She wasn’t disappointed when he pretended offense before he chuckled. “Did you really call him an idiot?”
Nodding, she took a sip of tea. The warm liquid seemed to settle her nerves as well as clear her throat. “Do you see him often?”
He lifted a shoulder. “A couple of times a week, I suppose. We take our supper at one of the pubs over in Rose Street,” he explained. “Although there is a new one we’re going to try in a day or two.”
“It’s so good you two are still friends,” she remarked.
“He’s a good sport to put up with me,” Callum replied. “He, an architect with eight projects already built, one in process, another on the drafting table, and me, a mere clerk at a warehouse,” he added. “You never did say why it was you came to Edinburgh,” he commented. “Although it is a nice surprise. I suppose you got my address from my mum?”
“I did,” she admitted. “She says you don’t write often enough, and I’m supposed to scold you, so consider yourself scolded.”
He bobbed his head up and down. “Message noted. But that’s not the only reason you came up here,” he prompted.
“Father died,” she stated.
Callum’s eyes rounded, and he quickly sobered. “I’m so sorry. I... I didn’t know,” he murmured. “Must have been recently?”
Isabella thought the comment odd and said, “Only a few months ago, actually,” she replied, her cheeks burning when she remembered she wasn’t wearing black. Only two modistes in town knew her, but neither had asked about her situation when they met with her about taking on sewing projects.
“Mum didn’t mention it in her last letter,” Callum replied, once again dipping his head. “You’re not wearing black.”
She ignored the comment. “Charlie has taken over the mercantile,” she stated, referring to her younger brother, “and he married a girl from Buxton. Only a day before Father died.”
“Charlie ismarried?” Callum asked in disbelief. “Oh. For some reason I thought he would always be a bache?—”
“He no longer looks as if he rolls in the dirt, either,” she interrupted. “In fact, he’s quite an amiable young man. Said I should send his regards. Since Father’s death, he, uh, he’s had some work done to the cottage. Added a real floor and decent furnishings,” she explained. “Made it quite a comfortable home.”
Isabella once again remembered her parents’ bedchamber. She had managed to take the hairbrush and comb from the dressing table before her brother’s renovations, determined they not become the property of her sister-in-law.
“So... you’re still living there?” he guessed.
She shook her head. “No. Now that he’s married, my presence is no longer... required,” she stammered. “His wife can see to the household now, and...”
“Did he evict you?” Callum asked in disbelief.
Isabella swallowed the lump that had once again formed in her throat. “No.Shedid. But it’s fine. Father left me my marriageportion, so I have the means to live.” She had withdrawn the three hundred pounds with the help of her brother and promptly sewn most of it into the lining of several hats and the hems of two gowns, and hidden some of it in the false bottom of her sewing valise. If she didn’t continue to sew for a living, it might last three or four years. Her hope was to find another modiste or two in search of a seamstress.
“But... where?” he asked, in response to her comment about having the means to live.
She lifted a shoulder. “Here,” she said. “In Edinburgh. I brought everything I own in a single trunk and a valise on the mail coach.”
“So... not much?” he whispered.
She ignored the implication of his simple statement. Her valise contained all the tools of her trade—needles, pins, scissors, a variety of threads, measuring tapes and more. He had probably come to the city with far less, and from what she knew of him from when he still lived in Tideswell—and Daniel obviously agreed—he wasn’t one to spend money frivolously. “I have rooms here in New Town,” she said, managing to suppress a wince at how much it was costing her. “I think the opportunities are far greater for me here. For employment,” she added on a sigh, in case he was imagining another reason for her being there.
Marriage. She would only consider it if it involved an honorable gentleman. Someone with ties to both her childhood home and to Edinburgh.
“Tideswell is rather small,” Callum agreed, helping himself to the millefruit biscuit. “When you asked if I might show you where you could find Daniel, was there a particular reason you wished to see him?”
“You mean other than to give my regards to an old friend?” she asked rhetorically.
He cleared his throat. “Fair enough, but what will you do? Here in the city?”
Touched by the concern she heard in his voice, Isabella wondered for a moment why Callum was still unmarried. He was pleasant to look upon, and from what he had said, he was gainfully employed as a clerk. Surely he could afford to take a wife. Then she remembered he was probably too Scotch to marry and decided not to bring up the subject.
“For your living?” he prompted, interrupting her brief reverie.
“Besides being a seamstress?” she replied. She angled her head to one side and allowed the first sign of humor to appear since she had taken her leave of Daniel’s office. If Arthur Peabody had done her bidding—to tell everyone he knew what he had paid witness to after she went into Daniel’s office—the resulting gossip might help her secure an advantageous marriage. That she had done far more than she had imagined before going into the office may have only strengthened her standing when it came to the resulting gossip.
