Chapter 28
Through the window of his bedroom, Peter watched Margaret wave at her brothers as they disappeared around a bend. With one hand pressed to her chest, the other rose to her throat, and she shuddered as though a sob passed through her.
She’d supported him through his grief, dragged him from his house, ensured he ate. It was correct to return the favor. But no. Her actions were motivated by self-interest.
He turned his back to the window and entered his office, where he thumbed through the account books, making notes in a new ledger.
Though the idea of transforming his tailor shop into a house for printed cotton lured him into creating page upon page of plans, only after meeting with Mr. Hobbins had the scheme developed permanence.
Mr. Hobbins lent wisdom and certainty, practicality and experience. The venture now felt tangible.
Johnathan entered with a bow and laid a letter on Peter’s desk.
“I believe it is from Miss Cooper.” He paused, eyed the letter as if waiting to read it himself.
“Off with you then. It’s a Sunday. Go enjoy yourself.”
With Johnathan gone, Peter set Margaret’s letter aside, pretending for a moment he could simply decide not to read whatever she had to say.
He’d enjoyed their daily correspondence the previous week, however painful.
She was like an itchy scab that begged his attention.
But this was not a sentence or two scribbled on the page they’d been exchanging. He must know what she expressed.
Dear Peter,
My grip on my brother Samuel has eased and slipped. He will likely attend school in Gloucester. I find myself pleased for him to enter a life that presents him vast opportunity I never imagined. I am also bereft.
I now confess another example of my selfishness. I told myself I needed this shop to support Samuel, so he could live with me safely, comfortably, and receive an education funded by my efforts. For reasons I can scarcely recall, this intention set my course and led to my deceiving you.
But Samuel doesn’t wish to remain with me, nor does he require my money. I’ve been imprudent, stubbornly refusing to understand the monetary resources set aside for my use. The ramifications of my skepticism are deep and painful, not least the loss of your regard.
Meg
She did not ask forgiveness. Perhaps she always sought the same thing from him. Understanding. Her actions were incomprehensible, contradictory, perplexing. And she was the woman who wore a hard shell over something tender.
He opened the drawer containing Margaret’s letters.
They should be burned. He looped his finger through a burgundy velvet ribbon that reminded him of her hair and pulled the stack onto his desk.
As he opened the first letter, a wave of lavender scent met him.
She may as well be in the room. He read through them.
I have scarce known a soul whom I could trust not to forsake me…
These thoughts should not have been shared with her master tailor. If she had known the identity of her valentine, she never would have confided so much.
Yet he had read them and fallen in love with her at a safe distance. He hid behind the letters because it was safer than standing in front of her. It was not a charming convention but a form of control. He managed how much of himself he risked while taking all she offered.
Sharp knocks at his office door preceded Charlotte’s entrance. The comfort of her company settled easily as she sat across from his desk.
“I thought you could use a visit. You shouldn’t be alone to watch the disgrace build momentum across the street. Lucius sends his regards.” Her gaze swept the room, pausing on the open drawer, the burgundy ribbon, the stack of letters. Her lips fell into a straight line.
“How are you?” she asked, in the careful tone she had adopted since his father’s death.
“Well enough.”
“Then you won’t mind hearing that Giles is receiving commissions—three, last I heard. Every woman in Stroud has visited The Golden Thimble, and word is spreading to Gloucester.” She leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “How are we going to stop her?”
He ought to feel grateful for her support.
“Well? You cannot do nothing,” she said. “The guild would intervene if you asked. We both know they never liked her.”
As though Margaret were an affliction to be uprooted with the proper tools.
“She wrote to me,” he said.
Charlotte straightened slowly. “And?”
Peter didn’t know where to begin. Charlotte and Lucius remained his closest friends, but he had not told them everything. “She has a younger brother, a boy of eight or nine whom she raised and believed depended on her financially. For him, she would do anything.”
Understanding crept into Charlotte’s eyes. “Even break the restrictions of her indenture.”
“Exactly. But she recently discovered Samuel no longer requires her money.” He turned the letter over in his hands.
“She has the brass of a dock thief.”
“That may be a truer comparison than you know. I believe Margaret comes from east London.”
“That does not excuse what she did to you.”
“No.” He would not pretend otherwise.
“Then why do you justify her?”
The question struck a tender place. She was not alone in wrongdoing.
“She ran my shop better than I ever did. She collected five years of unpaid debts. She sat with me the night my father died and said nothing because she understood silence was what I required.”
“And she stole your clients, hid information from the guild, and operated an illegal business from across the street. Peter.” Charlotte leaned forward again. “You are like my own brother. That is why I must see Sloan Tailoring put to rights.”
“I know.”
“She used you.”
“Yes.”
“Then what is there to forgive?” she asked.
He turned from her and looked out the window at the shuttered front of The Golden Thimble. He should despise the sight of it.
“She asked me once if I was her valentine.”
Charlotte quieted.
“She looked me in the face and asked, and I laughed and lied.” He kept his eyes on the window. “I told her it was improper, that I would never accept such an assignment. I was a coward.”
“That is not the same as what she did.”
“Is it not?” He turned back to Charlotte, whose arms had tightened across her chest. “She concealed her business from me. I kept my identity secret to protect myself.”
Charlotte’s jaw worked, the muscle ticking beneath her ear. She would not concede easily. She never did.
“You are describing a woman who, with calculated ambition, deceived you for her own gain, and you compare her actions to that of a man who was merely shy.”
“You know I am not shy. I am afraid.” His voice roughened against his will.
“I sat in this room writing letters to a woman I loved instead of standing in front of her and saying so. She laid herself bare in those letters, Charlotte. Every fear, every wound, every hope. And I gave her watercolors and anonymity.”
Charlotte’s arms loosened by a fraction. Her attention dropped to the letters on his desk, the ribbon trailing from the stack like a thread pulled from a seam.
“She is not blameless,” Charlotte said, but her voice had lost its edge.
“No. Nor am I.”
A long silence settled between them, filled with the faint ticking of a clock.
“What will you do?” Charlotte asked.
He did not know. The letter lay on his desk, Margaret’s handwriting as familiar to him as his own. The ramifications of my distrust are deep and painful, not least the loss of your regard. That was not the language of a woman without remorse.
“I cannot answer that.”
Charlotte rose, adjusting her gloves with brisk efficiency. At the door she paused to look over her shoulder, her expression stripped of its severity. “She did improve your shop and love your father. That much I will grant her. But that does not mean you should not protect yourself.”
The door closed behind her. Peter sat with his hand over the letters, the lavender scent fading, and felt the first true loosening in his chest since Margaret had gone.
He picked up one of her letters and scanned it until he stopped on a foreboding line: Perhaps I value independence over relationships too much.
His heart ached for the life she had known, furious at those who taught her not to trust. She seemed to tell him she could never accept his affection, nor had she asked for it in her most recent missive.
His wound, tender and bleeding, lay fresh and too painful to bandage, and it required time to heal.
He gathered a paper and quill and began another letter.