Page 64 of The Gentlewoman Apprentice

Who was this man? She had vowed not to seek his identity, but that was before he’d touched her heart so deeply again and again. If simply for the joy of friendship, he must be known.

Could it be one of the apprentices? Giles perhaps, curt with her to obscure his interest? A customer? Mr. Quincy frequented Sloan’s, a young man overly fond of silk waistcoats, but they usually interacted with professional formality, nothing suspicious.

Mr. Sloan? Her heart skipped a beat. She felt his eyes increasingly on her and he seemed to take special care in teaching her. The handkerchief’s embroidery compared to none, and Mr. Sloan held a needle as if he’d invented it. She glanced at the painted birds. Mr. Sloan was an artist…

His hand on her back when she’d ruined Mrs. Gainsworth’s fabric had steadied her, made her feel safe in the same way the valentine letters soothed her. The words he said, “You are not diminished by this,” seemed to echo the sentiments written to her.

But no, it could not be him. He’d told her he had not submitted his name. His art was of a different fashion, and she knew his handwriting—she’d seen it in the shop’s accounting books: precise, blocked letters that a schoolchild could easily interpret. While she imagined he fancied her, it was likely wishful thinking. A quiet ache settled in her chest. She willed away the tender throb and forced herself to think of someone else.

Could it be Lucius? Good-natured and jocular, the letters did not reflect what she knew of him. But he was curious about her, asked impertinent questions, and sought her out. She did not know enough about him to confirm or deny the possibility.

Knowing might ruin everything.

Knowing might lead to more than she’d ever dreamed of. If her valentine contained a soul with half the kindness of Mr. Sloan, she would be fortunate indeed.

At her writing desk, she trimmed a quill.

Dear Valentine,

How can I thank you for your letter and gift when I do not know who you are? Drop me a hint. It is unfair that you see me with your eyes while I must know you only with my heart.

I spent the week traveling to and from London, remaining a day in the city. It was enough: How quickly one forgets the rag-and-bone men who appear made from what they hawk, the children begging for money I could not spare. When I was one of them, the suffering seemed so ordinary.

When I stepped from the carriage in Stroud, the familiar sight of the Cotswolds cradled me, and I was home. Dare I admit that your letter embraced me deeper into contentment?

Yours, etc.,

Meg

The letter contained an almost-confession. Before she could lose her nerve, she sealed the letter for delivery and set it in the usual place for Simon to collect. When she returned to her room, she sorted through the rest of her correspondence and found one rather official-looking message, sealed with a pair of open scissors. The tailor’s guild. But why would they correspond with her? With trembling hands, she snapped the wax.

Miss Cooper,

As the Master Warden of Saint Anne’s of the Tailor’s, I hereby end your apprenticeship due to gross violation of the terms of your indenture.

Meg dropped into a chair, her fingers growing numb. She blinked hard, but the ink remained—black, definitive, damning.

She read a description of her perfidy: hiring ladies to work at her establishment before her apprenticeship ended, poaching her master’s customers, the unlawful stores of fabric she housed. Each accusation landed like a stone in her chest, settling heavily atop the last. At the end of the missive, “Mr. Sloan has been likewise informed.”

This could not be.

But Master Dickson’s signature sat at the bottom as permanent as a gravestone inscription. Her throat constricted. Miss Ivy must have betrayed her. But why now, and why directly to the guild? It hardly mattered. The damage was done.

Though she had improved in Mr. Sloan’s absence, Meg required his instruction, Mrs. Gainsworth’s ruined silk oppressive in her mind. The thought arrived with nauseating clarity. Without his attentive instruction to guide her the last six months of her apprenticeship, she would not succeed. She needed time—time she no longer had.

He would dismiss her.

The certainty squeezed the air from her lungs. She had been careless, greedy perhaps, too eager to secure her future. And now that future was dissolving.

With barren coffers and insufficient skill, wholly unprepared to open her shop, her grand plans and fevered preparations had become a fool’s errand. The best she could hope for was to sell the contents of her workshop and return to London.

London. The word sank into her belly like a stone at the bottom of a well. To return would be to admit defeat, to surrender her entire purpose. She wished to be useful, to be recognized as competent, to provide for herself and give Samuel the life he deserved.

And Mr. Sloan would know. He already knew.

She gasped, her hand flying to her chest. He had read Master Dickson’s letter, seen her name attached to words like perfidy and unethical and unlawful. He would despise her.

She curled forward, breathless. His good opinion had become vital. The idea of standing before him, watching his expression shutter with contempt, seeing whatever warmth had begun to kindle in his eyes extinguish, burned her throat. She pressed her palm flat against the table, grounding herself in the solid wood. There must be something she could do. But there was nothing. The letter had seen to that.