed. “I rather like all this, I think I was born in the wrong era.”
Liv stuck a stray pin into the cushion attached to her wrist. “You’d miss your jeans within a week.”
“Probably. Shall we have a little waltz?” She braced her arms in hold position.
Liv flopped onto the nearest chair. “Find someone else to mark your dance card, I’m boiling.”
“I’m no lord, but I’ll give it a go if you’re stuck?”
They both turned at the sound of a male voice from the doorway.
“Charlie!” Kate fanned herself harder without thinking, then snapped the fan shut because she felt ridiculous. “How long have you been here?”
“Charlie?” Liv said, because despite his heavy involvement in Kate’s life over the last few months, this was the first time they’d actually met face-to-face. She raised her eyebrows toward Kate, then offered her a hand down off the alterations stool.
“This is my sister,” Kate said, flustered.
Liv glanced between them and seemed to pick up on the fact you could cut the atmosphere with a knife.
Kate speed-read the unspoken questions in her sister’s blue eyes— Do you need me to stay, can I trust this guy with you?
She nodded imperceptibly, adding the ghost of an I’ve-got-this smile.
She squeezed Liv’s fingers briefly, feeling bolstered by the answering squeeze of solidarity.
“I’ll be out the back if you need me, madam.” Liv dropped a cute curtsy before turning on her heel and disappearing smartly into the storeroom.
Kate’s pulse raced, both because of the tightness of her bodice and Charlie’s sudden proximity.
“I was in the area,” he said, looking at the ceiling rather than her heaving cleavage. “I should probably have called first…”
“I don’t usually dress like this at home,” she said, remembering his mouth on her skin, the weight of his body over hers.
“I guessed as much,” he said.
The heartbreaker half smile, the whiskey-cola eyes; she took a couple of steps back so she couldn’t smell the familiarity of his skin.
“Have you come to tell me something has happened?” she said, opening and closing the fan for something to do with her hands.
He swallowed hard. “I fly to L.A. tomorrow. I’ll be gone for a week or so.”
“Oh,” she said, floored. Things must have progressed with his manuscript.
“I see. Congratulations.” Her hand fluttered to the neckline of the dress.
If she’d been wearing pearls, she’d have clutched them.
What about me, she wanted to shout, and the shitstorm about to hit the fan when the book comes out in the U.S.
? I’m relying on you, she wanted to say, don’t go, I need you here.
She kept all of the unreasonable thoughts in her head, choosing silence as her method of communication.
“It isn’t finalized yet. I’ll be back before the book releases in the U.S.,” he said, his voice gentle, his eyes searching hers for something more than surface conversation. “How have you been?”
She wasn’t sure what he expected from her. Permission to not feel awkward? Had he come to ease his conscience?
“I’m fine.” She straightened her shoulders.
“Keeping busy, helping Liv, seeing…people.” She almost threw her husky-eyed first love from the train into the mix and then realized she didn’t have the energy to maintain the lie anymore.
“Don’t worry about me. I know I can rely on Prue if I need anything. ”
For a heart-stopping, statue-still second she thought he was going to dip his head and kiss her, and then he nodded curtly and stepped back. At this rate they were going to be on opposite sides of the shop.
She clenched her jaw, blindsided by the fact that he was actually leaving, and that she was in full Regency dress, and by the unreadable messages in his dark eyes.
He looked as if he was going to say something urgent but then just spun on his heel and left the shop, as swiftly and unexpectedly as he’d appeared.
Kate stared at the empty space he’d inhabited moments ago, the familiar warm-amber trace of his cologne left behind in the air.
“So that was Charlie,” Liv said, emerging from the storeroom.
“I can’t believe I was wearing this bloody dress,” Kate breathed, her eyes lingering on the empty doorway.
“Proper Mr. Darcy moment.”
“Proper mortifying,” Kate said. She dropped into the chair, fanning herself dejectedly. “My life feels like a TV drama, and someone else is writing the script.”
“Can it be me?” Liv said. “I’d make sure Fiona’s cruise ship hit an iceberg.” She was still simmering about being shut in the store cupboard with Fiona.
“They don’t have icebergs in the Caribbean,” Kate said.
“I’m the scriptwriter. It’s a freak iceberg and it’s happening.”
Kate shook her head, letting Liv entertain herself. “I think that one’s already been done,” she said.
“Meanwhile, in the south of France, a tiger escapes from the local zoo,” Liv said, looking pleased with herself.
“It mauls Richard to death. Slowly. Belinda tries to save him and loses an eye. And an ear. She becomes a one-eyed, one-eared widow recluse, penniless because he’s secretly gambled away all the money. ”
Kate held her fan up to stop her sister’s flow. “You’re wasted on costumes— EastEnders would snap you up in a heartbeat.”
“And, of course, every good drama needs a central love story,” Liv said, taking her fan back. “A tall, dark, and handsome stranger who walks into the scene when we least expect him to and saves the day.”
Kate stood and turned her back to Liv. “Unzip this dress, will you, I can’t breathe.
” She held the front of the dress against her body as the zip slid down.
“And if you’re clumsily trying to shoehorn Charlie in there, you should know that he only came by to tell me he’s leaving for L.A.
to work on a rom-com script with his ex-wife. ”
“Shit.” Liv made clapboard signals with her hands. “Cut. That wasn’t in the story.”
Kate stepped behind the changing curtain and out of the dress, handing it to Liv. “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t wish I lived in the Regency era anymore. I don’t want to hang around on the edge of my own life waiting for some guy to dance with me or take me to the movies or buy me flowers.”
“Not sure they had movies in those days,” Liv said, hanging the dress up as Kate emerged from behind the curtain in everyday jeans and T-shirt.
“Lucky them,” Kate said. “Rom-coms are a crock of shite anyway.”