Epilogue
The letter was sealed with enough wax to sink a ship. Meg felt Peter against her back to get a better look.
“Is that from Bond Street?” he asked.
Meg relaxed into the calming nearness of him. “One of the most fashionable warehouses.”
He kissed her temple and returned to the table, taking up his kalam. “Read it to me?”
Meg read out loud the offer to purchase exclusive rights to their “collaborative designs,” her voice dimming with each paragraph. “Two thousand pounds for what they call the Stroud Method.”
“They’d best call it the Meg Sloan Method.”
“You flatter me. No one would give my gowns a second glance if not for your fabric.”
“I disagree but will not argue, lest you discover my uselessness and toss me out.” He looked up from the fabric he painted and tempted her with his dimples.
“If you continue showing off your smile, I will never finish this letter.”
His grin deepened as he stood and made his way toward her. “What do we call our collaboration, then?” The reassuring strength of his arms encircled her, and she dropped the letter to the floor.
“Love.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and his fingers pressed into her hips. “We call it love.”
A year ago, Meg could barely form the word or believe she deserved it, but Peter’s patient lessons in forgiveness and generosity had taught her that love did not keep a ledger.
“Two thousand pounds in our pockets with a place on Bond Street,” he whispered into her hair. “London would be celebrated by all of Europe.”
“But not us.” She felt his smile against her hair.
“Not us. But what would James say about the offer? We could return every farthing of his investment in our venture and buy him out.”
“Two thousand pounds could drop from his pocket without his notice.” Meg’s affection and appreciation for James and Louisa had strengthened since her marriage. It was as if the love she and Peter shared opened her to a new reality of trust and care.
“And you like having a reason to call on him.”
“He is my brother.” Meg knew Peter liked to tease her into confessing her feelings, so she played his game.
“And?”
“I am quite fond of him.”
“Well done.” He rewarded her with a tender kiss.
“Shall we burn it, then, this London offer?” she asked.
“Yes, and execute our own expansion.”
“Precisely. We are of one mind, Peter Sloan.”
He glanced at her with a look so full of love, an expression so replete with confidence in the place he held in her heart and in the world, that her own happiness swelled and nearly overflowed into waterworks.
“Shall we go home?” he asked.
After marrying, they had purchased a cottage on the edge of town with a garden and room enough for Samuel to run when he came to visit.
Their home bore marks of them both: sketch books full of floral repeats, pattern books containing the latest from Paris, and printed fabric everywhere.
Sloan Tailoring had been renamed Sloan’s Printed Cotton, the cottage he’d shared with his parents adapted to house more apprentices and journeymen.
The Havenwood ladies now lived above The Golden Thimble, and Meg had the pleasure of seeing them nearly every day.
Together, Meg and Peter hitched their donkey to its cart—a wedding gift from Louisa—and made their way over the winding roads.
“I received another letter today,” Meg said. “You’ll never guess from whom.”
“From Mrs. Pitt?”
“The Prime Minister’s wife? Don’t be ridiculous. From Grace.”
“That is bigger news than two thousand pounds. You didn’t run across the street with the letter immediately?”
“It required some thinking.”
“About what?”
“How similar she is to me. She had her reasons for taking my money, much as I justified winning your customers during my indenture. But her letter is also concerning. She mentions revenge and a dangerous quest regarding gin.”
“That is alarming indeed. What will you do?” Peter asked.
“I wish I could write to her or visit and discover how she is, but she’s given no address. Honestly, if I’d received it before Michaelmas last year, I’d have raged over it, disregarded her apologies and mocked her excuses.”
“And now?”
“I wish to tell her how well I understand her. I hope she will learn to forgive herself.”
“Aren’t you the wise one?” Peter nudged her shoulder against his.
“If I am, it is because you love me so well, Peter.”
Meg leaned into him, the man who had taught her to open her heart a little more, to love without expectation, and practice generosity to those who could not repay it.