“I’ll have Meredith bring it out for you.”
Mrs. Piedmont’s hand settled on Henrietta’s knee once more. She leaned in and held her other hand before her mouth, as if hiding it and whatever she was about to say. “I’m sure Meredith is a perfectly commendable shop girl, darling Henny, but no one is as trustworthy as you. Would you mind very much taking a final look at it and making sure everything is absolute perfection?”
Maggie did not know Henrietta as well as Mrs. Piedmont obviously did, but she knew annoyance when she saw it, and that particular emotion settled over Henrietta like an ill-fitting shawl. But she stood with a smile. “Of course.”
Mrs. Piedmont licked her lips and watched Henrietta move across the shop. When she disappeared behind the back door, the woman’s eye turned purposefully toward Maggie. “Alone at last. We can have a bit of a chat.”
Maggie waited. Surely the woman, so insistent on a chat, would offer a topic of discussion. When it became clear she planned to offer nothing more than smiles, Maggie said, “How have you been since we last spoke?”
“Oh, you know?” Mrs. Piedmont granted Maggie a dreamy smile.
“Is there something in particular you wished to chat about?”
“Yes, actually. You see, I’m worried about Tobias.” She flushed. “I’m sorry. I should not address him so familiarly, should I? Notnowat least.”
A world of information seemed to be implied in that series of sentences. And Maggie’s hair stood on end with each implication. “Why ever do you think something is wrong with Tobias?”
Mrs. Piedmont dropped her eyes to her hands in her lap, then fluttered her eyelids up to meet Maggie’s gaze. “I am, you see, quite worried about you as well.” She laid a hand on Maggie’s wrist, and it felt like a manacle, steely and cold and ensnaring.
Maggie freed her hand, squared her shoulders, and lifted her chin. “How kind of you to worry, Mrs. Piedmont.”
“Tobias still has not spoken with you about me?”
Did Maggie spy a pout on Mrs. Piedmont’s lips?
“No. Should he have?” She knew the answer to her own question. Yes, he should have. This woman was likely yet another of Tobias’s secrets.
Ithadbeen a pout. Mrs. Piedmont’s bottom lip poked out even further. She huffed. “I suppose it depends on how close you are. Two people forced into a marriage are often not as intimate as they need to be to share the details of their past love lives.” She shrugged. “With things so new with you, it could be he feels so strongly about me, he dare not … you know.” She smiled, mysterious, confident.
Maggie kept her spine tall and strong despite her desire to melt into the chair. She kept her face calm and pleasant despite her keen wish to give in to the worry she pushed down her throat and into her gut. It sat uneasily there, like a lit firework in a ballroom. Had Tobias been in love with her? “Could you be a bit more specific?”
Mrs. Piedmont rolled her hand in the air. “An affair of the heart.”
“Yes, I’d ascertained that. But of what nature?” Had their bodies followed their hearts in the affair?
“Oh, he, you know … but I thought it inadvisable.”
“Can you be even more specific?”
Mrs. Piedmont winked. “Ladies do not have to say such things out loud. We understand each other perfectly without words.”
“I’m afraid we do not.” It was time to be bold. “Do you mean he asked you to have an illicit affair with him or that he proposed marriage?” Which possibility was worse? An affair meant Tobias was not nearly as honorable as she’d thought, but if he’d proposed marriage, it explained his silence on the matter of Mrs. Piedmont. The other woman still held his heart in some way.
“Oh! You thought … heavens, no! Tobias is too honorable to propose an affair to a lady. Marriage was his aim.”
“But … why did you reject his suit?” Surely such a thing was impossible faced with Tobias’s deep-eyed intensity.
“He’s not serious enough.” She shrugged again. It seemed to be her signature gesture. Likely because she knew how lovely her shoulders were. Did she have a flaw? Perhaps they were too wide or too narrow or … no. They were just right. Maggie had been around enough artists to know perfection when she saw it, and Tobias with his artist’s eye knew it, too.
Maggie shook her head and focused on Mrs. Piedmont’s face. “Tobias? Not serious? I suppose I can see how others would think that. He likes a lark and speaks more nonsense than any other man I know. But … you’re wrong. He takes many things quite seriously indeed.” A dark cloud settled over her, and she couldn’t seem to banish it. Her words, which should have rung confident, sounded weak.
Mrs. Piedmont shrugged again. “I suppose hewasheartbroken after I rejected his suit. Quite the most serious I’d ever seen him in my life. And we grew up together, you know.
“He wrote a few letters full of the usual”—she waved her hand in the air—“you know.”
Maggie did know this time. She’d received a letter or two from suitors over the years—somber declarations of the heart speaking of everlasting pain should love not be requited. The men in question had recovered nicely.
But Tobias was different. He felt deeply and did not give his heart freely or easily. He said he loved her, but … Maggie swallowed hard and moved her hands slightly beneath her legs to stop their trembling.
