19. Nell
NELL
I stood in the corner.
Or tried to.
My hand went to the wall out of habit, that instinct to make myself small, to find a seam and work it with my thumb until the room forgot I was there.
Except I wasn't wearing the coat. The blue one. The one I'd carried like armour into every room like this for six years.
I was wearing my mother's coat. The green one. With the mend showing.
And I wasn't standing in the corner anymore.
I was standing in the middle of the floor.
My floor.
Press. Money. Important people. The exact social shape of the gala, standing inside my building for the first time. Cameras pointed at my machines. A table near the loading bay with coffee and pastries Betty had made.
The state contract had been awarded three weeks ago. Ten thousand hospital blankets a year for the next five years.
Today Winston Obi had come to Ardis to announce that Crowe had entered into a long-term supply relationship with Ivester Woolen. My mill. My price. My terms.
Hazel stood near the cutting table. Dorcas had her good shoulder to the wall. Ray hovered near his machines. Kiana looked like she'd been told to smile.
And Beckett was there.
He was standing against the north wall near Ray's workbench, wearing the same canvas shirt he'd worn on the floor yesterday. Fifteen dollars an hour. A rented room above the hardware shop.
At a Crowe event, the only man in the room who worked for Ivester Woolen was Beckett Crowe.
Winston was speaking to a reporter near the front.
"How long is the supply agreement?" the reporter asked.
"Five years initially," Winston said. "With options to extend."
"And what will Crowe be sourcing from Ivester Woolen?"
"Heritage blanket cloth," Winston said. "For our core line. The same cloth that's been going into our pieces for the past year."
"The same cloth that went into the gown for Princess Talia?"
Winston didn't hesitate. "That contract is no longer active."
"Can you comment on why?"
"No," Winston said. "But I can tell you that Ivester Woolen produces the finest blanket cloth in the country. That's why we're here."
I felt something loosen in my chest.
He was good at this. Better than I'd expected.
Beckett caught my eye. Held it.
Then he crossed the floor.
Not quickly. Not slowly. Just steady.
He stopped about two feet away.
"Are you all right?" he asked quietly.
"I'm fine."
"You look like you're about to run."
"I'm not," I said.
"You're standing like you want to disappear."
"Old habit."
He studied my face. Not searching for something. Just looking.
"We don't have to do this," he said. "If this is too much, we can end it right now."
I searched his face for the guilt trip. The weight. The thing that would make this feel like his kindness instead of my choice.
There wasn't one there.
"I know," I said.
He nodded. Didn't push. Didn't pull.
"If you want to leave," he said, "we leave. I'll tell Winston. We'll be gone in two minutes."
"And go where?"
"Anywhere you want."
"Back to the glass house?"
"If that's what you want."
"It's not."
"Then somewhere else," he said.
I looked at him. At the man who'd spent six years not coming home. Who was offering to walk out of a Crowe event because I looked uncomfortable.
"I'm staying," I said.
"All right."
"This is my building," I said. "My floor. My event."
"I know."
"I'm not running."
"Good," he said.
He didn't move. Didn't step back to give me space.
Just waited.
A man in a suit I didn't recognise approached us. Press, I thought. He had that look. Young. Eager. Notebook in hand.
"Mr Crowe," the man said. "Can I ask you about the Crowe name? The heritage behind it?"
I started to step back. To give them space. To disappear into the background the way I always had.
Beckett's hand moved. Not to touch me. Just a small shift. A signal.
Stay.
I stayed.
Beckett looked at the reporter for a moment. Then he turned slightly, so the whole room could hear.
"The tradition worth having," he said, "is thirty-one years on this floor.
A woman named Rosalie Ivester, who sewed hospital blankets to a standard nobody asked her to meet and held it there for three decades.
I had it explained to me once, in a car on the way home from an event exactly like this one.
I said something careless. I've since been corrected. "
The room went quiet.
I felt the floor tilt under me.
He hadn't looked at me once while he said it.
He didn't need to.
The reporter was writing it down. Fast. Like he knew what it meant.
"Can you elaborate on that?" the man asked.
"No," Beckett said.
Not unkindly. Just final.
The reporter tried again. "Was Rosalie Ivester an influence on your work?"
"She was never an influence on my work," Beckett said. "She was better than that."
The reporter blinked. "Better how?"
"She didn't need anyone to write about her to know what she'd made would last," Beckett said. "That's not influence. That's foundation."
I felt my breath catch.
The reporter nodded. Made another note. Moved on to ask Winston something.
I stood there. Breathing.
Trying to process what I'd just heard.
Winston caught my eye from across the room. Something passed over his face. Approval, I thought. Or maybe just recognition.
Hazel was watching Beckett. Her face hadn't changed. But something in the way she stood had shifted.
She walked over to me.
"He got that right," she said quietly.
I looked at her. At the woman who'd been cold to me for six years. Who'd worked beside my mother for nineteen.
"Yes," I said. "He did."
"Took him long enough."
"Yes."
She nodded. Turned to go.
"Hazel," I said.
She stopped. Looked back.
"Thank you," I said. "For what you said. About the house."
Her face softened. Just slightly.
"It needed saying," she said. "Should've said it years ago."
Then she walked back to her spot near the cutting table.
I didn't know what to do with any of it.
So I just stood there.
"Excuse me," a woman's voice said from the doorway.
The room went quiet.
I turned.
Talia de Valois stood there.
Alone.
No entourage. No advance notice. No arrangements made for her. No one clearing the way or announcing her arrival.
Just her. In the doorway of my mill.
She looked smaller than I remembered. Thinner. Her dress was beautiful, but it wasn't Crowe. I didn't recognize the cut. Didn't recognize the fabric.
The libel suit had collapsed two weeks ago. The record Paris Match had published was true. Every word.
I felt the shock go through me first. Physical.
Then reassessment.
Then pity.
She walked into the room like she still owned it. Head up. Shoulders back.
But the room didn't believe her anymore.
Winston moved toward her. Polite. Professional. Nothing more.
"Your highness," he said.
"Mr Obi," she said. Her voice was steady. Controlled. "I was hoping to speak with you. And with Beckett."
"Of course," Winston said.
Beckett didn't move. Didn't speak.
Just watched.
Talia's eyes found me. Held.
"Mrs Crowe," she said. "How nice to see you again."
I didn't answer.
Didn't need to.
She turned back to Winston. "I wanted to discuss the possibility of Crowe dressing me again. Just once. One appearance. One photograph."
Winston's face didn't change. "I'm afraid that won't be possible."
"I'm sure we can come to an arrangement," Talia said.
Her voice had an edge now. Not anger. Desperation. I'd never heard it from her before.
"Crowe no longer takes commissions of that nature," Winston said.
"You dressed me for a year and a half," she said.
"Crowe dressed you," Winston said, "under a contract you broke. The house has moved on."
"One photograph," she said. "That's all I'm asking."
"The answer is no," Winston said.
She looked at Beckett then. Like she'd been saving it. Like she thought he'd override Winston if she just asked him directly.
"Beckett," she said.
He didn't answer.
"Beckett, please."
He still didn't answer.
"You can't just cut me off like this," she said. "After everything we?—"
"We had a contract," Beckett said quietly. "You broke it. There's nothing else to discuss."
"I made one mistake," she said.
"You lied to the press," Beckett said. "You broke your confidentiality agreement. You used Crowe's name to build a narrative that wasn't true."
"I was trying to protect myself."
"By destroying someone else," Beckett said. "That's not a mistake. That's a choice."
Talia's face flushed. "You don't understand what it's like. The pressure. The scrutiny."
"No," Beckett said. "I don't. But I understand contracts. And I understand that when you sign one, you keep it."
"And what about loyalty?" she asked. "What about the two years I gave you?"
"You gave Crowe a year and a half of your time in exchange for a year and a half of exclusive work," Beckett said. "That was the arrangement. You were compensated. Generously."
"I made you famous."
"You wore clothes," Beckett said. "Crowe made the clothes. You didn't make anything."
Her face tightened. She looked around the room. At the floor. At the machines. At the blankets stacked in neat rows near the loading bay.
At Hazel. At Dorcas. At Ray.
At me.
"I offered you a crown," she said, "and you threw it away to wallow in the mud."
The room went silent.
I felt Beckett move beside me. Not toward her. Toward me.
Not protecting. Just present.
Talia's eyes narrowed. She looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time. Really seeing me.
And she didn't like what she saw.
"Look at this place," she said. "Look at what you chose. A mill town. A building full of people who will never leave Ardis. Who will never be anything more than what they are right now."
Nobody spoke.
"This whole place was bought with Crowe money," she said. "You didn't build anything. You just spent his."
I felt the words land. Felt them settle.
Felt the room shift.
The assumption. The one I'd let stand for six years. The one I'd never corrected because correcting it meant saying out loud what I'd sold.
Then Hazel Dunning's voice, flat and clear from the other side of the floor.
"She sold her mother's house."
Five words.
The room stopped breathing.