Chapter 7
Wearing the gown she intended to show off at the Saint Valentine’s festival, Meg cracked her bedroom curtain and noticed the window of Sloan Tailoring glowing back at her.
She was not alone in forfeiting sleep. Despite exhaustion so deep she could sleep on a pile of rocks, she had stayed up sewing for customers and trying to solve the puzzle of the sacque gown.
She turned from the window. No matter how she applied every technique observed from Mr. Sloan, she had unpicked her efforts until the fabric edges frayed.
Sleepless nights and tireless reworking would not teach her to make a proper sacque.
She could not be seen in a gown, meant as a showpiece to garner future customers, that puckered and pinched in failure. The time for self-reliance had expired.
The betrayal she’d seen in Mr. Sloan’s eyes when he caught her going through his papers had not faded from her memory. Embarrassed and unappreciated, she had made herself disagreeable. He held the right to his exasperation. Dare she interrupt his vigil?
Absolutely. He owed her, and this was her chance to claim his attention. She changed and left the house with the ill-fitting robe draped over her arm.
Since childish conduct had driven her to relinquish her key, she was forced to tap on the door. “Mr. Sloan?”
She knocked louder and louder until scuffling sounded from a deep recess of the workroom.
Mr. Sloan opened the door. Curiosity, then concern, crossed his face. “What has happened?”
“Nothing at all, but we will require more light.” She strode past him, gathering and igniting candles.
“Nothing at all except this.” She tossed the gown on the worktable. “I have pressing questions that will not wait.” Her heart thudded. Nothing she’d done thus far had inspired Mr. Sloan to keep his end of their contract. She felt a desperate beggar, but what choice remained?
He stood with hands on hips, shoulders slumped, a lock of hair fallen over his forehead.
A stab of pity twisted her stomach. She did not have to guess at the burdens keeping him awake.
Grace told heartbreaking tales of old Master Sloan’s decline.
She pulled her attention from him and found a pile of floral-patterned sketches littered across the cutting table.
Not her business. One thing drew her to his door.
“I have been attempting to recreate this sacque for months, but no matter how I adjust the seams, it pulls and puckers.” She pointed to every place that caused discomfort.
Her eyes began to burn. Refusing to cry, she blinked at the floor and bit her cheek until it tasted metallic.
Composure regained, she glanced up and found him watching her.
She met his eyes and raised her brow, refusing to look away.
Firelight flickered across his eyes.
“Will you examine my project?” The prolonged eye contact made her squirm, but she did not show it. “Well?” She suppressed the impulse to fold her arms or stare at the floor.
“It is not too late to go to London and find a mantua maker.” He did not sound judgmental, merely curious.
He took the dress and mutely turned the sleeves inside out, examining the raw edges. His fingers ran over each seam as his eyes scanned for imperfections. Feeling on display, she battled the urge to shield her face.
“Do you have nothing to say?” she asked, restless in the silence.
“I am impressed, Miss Cooper.” No mockery in his tone. “You are closer to constructing a proper sacque than I would have guessed.”
“But what am I doing wrong?”
“It may depend on however you fitted it. How did you manage?”
She hesitated but could not avoid the truth. “Lady Halverton recently gifted me one of your gowns, and I determined to recreate it. I adjusted the original to fit myself, then took it apart to use as a pattern.”
“A clever idea. But a pattern is insufficient with a sacque gown, and you could hardly mold the fabric to yourself. You’d much better practice on Miss Henton.”
“That is fair advice, but I would like the gown for myself.” For Meg, sewing felt like ordering the world.
Cut here, stitch there, and out appeared something useful and lovely.
A well-executed sacque gown lay apart from all other stitchery—for its majesty, of course, but also its difficulty.
It was this ultimate achievement Meg sought, a bruise that never stopped smarting.
Could she be blamed for wishing to crown her own body with the accomplishment?
If this hunger to learn could inspire his help, she needed him to grasp it. “This is why I cannot apprentice to a mantua maker in London.”
His head tilted. “I am afraid I don’t understand.”
“As I deconstructed Lady Halverton’s gown, I saw your genius. A London mantua maker holds no appeal against your artistry. Your expertise in dressmaking is why I demanded to be apprenticed to you.”
“Resorting to flattery?” His smile was a wan contrast to his usual grin.
“Fawning is not in my nature. You must realize—or perhaps you do not—the pains I’ve gone through, humiliation even, to become a female apprentice.” The confession lay heavy, too personal, but she added in a whisper, “It was not easy to accept Lord Halverton’s help.”
He regarded her from beneath lowered brows with an intensity that made her skin prickle.
She stilled, feeling as if she’d suddenly become visible to him.
His throat bobbed, and he returned his attention to the gown.
“As I said, you need more than a pattern when constructing a sacque. Technique is everything, and you’ve pulled your thread too tight. ”
“That cannot be. I am vigilant with my tension.”
“Here.” He pointed to various places and pulled the fabric, showing how it buckled under slight pressure. The candles’ glow created a small, intimate space around them. Her shoulder brushed his as she watched his fingers move expertly over the cloth.
“These curved seams give shape and structure but are difficult to perfect. Pleat setting is subtle. It demands care and practice, else it appears lumpy, as here.” He met her gaze.
His manner was friendlier than she deserved. Looking at him, she lost her words. He cleared his throat and began folding her gown.
“Will you help me fix it?” she asked.
“It’s beyond repair. You must start anew.”
“Show me?” What began as a demand ended in a plea. She had tried to persuade him by demonstrating her skill, by lending him Grace, by ensuring Mrs. Gainsworth’s order was finished. Having confessed why she sought his instruction, she could beg. “Please?” Her voice broke over the word.
His eyes penetrated a barrier, or perhaps she had breached it herself by accosting him in the quiet of the night. Something was altered in his face, like loose thread drawn taut; he had never stared at her this way before, as if she were the most interesting thing in the world.
“I suppose we are all desperate for something,” he said.
She was more than desperate but hated him to know it.
Everything depended on his willingness. She had left her home to apprentice under him, essentially given Samuel to Lord Halverton’s care, allowed Lord Halverton to help her.
That had been the most difficult decision she’d faced, made in hopes of gaining an honest life for herself and Samuel.
Her success would bring independence and a life absent of shame.
If all that sacrifice was vain, it would not be her fault.
The quiet of the night pressed her to divulge more than she wanted. “I have a young brother in school in Gloucester. I must remain near him.”
“That is why your shop…” He tilted his head toward her home.
“Lord Halverton’s doing.” Dare she explain all? They rarely carried a true conversation. “He arranged it and explained afterward. I have no particular reason for being in Stroud. There are towns closer to my brother, but I had no choice. Believe me, the arrangement was not my doing.”
“Are you so much at the whim of Lord Halverton? Would you return to London, perhaps?”
Meg bristled. She could do as she pleased. The thought gave way to helplessness. She existed under Lord Halverton’s caprice, and even when she could support herself, she could not afford another shop. “I do not know what the future holds.” A startling thought followed. She did not wish to leave.
Life in Stroud, so different from London, was wholesome and promising.
Fantasies of entertaining customers in her own, very real shop laced the fabric of her routine.
Every woman who stopped for tea or peered into the shuttered windows represented a future—Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Bosket, Mrs. Gainsworth.
These women did not want a tailor to fit their gowns.
They deserved a gentlewoman dressmaker. The houses, shops, and alleys whispered of a lasting pattern she might help create. She ached with the wanting of it.
“I’ll do it,” he said.
Her heart throbbed in her throat. “You will… What are you saying?”
“I will teach you dressmaking.”
“Holding nothing back?”
“Nothing. All my knowledge is yours.”
The pounding in her throat swelled. She turned her back to him, afraid of his seeing her emotion.
“Goodnight, Miss Cooper.” Her name sounded new in his mouth. She heard him drop something on the worktable and his steps shuffle away.
She turned to watch him disappear into the darkness. Her key lay on the table. She snatched it and pressed it to her chest. Her life, her purpose, held so long in suspension shifted forward at last.
At the end of the following workday, Meg gathered a length of amethyst superfine wool and watched the other apprentices take their leave of Mr. Sloan. All that she’d hoped for stood before her.
“Arnold, stay a moment, would you?” Mr. Sloan asked the youngest apprentice. The door closed behind the others.