Page 101 of The Gentlewoman Apprentice

He must have collected the valentines, traveled the neighborhood, gathering page after page. His campaign to bring her back embarrassed and thrilled her, raising the question of his feelings. Hadn’t he called her “love” in the middle of Rosemary Lane, where she’d laid bare her soul? If he could but love her still, if his journey to London might be interpreted as more than kindness, she would unpick every ill-sewn seam and rework it, regardless of the scars left behind.

Persistent as a green tendril emerging from a crack, hope pushed its way into her heart. A future she’d never conceived loosed itself upon her imagination. To be with Peter the tailor, the artist, the fabric painter, the valentine. To know him in all his facets. To love him openly. To create a home together like the one he had shared with his father, one of peace and tenderness. His voice on paper spoke to her soul. His art, his appreciation of all beautiful things, his ability to capture it. He saw her whole self, knew her past, and did not flinch.

She could not will the nighttime hours to pass quickly enough until she could see him again in the morning.

The inn was not busy, and the innkeeper had a son close to Samuel’s age, so the two boys played marbles in the hall while Meg tidied their things. She’d decided on Gloucester. She and Samuel would travel each Sunday to visit Louisa and James, and those from Stroud who wished for a female dressmaker might see her without too great an effort.

Footsteps on the stairs startled her. Peter’s measured, deliberate tread. He had said he would come that morning, but a visit in her room she had not expected. He appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame, offering that irresistible grin.

“Did you sleep well?” His smile teased her, but his eyes drew her in.

Longing tightened in Meg’s belly. “I did. Thank you for the box of valentines. I thought they were all from you when I first laid eyes on them.” He had, in fact, not included anything from himself.

“I wanted to give you mine in person.” He presented himself with an awkward bow. “Here I am, your valentine.” He ran his hand through his hair and coughed. Peter Sloan was nervous.

She smiled to ease his bashfulness. “Yes, I’m glad you came in person. I doubt you would have fit in the basket.”

He laughed with her and then grew uncharacteristically serious. “I will never finish all the orders you dumped on me, you know. You had best return to Stroud and take your place once more.”

“I will find a situation in Gloucester and use my trust to set up another shop there.” The mere suggestion made her eyes sting. She dipped her head and continued packing.

“That won’t do, Margaret.” She’d never liked her full name, but she wished he would say it over and over. “You left because I offered you something you felt you had not earned. Accepting it would make you—what? Beholden? Somehow unworthy?”

His words reached into a wound and took her breath.

“I had paying customers before I began my apprenticeship. You have every reason to despise me,” she said.

“Do I?” He stepped into the room. “From the day your apprenticeship was suggested to me, I knew your objective. It lay across the street from me, in your eagerness to learn, in your skill at bookkeeping.”

She reached for the back of a chair and gripped it.

He moved slowly toward her. “You earned your place as a dressmaker, and you belong in Stroud. I want you to soar, despite how it hits my pocketbook.” He stood close now, close enough that she inhaled his warm scent and was forced to lift her gaze to catch his expression. “I cannot fathom a world in which you are not a few steps away.”

“Is that why you gave your grandfather’s secret away to the guild?”

“In part.” He shook his head. “I wish I could have told you before you left for London. I had decided to turn Sloan Tailoring into a dyehouse a good week or two before Master Dickson threatened your establishment. James made me a business offer, and I accepted it.”

She frowned. “But you were angry that I wore your fabric.”

“I was hurt. Not because you opened a shop but because I did not believe you returned my feelings.”

“Feelings?” The word emerged breathy and an octave too high.

“I was afraid. I still am. I hid behind those letters, I read your fears and your loneliness, and I used that knowledge to love you from a distance where you couldn’t hurt me. I took advantage of the valentine game and had no right to work beside you during the day and confess my feelings through valentines when the shop closed. I beg your forgiveness for my deceit, and I promise to hide from you no longer.”

Finding her voice, she said, “You could not conceal your nature from me, not with all the time we spent together. I want more of it. I am in love with you.” She felt herself unraveling but could not stop. “I want every day with you. But how can you want me when I am all selfishness? I do not deserve your affection, nor your benevolence.”

“Everyone deserves love.”

The warmth of his hand settled on her hip as he narrowed the gap between them. Wanting to assure him, she pressed her fingers into his until they were tangled over her waist, igniting her yearning and making it impossible to withdraw. The pressure of his finger lifted her chin.

“You seem to believe that everything requires payment, so if that is the way you perceive the world, consider it this way. I am unhappy every day I cannot see your face. My own selfishness requires your return to Stroud. My belief that The Golden Thimble will bring you contentment is merely gilding the lily, especially as I will be satisfied with my dyehouse. There. We are both selfish.”

“And what do you expect of me?”

“There you go.” He smiled. “Tallying costs. Love is not earned like wages. Does Samuel do anything to earn your affection?”

“He is a child.”