So, her niece and nephew could not read or write. Kate supposed an abusive husband might not have been willing to pay for schooling. Education wasn’t easy to be had elsewhere. Gravesyde was unusually fortunate to have a free school.
Lavender arrived with Mrs. Young, who carried her basket of button bits. The gray-haired widow was tiny, frail, and limped, although she managed without a walking stick.
“Mrs. Young has suggested we lay out lace on the table and adorn it not just with the bobbles our customers might add to their own hats but matching buttons.” Lavender enthusiastically took the basket and began laying out the contents, arranging buttons, flowers, and ribbons in order of color.
“We only have the one length of lace,” Vivien complained in dismay. “You do not want to have it turning yellow in the sun from the window.”
“As if the sun shines anymore,” Kate muttered under her breath.
Producing more ribbons from her basket, Mrs. Young chuckled. “It has been particularly dreary, hasn’t it? But it’s good for my mushrooms.”
“We will have more lace once we start earning coin.” Lavender glanced around, studying the remaining space. “I’d like bolts of cloth stacked on those shelves. We need to think of what colors will catch the eye best, brighter than drab brown and gray. Although it will be a while before we can stock everything.”
“Samples, for now,” Kate agreed. “It will take time before the village women will dare order an entire dress. The manor ladies know what they like, so you need only order the fabrics they request.”
“French fashion dolls.” Vivien limped over to rearrange the window display. “They will need to see how the style looks on them.”
“French fashions are too costly and not practical when we have no fancy balls or soirees to attend,” Lavender corrected in amusement. “Mrs. Young, will you need a low table and chair to sit at? Would one of those we’ve been using in the shop work for you?”
“You can’t expect ladies to attend a shop with an old woman putting buttons together as if it were a workhouse!” Vivien’s heart-shaped face wrinkled into an expression of horror, and her carefully coiffed dark side curls bounced with a shake of her head. “They need a fashionable modiste to display the latest designs.”
Lavender turned in puzzlement to the young seamstress. “Did you need something, Miss Vivien? Have you come to tell me you can’t walk up the hill on Monday? It will put us dreadfully behind, but we don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
The girl looked bewildered and angry at the same time. “Dr. Walker does not know if my foot will ever heal properly. I thought I might work here.”
Dr. Walker hadn’t been able to find anything wrong with her foot and thought it a mild sprain, Kate knew. Vivien was a manipulative liar.
“With the makeovers of the dowager’s silks, we really need you in the workshop,” Kate said evenly, not calling the girl on her tall tale. “If you will wait at the bottom of the drive, I will have Mr. Sutter stop his carriage to pick you up when he takes Lyn and Rob to school. There is room for all of us.”
“But. . .” Unable to say she couldn’t walk the length of town to wait at the manor drive, since she’d already walked here, Vivien took Jasper’s arm and flounced out.
“The girl needs to be married,” Mrs. Young said with an understanding smile. “Then she can boss her young man around.”
Eighteen
Rafe
“A circus?” Captain Huntley asked as Rafe served him his house-made ale.
The captain rarely stopped at the pub when he had Lady Elsa’s fine cooking at the manor. But he'd apparently been out riding with the gentlemen, and they enjoyed good company. That's what Rafe wanted to provide—good food, good ale, and good company.
Not the grisly details of murder. Although gossip did draw folk to hear the latest. Rafe didn't believe Hunt would appreciate the gossip he had to impart though.
“I rode out with Damien after he heard about his new tenants. Not exactly a circus, sir.” Rafe did his best to bite back his grin, recalling Damien's reaction to his guests. They'd had to depart quickly to hide their chortles after their initial shock.
After the exigencies of war, Rafe had learned not to judge how people chose to live. As a sophisticated, well-traveled, educated gentleman, and a lawyer, Damien had seen everything and knew better than to judge by appearance, as well.
But imagining the reaction of a village of uneducated rural folk, folk with no experience beyond the limited confines of dull Gravesyde, to the. . . charismatic troupe. . . they’d both bent double with laughter as they rode back. It was a miracle they hadn’t fallen off their horses. A circus, indeed.
But now Rafe would have to bear the brunt of his neighbors’ ignorance. Charismatic had been Damien’s choice of word. Rafe would have to look it up later. He’d choose flamboyant. Others might use more condemnatory epithets. He really did need to inform Hunt.
Lt. Jack de Sackville, Lady Elsa’s husband and the former soldier who had lured Rafe and Fletch to Gravesyde, set down his mug. “Lavender described fellows in clown clothes. What else besides a circus?”
Rafe simply did not possess the words. He needed smooth-talking Damien here. “Miss Marlowe has never been to Town, sir. Jacques’ friend manages a theater troupe, but not Shakespearian theater, if you catch my drift.”
Having finished installing hooks in the shop ceiling for the ladies, Upton, the curate, had joined the gentlemen. Educated at Oxford, he was a little more worldly than his flock. “A theater that dresses in. . . eccentric garb? Are they gentlemen who like to, let us say, dress up? I have seen a group like that. The show was quite hilarious but more than a little vulgar.”
Amazed that a curate might risk arrest to broaden his education, Rafe nodded hesitantly. “I’ve not seen Shakespeare and can’t say. I had no notion such theatricals exist. Meeting them, though, they were quite funny, in a world-weary sort of way.”
