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“I had an obligation to my client,” he said. “These are your mother’s last wishes.”

“When was the will made out?” Sylvia asked.

“Your mother spoke to me after she purchased the building in January of 1939. She wanted to be sure that everything was legally sound in case something were to happen to her,” Willie said.

But—1939? That meant that for years Izzie had been working every day at Mrs. Shelton’s assuming she was helping Mum build the business that she would one day take over and none of it was true. Mum had lied to her.

She slumped back in her chair, the rosy tint dissipating from her memories. It had taken her ages to convince Mum that she was capable of accepting inventory or managing the appointment book, and it wasn’t until Mum had become overwhelmed by the bookkeeping that she had even allowed Izzie to properly see customers on her own.

How often had Izzie suggested taking out an advertisement in one of the better society magazines in order to attract a new type of clientele with deeper pockets and a need for a more varied wardrobe than their normal customers? How many times had Mum dismissed her sketches as too modern or not practical for the women they served, even taking away her sketchbook from time to time with the excuse that it was distracting her from her real work?

Mum hadn’t believed that Izzie could do this on her own. Not one bit. All Izzie had ever been was a helper—not a businesswoman or the designer she so desperately wanted to be—and now she’d lost the very thing that mattered to her most to the one woman in London she couldn’t stand.

Her sister.

Chapter Six

Sylvia stared dumbly at the spot on William’s desk where her mother’s will lay open.

This couldn’t be happening. There must be a mistake, because there was no reason that her mother would ever feel compelled to leave any part of Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions to her.

In the first months after opening the shop, her mother had tried to teach her to sew, sitting eleven-year-old Sylvia in a corner with a bit of fabric and instructions for a running stitch, whip stitch, back stitch. No matter how often she tried, Sylvia could never make her stitches look like the perfect examples her mother made for her, and her mother had grown increasingly frustrated until finally declaring Sylvia a disappointment. Clearly, someone who could hardly sew a basic stitch could not be trusted to learn how to measure, cut, pin, baste, seam, press, fit, and finish a garment. That meant that Sylvia’s only use was to help with the running of the shop: accounting, administration, deliveries, and cleaning. The things anyone could do.

Izzie, however, had shown real talent from an early age, the fabric molding to her will in a way that it never had for Sylvia. The more her sister learned, the more acutely Sylvia felt her failure, until it became clear that there was no room for her to squeeze into the little unit that was Izzie and their mother.

And then Hugo had come along. Hugo, who had wanted her to join him in his world of dances and dinners, theater and opera. The drudgery of her childhood became the beginning of a fairy tale, and her husband became the handsome prince sweeping Cinderella away.

So why would her mother ever have thought that Sylvia would want to come back to the shop, let alone need to?

“Well.” She breathed out.

“Well?” Izzie barked out a laugh. “That’s all you can say?”

“What else is there to say?” she asked.

Izzie shot to her feet, her chair teetering dangerously on its two back legs before landing with a dull thud on the carpet of William’s office. “Unbelievable!”

“Izzie—” she started to say, but a sharp shake of her sister’s head killed the words in her throat.

“I have nothing to say to you. Nothing,” Izzie hissed before storming out.

Sylvia’s gaze flicked to William, who sat quietly shuffling the paperwork on his desk.

“I do apologize for my sister’s outburst.”

He gave her a sympathetic look and said, “The loss of a loved one is always an emotional time.”

She dropped her gaze to her gloved hands still clenched in her lap. Everything about what was happening felt wrong. She had to make this right. If only she could figure out…

Her head snapped up. “William, if you will please excuse me for a moment.”

She hurried out of the office and back through the waiting area. Pulling open William’s front door, she looked up and down the road. No Izzie. She darted out to the edge of the pavement, pausing while a lorry passed, then hurried across the road.

Halfway around the corner she spotted her sister’s retreating back clad in her beautifully tailored navy coat.

“Izzie!”

The hitch in her sister’s step told her that Izzie had heard her.