Chapter 26
“May I see Mr. Sloan?” Miss Cooper’s voice echoed into Peter’s office.
He slammed shut the small chest that held her letters. What a fool he was for rereading them, but he wished to understand her. How could he know exactly what silhouette suited her best when designing a dress, yet he could not reconcile all the pieces of her character?
He straightened his coat and hoped he did not appear as weary as he felt.
“Mr. Sloan.” She stood before him, pale, her cap askew. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“I never felt I had a choice in that regard.”
“Touché.” She closed her eyes in a long blink. “I can scarce look at you. I wrote you a letter and felt I must deliver it in person. A deserved punishment, perhaps.” She thrust the letter at him and inhaled a shaky breath. Her chin trembled.
He set his jaw against her tears. In the months she’d conspired against him, she might have considered the cost of her actions.
“I have nothing to say to you that you wish to hear.” He pushed past her and retreated behind the locked door of his home.
Half surprised to find a letter in his hand, he tossed it aside, took a turn around the parlor, then picked it up again. He cracked the seal. The script wavered and the lines drifted unevenly.
Dear Peter,
With all my heart, I thank you for the generosity of your gift. Your work is flawless, and I am honored to have so grand an example of your artistry. Though you have reason to doubt my sincerity, I write this truth, I am proud of you and your stunning work. Thank you. I treasure it.
Call me selfish if you will, but I cannot burn your valentines.
They are proof that someone understood me—a foreign experience, comforting to the depths of my soul.
All my life I have been hushed and cast aside or become a route for another’s gain.
You recognized something good in me, though we both may doubt it is there now. My accomplishment brings emptiness.
Alas, that is not entirely true, and I intend honesty.
The bustling I hear from the direction of my little shop is proof that I have edged a place for myself in a world that seldom held space for me.
I cannot grieve that, though I do repent my methods.
The loss of your regard cheapens my triumph, but I value all you’ve taught me and cannot relinquish my work.
If I were the good person you once believed me to be, I would leave Stroud and begin somewhere new, but I cannot.
I cannot leave behind this town, my work, and the family I have begun to appreciate.
It is the one place I’ve ever known as home. That is how selfish I am.
Yours always,
Meg
She’d had him almost yearning to run to her, but that final paragraph poisoned the rest. Her honesty was almost as painful as her deceit. Though the daggers of her words pierced him, he wouldn’t have wanted her to move away.
He opened the drawer containing her letters, his eyes unable to move from the stack of paper that held so much of Margaret Cooper.
He shuffled through them and read one at random.
His hands shook as he perused her words of trust and loneliness and fear.
Which woman was real? The one who wrote with honest vulnerability and held his hand over his father’s deceased body, or the one who took advantage of him and made a mockery of his regard?
His knuckles turned white as he clutched the letters, not to destroy them, but as one might grip a handhold when tripped and falling.
He stood and marched toward the door. Was he going after her?
He pivoted and paced the length of the room.
His body wanted to follow her, to demand she reconcile the two parts of herself.
But he doubted she would impart any new information that could change what had happened. He knew the best of her and the worst.
He dropped into his chair and pressed his palms to his eyes.
He recognized this feeling. It had followed him to his mother’s burial, to his father’s, but there was no ritual to accompany this loss—no rosemary, no tolling bells or string of mourners.
No priest spoke gentle words at a funeral to bury the hurt of discovering the woman you love was not who you believed her to be.
Only himself, sitting alone, mourning the woman who lived across the street.
The following week, Peter emerged from his home for another day of work only for Johnathan to direct him to the office, where he found Lord Halverton standing as if he possessed the whole shop.
“I hope you don’t mind my visit. It is an awkward time”—Lord Halverton nodded toward the window—“but I am anxious to speak with you.”
Peter gestured for him to sit.
Lord Halverton obliged and leaned forward.
“Ever since I learned of your interest in chintz, I have wanted to encourage your endeavors and invest in your potential. I trust Meg’s judgement, and she assures me your ability to stamp cotton is beyond reproach.
I would like you to consider this offer.
” He extricated a few sheets of folded paper from his jacket.
Peter took them and tapped the paper against his palm. “I am not interested.” But it was a lie. He could not wait to discover what Lord Halverton proposed. Still, Peter continued, wishing to vent his hurt. “While The Golden Thimble has compromised my business, all is not lost.”
“And you would disappoint your deceased father should you put your hand to other work? I understand that fear.”
Peter’s feelings on the matter had changed, however.
With each day he ruminated on his plans came a growing sense that Peter might step further from the constraints he’d imagined his father and grandfather placed upon him.
Neither of those men wished to wall Peter in by false belief but to gain sound judgement and move forward.
“Do me the honor of examining the terms I’ve outlined. I believe your skills hold a great deal of potential.” Lord Halverton stood.
“Is this some scheme of Miss Cooper’s?” Peter asked.
At first glance, one saw a stern, humorless man in Lord Halverton, but his golden eyes held depth and compassion.
His expression softened. “It is not. But I can tell you that Meg has not been quite herself since her apprenticeship ended.” He rubbed his chin.
“She thinks highly of you.” He bowed and was gone.
She wasn’t herself? She thought highly of him?
With what purpose did Lord Halverton plant those seeds when Meg had delivered a letter not one week prior, reinforcing her selfishness?
Peter entered the work room. “Has anyone seen the book containing patterns for men’s coats?” Peter withdrew a sheet from his pocket and read a list of missing items he’d drafted the evening prior, including his favorite pair of thread snips with Sloan engraved on the side.
“Miss Cooper pinched them. She liked those shears.” Arnold raised his own snips.
“You know that isn’t true.” Peter found he could laugh. “None of you know where they are?”
“Miss Cooper kept order. You may have to cross the street and ask her.” Johnathan lifted a shoulder, a sly look crossing his face.
Well, Peter was curious to see her shop. And why not? She interrupted his work whenever she pleased.
An early fall breeze tousled Peter’s hair as he marched the short distance between his shop and Miss Cooper’s.
When had the leaves begun to change? With his head bent over patterns and color, he had not noticed the passing of summer.
He pulled the door open and was met with a loud jangling. A bell. She had thought of everything.
Miss Matilde rushed forth. “Mr. Sloan. What a pleasure to see you. You will wish to speak with Mr. Giles, our tailor, who will see to all your needs.” She made as if to lead him to another part of the shop.
“I have no wish to purchase anything. I must speak with your mistress.”
“Yes, of course.” Miss Matilde smiled and retreated.
Left alone, he examined the room. Shelves running across the back wall displayed brilliant fabrics, buttons, ribbons, lace—everything.
The Golden Thimble was more than a dressmaker’s shop.
It was also a haberdashery and mercer’s shop.
The walls were pure white. At intervals throughout the space, tidy displays featured pattern books and dolls clad in the latest fashions.
Not a single person sewed by the great window.
He had not expected it to appear so different from a tailor’s shop. It was a place primarily for women.
Female voices grew louder on approach. Mrs. Gainsworth tittered alongside Meg’s full laughter. Peter’s stomach dropped, though he had fully expected his childhood friend to become The Golden Thimble’s best customer.
“Peter, it’s been an age. Look what Miss Cooper did for me.
” Mrs. Gainsworth demonstrated her treason with a spin and popped a parasol over her head.
“I am a picture, am I not? Mr. Gainsworth will love it, I am sure. Well, and how do you do?” She glanced between him and Miss Cooper, a too-innocent smile gracing her face.
“I am well, Jane. I came to ask Miss Cooper if she knows the whereabouts of a few missing items.” Peter held out the list.
“Mr. Sloan. How do you do?” Miss Cooper took the list. “The snips are in the third drawer to the right of the cutting table. The pattern book is in the cupboard where the chalk is stored.” She knew the place of each item.
“You are both attending the Michaelmas festivities, of course. Together, perhaps?” Mrs. Gainsworth leaned on her parasol, smiling like a little devil.
“Thank you, Miss Cooper. Good afternoon, Jane.” Peter shot for the door.
Stroud took its feast days seriously and no one missed Michaelmas, a day beginning with a fair and ending with food.
It marked the end of the harvest wherein summer accounts were settled and quarter-day rents came due.
Having no business with Miss Cooper, he carried no obligation to see her on Michaelmas or any other day.
Safe within the walls of his shop once more, he found everything on the list except the snips.
He would not return to The Golden Thimble, however, and made do with borrowing from the apprentices.
At the end of the workday, he scribbled a quick note, took it across the street, and slid it under Margaret’s kitchen door.
That night, Peter reviewed Lord Halverton’s pages and found a fair proposition allowing time to set up a shop and train artisans.
He did not ask to be a partner in the enterprise as Lucius had, but he offered instead the means by which Peter could build it himself.
He expressed eager willingness to propose a change to the calico laws that prohibited chintz, preparing the way for it to be produced locally and put a slow but certain end to its illegal importation.
A neat table of sums completed the proposal: investment, initial cost estimates, sources of cotton with varying prices.
It recalled Meg with sharp clarity. He shook her from his mind and compared the figures with his own evaluation.
Lord Halverton had done his research. The terms were sound.
Excitement lifted his heart to a patter. Could he? Dare he?
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
That silly rhyme plagued him, but the words rang true.
Never a beggar or a wisher, Miss Cooper knew how to take hold of what she wanted.
Her courage astounded Peter, from the moment she audaciously presented herself as a female apprentice.
That move held far more potential scandal and risk than agreeing to Lord Halverton’s scheme.
He turned over a sheet of paper and began sketching an outline, reimagining his workshop again into a dyehouse.
Though he did his best, the task required an expert, someone more familiar with the workings of a large dyehouse.
He appreciated that Halverton’s proposal left him largely independent, but a knowledgeable partner was essential if he were to truly chase his dream.
Since his father’s death, Peter had begun to reconsider the vow he’d made with his grandfather.
Although he sympathized with his grandfather’s pain, the promise felt more and more like a spiteful secret.
Regardless of whatever Peter stood to gain, he would defy all his parents represented if he withheld this wealth of knowledge that might bless an entire community.
His grandfather had given him a great gift, but it would remain a burden if Peter did not share it.
While there remained something painful in acknowledging the error in his grandfather’s grudge, Peter knew one way to repair it.
He grabbed his grandfather’s journal and left Sloan Tailoring.
Half an hour later, Peter’s grip tightened over the book as Mr. Hobbins’s fingers closed over one side of it.
Peter’s grandfather’s voice echoed a warning that the guild did not deserve the knowledge.
But he knew Mr. Hobbins was a good man. Peter’s confidence held, and he let his hand fall. This remained the proper course.
Mr. Hobbins settled into a chair. He cracked the book open, his brows pinching as he read over the instructions outlined for creating Turkey red and stamping cotton after the Indian fashion.
Peter paced, his insides knotting each time he glanced at his grandfather’s journal, the same that carried two crimson fingerprints.
Peter’s restlessness lay not in sorrow, regret, or self-reproach but rather an unsettling expansion at this abandonment of an inherited false moral code.
“So much preparation? I scarcely imagined.” Mr. Hobbins spoke this to himself, but soon enough he began peppering Peter with questions, who stood ready to answer.
Until that moment, he had not been aware to what extent he defined himself by the grudge his grandfather had relinquished to his care.
Now, the walls that restricted with whom to do business, trust, or befriend toppled and crashed, leaving him directionless.
Lost in liberation, Peter wondered at the terror he felt—but also the exhilaration.
Perhaps Meg felt the same rush of anxiety and excitement with each fear she conquered.
As soon as he settled the basis of his plans with Mr. Hobbins, he would write Lord Halverton to accept his proposal and insist that Mr. Hobbins be included in the offer.
They would navigate this unknown territory together.