Chapter 23
Meg insisted that James leave her at the crossroads. “I need to stretch my legs after a day’s travel.”
They had toured Foxmill School in Gloucester for the second time to determine its suitability for Samuel.
On the first occasion, James proposed a series of changes, which the staff, who seemed genuinely concerned for Samuel and not merely because his guardian was an earl, had implemented.
Meg and James agreed their young charge would enter school that fall.
The cleanliness and the newly established, competent resident nurse pushed her consent.
Samuel would attend school until Meg had enough money to support him and hire a tutor.
In the meanwhile, he would spend the majority of his time with James.
The sky mirrored the painting her valentine had created for her. Meg took in the view as she ambled home in the coral hours of dusk, a swell of satisfaction rising in her at all she’d become since her arrival in Stroud.
Meg’s business flourished. The young ladies from Havenwood worked with rare diligence, and their customers increased.
As Meg merely consulted with clients and instructed the needleworkers who did nothing more than add embellishments or make alterations, she consoled herself she made no breach of contract.
Her growing clientele and the rate at which the money multiplied testified to the truth at the center of her success.
Mr. Sloan’s talent could not compete with the demand for female dressmakers.
Women preferred another woman to take their measurements and hear their preferences.
Indeed, many of her customers insisted they would order no more gowns until Meg opened her shop, their satisfaction thus apparent.
While months would be required for Meg to reach her goal of supporting Samuel, the gap between her current finances and the savings needed was closing with gratifying rapidity.
Once her apprenticeship ended and the shop opened, she felt certain she could resume full care of her younger half-brother.
The shop was all but ready to open its doors.
Giles continued with Master Sloan as a journeyman but had agreed to join her when her shop opened.
Meg had grown in knowledge and skill. Peter spent little time tailoring these days, so when female customers arrived for fittings, Meg met their needs.
Through trial and error and occasional guidance from Peter, she had become proficient in dressmaking.
On her own these past two months, she’d constructed seven sacque gowns and felt confident the eighth she’d started the day before, Mrs. Bosket’s, would meet the highest standards of quality.
Each effort required Meg to apply the lesson taught by Mr. Sloan and attempt to see each customer as a whole person, rather than a type, a mere patron, or means to an end.
With no one had she succeed so fully as with Mrs. Bosket, who at first seemed rather bent on wearing one more ribbon than her neighbor.
Over the months of their acquaintance, Meg had noted that Mrs. Bosket’s penchant for finery was simply that.
If Mrs. Bosket liked her silk and lace, there was no conceit within her preference.
Meg learned Mrs. Bosket had convinced her husband, a sheep farmer, to expand their enterprise and allow her to spin his wool rather than send it out.
Mrs. Bosket spun, purchased additional wheels, and hired girls from the neighborhood.
Meg admired this industry, but it was the woman’s generosity that most impressed—the bundle of used clothes she gave to her spinners, the extra cakes she pressed upon another.
The world had appeared to Meg through a shade, which she endeavored to pull aside.
The information she gleaned about a woman’s life and attitudes improved her work more powerfully than any insight Mr. Sloan had given.
While she basked in this progress, the distance between her and Peter gnawed at her.
He came for supper, but Miss Matilde’s and Miss Reed’s lively conversation served as a barrier between them.
At times she wondered if Peter’s regard for her was imaginary, but then he would do something telling.
The day before, he had taken her hand while speaking about a waistcoat, the gesture as natural as a breeze.
With each assurance of his feelings, she felt the possibility of being with him as an opportunity already lost and lamented.
Meg turned onto High Street and met the bustle of a town closing its shops for the day.
“Miss Cooper.”
Meg glanced over her shoulder to find Miss Ivy hurrying toward her with an angry stride.
“As I walked down your street yesterday, I was surprised to notice you inside Sloan Tailoring, cutting and stitching away. Has your apprenticeship ended?” Miss Ivy asked.
The floor beneath Meg’s stomach dropped. “What can you mean? My contract lasts a year.”
“But it can be terminated prematurely. I’ve noticed how your work has increased despite my warnings, heard women discussing your skills as if you had already opened for business. Peter doesn’t deserve such a viper in his workshop.”
Heat slithered up Meg’s neck and stung her cheeks. She stepped forward, taking Miss Ivy’s forearm. “It’s not so nefarious as all that. You do not understand.”
Miss Ivy sucked air through her teeth. “You are right about that. I do not understand you.”
Meg held onto one truth. Samuel needed her. “Peter still mourns his father. Now is not the time to tell him.”
Miss Ivy’s lips twisted as she pulled out of Meg’s grip. “I doubt you could judge when he is ready to learn of your deceit. I will tell him if you will not.”
“You informed the guild,” Meg said, wanting confirmation of her suspicion.
“I merely dropped a few hints. Have they come to see you?”
“I received a letter.”
“Why hasn’t Peter?” Miss Ivy asked.
Meg stood motionless, a deep heaviness washing over her.
“You took it,” Miss Ivy said. “I know Peter. He probably didn’t read his correspondence for weeks after his father’s death. Such scheming. What made you this way?”
Meg shook her head to stop tears from emerging and hurried away down the street.
The truth of what she’d done looked much different when seen through another’s eyes. Before that moment it sat heavy but benign, a thing to reckon with later. The deed was irrevocable, unfixable. A desperate act of self-preservation. What had made her this way? She didn’t know another way to be.
Entering her house through the front door, she stood in the entryway. Peter’s voice came from the kitchen. He must have come for supper. She mounted the stairs and bolted her door, unable to face him and not wishing one of the girls to see her tears.
At least Peter was not her valentine as she had begun to suspect.
If he were, he would have admitted as much when she told him about the watercolor that seemed taken from a scene outside his own door.
After sharing that kiss, what reason could he have to keep the truth?
The conclusion brought relief measured with sorrow.
She quietly wished for Peter to be her secret correspondent.
But how could she bear the weight of her betrayal if it hurt the man whose words spoke directly to her soul?
On Monday, Meg returned to work with trepidation.
She assembled a sleeve meant for Mrs. Bosket’s gown while beside her, the apprentices sewed and chatted among themselves.
Peter had not emerged that day and most likely worked in the dyehouse.
Just as well. The pit in Meg’s stomach deepened in expectation of seeing him, of watching his attitude toward her shift when at last Miss Ivy told him all. That day could not be far off.
A sharp pain shot through her finger. “Ouch.”
The apprentices looked up at her cry.
“I’ve stabbed a needle beneath my fingernail.” She set her work aside so as not to stain it with the blood seeping from her finger and went to Peter’s office, where he kept salves and linen for such occasions. Sitting at his desk, she wrapped the throbbing finger.
One of Peter’s sketchbooks lay open on the table.
It had not been there on Friday. He rarely left his sketchbooks outside of his dyehouse or living space.
On the exposed sheet, he’d drawn a gown, magnificent and effortless.
She turned the page and found the pattern, everything labeled in his neat block letters: back bodice, shoulder band lining, sleeve, front bodice lining.
Again she turned the page—sleeve ruffles, the skirt, the back bodice.
In the corner was an uncharacteristic note, written not in the utilitarian block letters of his other patterns but in a script she recognized:
For Margaret, skirt to fall with grace—add extra breadth to balance simplicity with indulgence. Let the fabric do the work.
Meg slammed the book closed and stood.
She knew that hand. She had been staring at it curiously and longingly for months. The script confirmed what she hadn’t believed possible. Peter Sloan was her valentine. And he had made a pattern exclusively for her. The tenderness of it closed upon her in sickening waves.
The fractured window she’d been gazing through mended itself into a moment of devastating truth, a truth she’d suspected, dreaded, and hoped for. Her eagerness to look after her own interests had blinded her. She had betrayed him.
Worn-out justifications lost their potency. The determination that had led to this moment soured into a guilt that clutched her chest, squeezing until her breath grew shallow.
She opened the book again, allowing her finger to trace the lines he’d drawn.
He knew the slope of her shoulder, the precise angle at which fabric brushed her collarbone.
He had watched her with the patient attention of a man creating a masterpiece, and she’d mistaken it for instruction.
Every correction he offered, every time he stood behind her and adjusted the way she held the shears, every silence between them when their hands occupied the same cloth, he’d catalogued her.
The breadth he added to the skirt, the note about grace, had little to do with pattern.
He had sketched her soul, captured her character in the form of the most beautiful gown she had ever seen.
And she, possessing the advantage of his trust, had learned from his accounts, stolen his clients, and built her future on his good faith.
The pressure beneath her ribs cracked into something unbearable, a sharp spreading ache that climbed her throat and settled behind her eyes.
She could not sit in his chair another moment.
“I shall return shortly,” she called as she exited Sloan Tailoring. She ran across the street and up to her room, where she tugged a blush silk ribbon from a bundle of letters.
In your quiet hours do you doubt your quest, or are you certain of satisfaction in its end?
Only James knew her ambition better than Peter. How could she not have recognized Peter as her valentine? She had not wanted to know, not wanted to live this moment.
Perhaps your swift cutting through the waters of life disallows opportunity for pause. I fear you are missing all the mastery you leave in your wake… You may never know you’ve conquered at all.
His judgement rang true, for what had she sacrificed on the altar of her ambition but Peter Sloan?
Their contract must end, no matter how painful for them both. He must be told, and she hoped to garner the courage before Miss Ivy spoke to him. He deserved that, at least. He deserved far better.
Meg clenched her trembling hands before pulling the long necklace from her bodice. She squeezed the key until the pain in her palm forestalled the biting tears that threatened to fall. Fumbling, she pushed it into her locked drawer and withdrew the two guild letters, then marched across the street.