Page 94

You wrote that for all of Mum’s bravery and determination, she was flawed. Perhaps it is time for me to begin trusting some of my own instincts.

After a great deal of thought, I have enclosed a sketch of a dress that I hope you think might be suitable for the fashion show you are preparing for. Miss Reid should be able to make a pattern from it, but please let her know that she may write if she has any questions.

Your sister,

Izzie

P.S. If you think that Willie is stopping by the shop merely because he is lonely, you are not as clever as I always thought you were.

9 May 1942

Dear Jack,

I hope you won’t think me ridiculous writing to you so soon after seeing you, but I couldn’t wait. Something will happen and I find myself wanting to tell you straightaway so I can see your smile and hear your laugh. I want to hear all of your stories about your time in Iowa and what your family are like. I hate this war, but I am grateful that we met.

I suspect you will be happy to read that I have written to my sister. After our date, I went straight to my barracks, but Amelia and Alexandra were playing a spirited game of gin rummy and it was far too loud for my tastes, so I took some writing paper and my pencil and went off to the NAAFI to find some quiet.

I started to write to Sylvia, but as I read what she’d written over the last month, the words wouldn’t quite form. Out of habit, I picked up my pencil and began sketching. It was a dress with simple and clean lines and very little embellishment save for a gathering at the side and a deep vent in the back of the skirt.

When I finished, I realized that it was the perfect combination of my mother and me: her tailoring and my taste. I could imagine it in a rich claret.

I picked up my pencil again and began to write to Sylvia, the words flowing better this time. At the end of the letter, I told her I was including a sketch for her fashion show. I do not know what she will do with it, but perhaps it will help.

I cannot wait to see you again, and I hope more than anything that I can be…

Yours,

Izzie

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Sylvia rushed through the door of the flat and tossed her handbag down on the entryway table. Toeing off her shoes as she went, she peeled off her jacket and let it dangle from her right ring finger as she reached up to take off her earrings.

She was late—why was she always late?—but this time it wasn’t a committee meeting or a luncheon she was rushing home for. She and Hugo were meeting Claire and Rupert at the club for dinner before going out dancing.

The door to her bedroom was open. She strode through it without thinking, stopping only when she saw her husband standing in front of the long cheval mirror that occupied the corner of the room. His eyes caught hers in the glass.

Once he might have teased her, saying, “We really must keep meeting like this, Mrs. Pearsall.” Instead, he glanced at the clock on the bedroom’s mantelpiece and frowned.

“You’re cutting it rather fine, Sylvia. Dinner is at half past seven,” he said.

“I do apologize. My bus became stuck in traffic near Piccadilly,” she lied smoothly as she set her jacket on the bed and then moved to her jewelry box to set her earrings safely inside. She hadn’t been anywhere near Piccadilly, but she hoped that he might assume she’d been visiting some society matron or another in Belgravia or Kensington. That at least should appeal to her husband’s sense of cultivating the right sort of company.

“You have ten minutes,” he said.

She bit her tongue to keep from sniping back that it was rather rich of him to order her about their flat when he was so rarely there. However, that was not the way to start what was supposed to be a pleasant evening with their friends.

There had been a time when this sort of dinner would have been de rigueur. Their social diary had once set her head spinning it was so full of Hugo’s friends and those he wished to make friends with, either because they might become patients at his discreet Harley Street surgery or simply because he wanted them in his circle. How thrilling it had been when she’d realized that she could help! While he had spoken to the husbands, she’d taken the wives, asking them about themselves and listening because her mother had taught her that most customers want little more than the indulgence of being allowed to speak about themselves.

She recalled how proud she’d felt when he’d begun to tell her a little bit about who he wanted to meet, and when she’d been able to make her first introduction, she’d practically floated to the ceiling. She’d done it all just to earn that satisfied smile from him.

Now, as she turned away from him to unzip her skirt and step out of it, she couldn’t help but wonder at the pleasure she’d derived from being Hugo’s helpmate. Now that the shop was her primary concern, she could hardly remember what it had been like when her only worry had been whom she would speak to on a given evening.

She dressed quickly in her navy silk satin gown. She’d bought it in 1938 from Molyneux, but it wasn’t too out of fashion. Besides, she knew that the wide slash of a boatneck showed her delicate collarbones off beautifully. On went the sapphires that had been a twenty-eighth-birthday gift. Silver shoes and a matching clutch finished the effect.

“Sylvia—”

Hugo stopped, and she glanced up. He was standing in the doorway, watching her.