He catches me looking.
"Do I have something on my face?" he says. It isn't really a question. More of an accusation at this point.
"No." I turn back to the room, cheeks hot. "Just wondering what a warrior reads about in a newspaper. Aside from battles, I suppose."
"Grain prices." He turns a page. "Border disputes. The occasional wedding announcement, when a lord marries off a daughter he should have kept from marrying."
There's something under that last one, and before I can think better of it I say, "You don't approve of weddings?" I cross my arms as I shift my body toward him.
"I approve of weddings fine." His gaze moves to the dais, to Ysolde laughing as Brynna and Mirelle work through the hidden clasps of the dress. "Just like I approve of my sisters less when they're being ridiculous."
"They seem happy," I say, watching him closely to see what he says.
"They seem loud."
But he says it softly, and he doesn't look away from them, and I suddenly understand that this male wears grumpiness like armor.
I know a thing or two about that. After all, I make a living dressing people in exactly what they want the world to notice, so that they don't have to show the rest of what's underneath.
"That too," I agree finally. "But you'll miss them." It is not a question.
I don't mean to say it. It just falls out, the way things do with me.
His newspaper drops into his lap.
“I’ll survive,” he says. Then he raises it again, ending our conversation right there.
Across the room, Ysolde steps down off the dais in her shift, Brynna and Mirelle carrying the dress like a museum artifact.
"You're so talented," Ysolde says to me now, warm. "Ma's going to be a mess over it. She's been a wreck about weddings ever since — well." She gives a small pause. "Ever since everything with Pa."
The laughter in the shop drops slightly. I don't understand it, but I feel it.
"Ysolde," Torgan says, his voice nearly a growl. Quiet. A warning.
"I'm only saying Ma feels things more these days." Ysolde smooths the shift over her arms, not meeting her brother's eyes. "She's softer since she was hurt. That's all. It isn't a secret."
"This is not a story for the dress shop."
His mouth tightens, and he raises the newspaper between us.
I do what I always do when the conversation during a fitting takes a wrong turn.
I reach for the tea that Saskia offers me.
"Well," I say brightly, "I think your mother will be thrilled. That's what mothers are for at weddings. And tears are okay, except you don't want her taking away from the wedding. I remember hearing about one wedding where they had to pause it because a mother was sobbing so loudly, the congregation couldn't hear the celebrant."
It works.
Mirelle laughs, and Saskia says something about how she plans to make everyone cry on purpose, and Torgan's expression eases by a fraction — not a smile, nothing so overt as that, but his jaw unclenches. He goes back to his newspaper.
I notice he doesn't turn the page, which means he is still listening.
We drink the tea. The sisters gossip and bicker and refill their cups without asking, completely at home in my little shop, and I let myself pretend for an hour that this warm, loud crowd of them is the kind of family gathering I get to have.
It would have been so nice to have a family like this.
Ysolde schedules her final fitting. Brynna promises to come next for her own consultation — hers is the next wedding in the succession of the orc family, and she wants to talk embroidery, which she says like a woman who has been thinking about this very thing for months. Then Mirelle hugs me on the way out — actually hugs me, quick and fierce, like we've known each other for years — and then they pour back out, a river of green skin and dark hair into the chaos of the main street. Torgan stands a head above all of them, herding them like they're sheep, not his sisters.
