Lucy used the flame from the candle to burn the note, then she stowed the locket in her pocket. She certainly didn’t need her father seeing it and asking a multitude of questions.
No longer in the mood to work on the bracelet design, Lucy instead dusted the shop and polished the windows and their prized glass display case.
By the time she finished, she could hear her mother in the kitchen and the rumble of her father’s voice. Every morning,before any meal preparations began, Ward Carlson sat on a chair while Cleta shaved his face.
Lucy smiled, thinking about how much in love her parents still seemed to be, even after twenty-two years of marriage. Then again, her father still cut a striking figure, and her mother was beautiful and graceful, even if she worked hard every day.
Many times, Ward had offered to hire a kitchen girl to help with the cooking and cleaning, but Cleta refused.
“It’s my kitchen, and I’ll be the one doing the cooking,” she always said, then kissed Ward’s cheek and went on about the business of fixing a meal.
Lucy could cook, clean, and sew. She knew how to dip candles and dry herbs, and wash clothes. She could perform every domestic task with a degree of skill, but none of it fascinated her the way designing and making jewelry did. When she wed, if she ever found a man who would allow her the freedom she craved and required, she certainly hoped the gentleman would earn enough money to hire domestic help, because Lucy had no intention or interest in spending her days cooking and cleaning.
If she ever grew bold enough to give voice to those thoughts, it would probably cause both of her parents to have a fit of apoplexy. No, she would keep them to herself.
With the way she seemed to chase off potential suitors, she doubted she would ever need to worry about getting married anyway. Most of the girls she had grown up with had already wed, and several had a babe or two.
Thankfully, neither of her parents had ever pushed Lucy toward matrimony, and for that she was grateful.
Lucy swept the floor, then closed the door before she joined her family for their morning meal.
While her father was reading the newspaper, Lucy dashed up to her room and hid the locket in her desk, then hasteneddownstairs just in time to hear her father complaining about the unruly Rebels creating more havoc.
He tossed the paper down and stormed outside with mutters about going for a walk.
Lucy glanced at her mother, and the two of them quickly crowded together, their focus on an article about a Loyalist-owned ship being overtaken by Patriots not long after it had left Philadelphia.
According to one of the sailors who had jumped overboard and escaped, the entire crew had been poisoned and were writhing in acute stages of gastric distress when their ship had been suddenly boarded by twenty men carrying weapons and shouting at them to surrender.
“The Hollyhockwas stocked with supplies bound for New York and General Howe’s troops,” Cleta read. “The Patriots captured the despairing crew, including the captain, and left them in a Patriot camp before returning to the ship and sailing away with their stolen goods.”
Lucy grinned and hugged her mother’s shoulders. “What an amazing thing. Those supplies will be such a help to the Continental Army.”
“I’m sure they will be,” Cleta said, looking quite pleased as she folded the paper and left it on the table near Ward’s chair before she returned to scrubbing dishes. Lucy hurried to dry them. When she finished, she returned to the shop and again opened the door, ready to welcome the day’s customers.
The sounds of the city coming to life drifted on the morning breeze. Lucy sat at the workbench, working on the bracelet design, listening to snatches of conversation trickling inside, when the sound of someone whistling a jaunty tune reached her ears.
The man owned a talent for whistling, and the lively notes fairly made her toes tap. She glanced outside and watched noneother than Branch Barton stroll along, appearing as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
Lucy had no idea why, but every time she saw the man, or even thought of him, her stomach felt strange, as though fragile wings made of delicate feathers unfurled inside it.
Branch had walked past the shop every day but Sunday, and then he had sat two rows behind her family at Christ Church, where they had attended for as long as Lucy could remember. She thought the church was beautiful with its soaring spire that made it the tallest structure in all of North America.
She had done her best to ignore Branch during the service, but he had a lovely baritone voice that hit the notes with such precision, she wanted to turn and stare at him each time they sang a hymn.
Of course, Theo had recognized Branch and made a point of dragging Lucy over to greet him. She couldn’t very well be rude at church, so she had spoken politely to the man, introduced him to her parents when they approached, and left him staring after her, as he had done last week when he had encountered her and Theo at the market.
The way he watched her, as though he could see beneath the surface to delve into her heart and unearth the depths of her soul, left her unnerved.
“Perish the thought!” Lucy whispered and shifted so her back was to the window, hoping Branch would walk by without stopping to say hello.
Despite how much he irritated her, she couldn’t help but admire his broad shoulders, lush golden hair, and those incredible moss-green eyes. She refused to think about his full lips because that always led to thoughts of kisses, and she certainly didn’t need him to know how much she had pondered the taste of his kiss.
Her cheeks heated with the very thought of it. To her utter mortification, Branch stepped into the shop, still whistling, as she stood and faced him.
“Good morning, Miss Carlson. How does this day find you?” he asked so politely and sweetly as he swept off his hat that she wondered if he had knocked his head. “You don’t appear to have found any unripe persimmons to sample today.”
Annoyed at his reference to her somewhat sour attitude where he was concerned, she bit back a barbed comment and waved her hand around the shop. “Was there something you needed, sir?”
