Chapter 35
That night, fully exhausted by the long, emotional traipsing of London and the effort it took to pack and move to an inn where Samuel could stay with her, Meg watched the rise and fall of her younger brother’s chest as he slept, curled in a ball around his pillow.
The darling boy needed her after all. More than that, she needed him.
Their shared history bound them with ties stronger than any change of circumstance.
Samuel’s grip on her hand as they stood before their former home, the tears that swam in his eyes as she pulled him past children hunched against alley walls—they’d been a breath from that fate.
Pride for Samuel’s compassion blossomed in her.
She needn’t worry he would grow into a heartless man, wealthy or no.
By the light of a candle, she opened the box Peter had gifted her. Inside, she found folded papers. Valentines, loads of them, colored or painted or simply sealed with wax. From Peter? She brought one before the light. The script twirled and sloped in a way Peter’s hand did not.
Please return to us. However will I know which waistcoat to order without you?
Sincerely,
Your devoted customer Mr. Quincy
Meg smiled at having once believed he fancied her. She had mistaken his foppish concern with his wardrobe for affection. But she delighted in helping him choose cloth and pattern.
The next valentine was from Miss Matilde:
How I miss you. Havenwood is such a bore that I regret not accompanying you to London.
I forgot that I do not like digging in the dirt, though isn’t Miss Reed content to muddy her hands.
I long to return to your dear shop, where you always made me feel that I belonged, despite knowing my history.
If you return, I will stay with you and never think of returning home.
Meg closed her eyes, Matilde’s voice recognizable in every word. What a gift it had been to know Miss Matilde and Miss Reed. Had she imagined a distance between them as their employer? Knowing that Matilde had felt so comfortable brought gratifying warmth to her chest.
From Louisa:
I have but one sibling—a horrid brother, hardly worth mentioning. I’ve longed for a sister all my life and am so pleased to find one in you. How I admire you, your talents, and your fortitude. Come back to us, my dear sister. We are not complete without you.
The corners of her eyes prickled at the word sister. With sharp realization, Meg knew the Halvertons’ support remained available to her and to Samuel, but not merely in a fiscal sense. Louisa and James were family.
From Mrs. Smith:
You leave a great hole in Stroud. We ladies waited all our lives for a female dressmaker. You are she, and we do not wish to relinquish you. Where else am I to find one who listens so well as you?
From Mrs. Gainsworth:
After time spent designing gowns together, I cannot do without you. Your skill and vision are unparalleled, exceeding even the great Peter Sloan. Is that heretical? Do not deny us your friendship.
From Mrs. Bosket:
Show me the tailor that serves tea and listens to everyday troubles as well as you do. When I know that man, I will cease pleading for your return. You are more than a dressmaker. I consider you a friend and a most important member of our community.
Meg continued reading letters from each of the apprentices, Mrs. Jenkins, Mrs. Call, Mrs. Wilson, others she did not recall.
These were not anonymous valentines but signed declarations that the people of Stroud cared about her, respected her, wanted her.
A new sense of contentment washed over her.
All her learning and striving, the thrill of success she had attained, diminished beside this feeling that these people had made room for her without her demanding it.
After all her work, they welcomed her, and she had not noticed. Peter had shown her the truth.
He must have collected the valentines, traveled the neighborhood, gathering page after page.
His campaign to bring her back embarrassed and thrilled her, raising the question of his feelings.
Hadn’t he called her “love” in the middle of Rosemary Lane, where she’d laid bare her soul?
If he could but love her still, if his journey to London might be interpreted as more than kindness, she would unpick every ill-sewn seam and rework it, regardless of the scars left behind.
Persistent as a green tendril emerging from a crack, hope pushed its way into her heart.
A future she’d never conceived loosed itself upon her imagination.
To be with Peter the tailor, the artist, the fabric painter, the valentine.
To know him in all his facets. To love him openly.
To create a home together like the one he had shared with his father, one of peace and tenderness.
His voice on paper spoke to her soul. His art, his appreciation of all beautiful things, his ability to capture it.
He saw her whole self, knew her past, and did not flinch.
She could not will the nighttime hours to pass quickly enough until she could see him again in the morning.
The inn was not busy, and the innkeeper had a son close to Samuel’s age, so the two boys played marbles in the hall while Meg tidied their things.
She’d decided on Gloucester. She and Samuel would travel each Sunday to visit Louisa and James, and those from Stroud who wished for a female dressmaker might see her without too great an effort.
Footsteps on the stairs startled her. Peter’s measured, deliberate tread. He had said he would come that morning, but a visit in her room she had not expected. He appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame, offering that irresistible grin.
“Did you sleep well?” His smile teased her, but his eyes drew her in.
Longing tightened in Meg’s belly. “I did. Thank you for the box of valentines. I thought they were all from you when I first laid eyes on them.” He had, in fact, not included anything from himself.
“I wanted to give you mine in person.” He presented himself with an awkward bow. “Here I am, your valentine.” He ran his hand through his hair and coughed. Peter Sloan was nervous.
She smiled to ease his bashfulness. “Yes, I’m glad you came in person. I doubt you would have fit in the basket.”
He laughed with her and then grew uncharacteristically serious. “I will never finish all the orders you dumped on me, you know. You had best return to Stroud and take your place once more.”
“I will find a situation in Gloucester and use my trust to set up another shop there.” The mere suggestion made her eyes sting. She dipped her head and continued packing.
“That won’t do, Margaret.” She’d never liked her full name, but she wished he would say it over and over. “You left because I offered you something you felt you had not earned. Accepting it would make you—what? Beholden? Somehow unworthy?”
His words reached into a wound and took her breath.
“I had paying customers before I began my apprenticeship. You have every reason to despise me,” she said.
“Do I?” He stepped into the room. “From the day your apprenticeship was suggested to me, I knew your objective. It lay across the street from me, in your eagerness to learn, in your skill at bookkeeping.”
She reached for the back of a chair and gripped it.
He moved slowly toward her. “You earned your place as a dressmaker, and you belong in Stroud. I want you to soar, despite how it hits my pocketbook.” He stood close now, close enough that she inhaled his warm scent and was forced to lift her gaze to catch his expression.
“I cannot fathom a world in which you are not a few steps away.”
“Is that why you gave your grandfather’s secret away to the guild?”
“In part.” He shook his head. “I wish I could have told you before you left for London. I had decided to turn Sloan Tailoring into a dyehouse a good week or two before Master Dickson threatened your establishment. James made me a business offer, and I accepted it.”
She frowned. “But you were angry that I wore your fabric.”
“I was hurt. Not because you opened a shop but because I did not believe you returned my feelings.”
“Feelings?” The word emerged breathy and an octave too high.
“I was afraid. I still am. I hid behind those letters, I read your fears and your loneliness, and I used that knowledge to love you from a distance where you couldn’t hurt me.
I took advantage of the valentine game and had no right to work beside you during the day and confess my feelings through valentines when the shop closed.
I beg your forgiveness for my deceit, and I promise to hide from you no longer. ”
Finding her voice, she said, “You could not conceal your nature from me, not with all the time we spent together. I want more of it. I am in love with you.” She felt herself unraveling but could not stop.
“I want every day with you. But how can you want me when I am all selfishness? I do not deserve your affection, nor your benevolence.”
“Everyone deserves love.”
The warmth of his hand settled on her hip as he narrowed the gap between them. Wanting to assure him, she pressed her fingers into his until they were tangled over her waist, igniting her yearning and making it impossible to withdraw. The pressure of his finger lifted her chin.
“You seem to believe that everything requires payment, so if that is the way you perceive the world, consider it this way. I am unhappy every day I cannot see your face. My own selfishness requires your return to Stroud. My belief that The Golden Thimble will bring you contentment is merely gilding the lily, especially as I will be satisfied with my dyehouse. There. We are both selfish.”
“And what do you expect of me?”
“There you go.” He smiled. “Tallying costs. Love is not earned like wages. Does Samuel do anything to earn your affection?”
“He is a child.”
“Meg, if you returned a fraction of my regard, it would be enough.”
“I love you more than a fraction.”
The softness of his mouth edged toward hers. “I would like to kiss you, love.”
“Hurry, for my heart is bursting.”
She raised her face to his. The kiss broke over her in a wave that loosened every muscle she’d used to resist him.
Each time she’d swept her hand from his, every step she’d taken away from him, she surrendered.
In his kiss, she found the sincerity of his words, the delight and awe he discovered in her.
His hand slipped to the small of her back, her spine softening to his touch as his mouth grazed hers softly, questioning rather than demanding.
This was not a passion that burned and flamed out.
He took his time, sharing rather than taking.
With a hand on his cheek, she pulled him closer, opened to him, wanting him to understand her own honest intentions, to show him she returned his admiration.
He reached to cradle the nape of her neck, hands tumbling into the mess of her hair.
Meg released his cheek and slipped her hand under his coat, feeling the strong contours that seemed a tangible testimony of all he offered.
She had spent so long believing herself unworthy of this.
In the warmth of his body against hers, she became light and heavy all at once, grounded in the certainty of her own feelings and assured of his. Peter was a man she could wake beside each morning, one who saw her clearly and still offered his love.
When they parted, he rested his forehead against hers, his hands in her hair.
“I was lying when I said I want you across the street,” he said.
“Where would you have me?”
“Beside me at the breakfast table. On every stroll through town. Tucked in with me every night.”
“Are you proposing, Mr. Sloan?”
“I’d marry you this moment if I could. Isn’t Lord Halverton friends with the archbishop?”
This was too much happiness, but she needed to sit with it a little longer. “We will wed in the winter.”
“Three months away?”
“Our wedding will give us something to celebrate when the world is at its coldest. Until then, I will be your neighbor and betrothed. Besides, we must plan whether we shall live beside my dress shop or your dyehouse.”
“I’ve already begun transforming the shop. In fact, if you do not return, I fear the population of Stroud will soon have nothing to wear.”
“How could I say no to so many thoughtful valentines?”
“Does this mean you will come home?”
“My heart would break if I did not.” An aching swell rose in her throat.
She wanted to express her gratitude for his love, for seeing the best in her when he had suffered at the hand of her worst impulses.
She would make certain he knew that her love was as great as his, and she began proving her devotion with another kiss.