For the hundredth time, I wished I could talk to my mother. She knew how to start a business and make it successful. Granted, hers wasn’t a secret, but it must have been frightening to start up without any help.
I appreciated that more than ever before. Before she purchased it, my mother had taken me to look at the Moon on the Square. I’d run around the empty building, poking at the cobwebs in the corner and twirling in circles around the bar. I’d never thought about how Mother had felt that day, how she must have realized the risks of starting a business on her own. All I remembered was her making a list—a list of problems.
The sinks are leaking. Three barstools are too tipsy to use. The stove is broken but functional. Will probably need to be replaced in six months.
“Of course it’s stressful.” Sophie cut into my thoughts. Impatiently, she tossed her head, making her hair fall over her shoulder. “Secrets always are.”
“I suppose so.” It came so easily to Sophie. But it wasn’t the same way with me. I’d never kept a secret like this before. I forced the thought away. “Let’s make the most of the night. Have you done any sketches?”
“I did this one.” Sophie pulled a sketch out from underneath the small cabinet in the corner of her room and handed it to me. She picked up the single candle on her table and held it up so it cast light onto the page. “I think it will go perfectly with the girl-coming-to-the-city theme.”
Sophie’s lines were thick and slashing, bordering on abstract, but precise enough to understand. Layers of rigid organza formed lines down a full mermaid skirt topped with a military-inspired jacket. The skirt had a long train, and the neckline plunged all the way down to the navel. Sophie had pinned small swatches of fabric to the corners of the sketch, and I ran my fingers over the nude organza and navy corduroy. Goose bumps ran up and down my arms, and I shivered, unsure if I was excited or alarmed.
“Can people wear such things here?” I’d never heard of a fashion show where so much skin was exposed. Sophie raised a shoulder in a half shrug.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it’s beautiful, and it goes with thelook. If we are going to stand out, we have to do things that the Fashion House has never done before.”
“I love it.” The intricacy of the skirt and exaggerated lines of the military jacket were perfect—my girl, the one who came to the city, would wear it as she found her footing and her style.
“I also did this one.”
True to Sophie’s look, the second design was also edgy. The gown was made from dark gray lace on a nude lining. The lace had a wide, detailed pattern so that it appeared to climb up the model’s body. The shoulders morphed into points arching above the wearer’s head like black lace wings, showcasing the intricate fabric. I closed my eyes, picturing the piece. It was beautiful, but it could be... even more unexpected.
“What if we made a huge skirt out of netting to go over it?” I asked, my mind brimming with possibilities. “We can use a delicate netting. There won’t actually be an underlay. We’ll just layer hundreds of pieces of netting on top of each other, and eventually it will become opaque.” The design appeared fully formed in my mind, as though it had been there all along, waiting for me to discover it.
“Yes!” Sophie smile grew even bigger. “It’s perfect!” She started to draw over the sketch, creating a skirt over the slim silhouette.
As she sketched, the line of—concentration? Annoyance? Displeasure?—disappeared from between her brows. Since it was always present, I’d come to think of it as a beauty mark or freckle, something one couldn’t be rid of.
“What do you think about while you design?”
“I think about...” She started and then stopped. I waited, listening to the scratch of her pencil across the paper. “My family, my parents. I draw... dark things.”
“Why?” I whispered, almost scared to hear her reply. I didn’t know much about her parents. Just what Kitty had told me long ago—that they were extravagant people who loved attention.
“There is a bad streak in my family, Emmaline, and it’s inside me as well,” she said. “But sometimes, if you name something or put it down on paper, it’s not as powerful as before.”
She held the sketch out to me. I looked down at it. In addition to adding the skirt, she had blotted out the figure’s eyes, leaving dark holes that nearly took up the entire face. I shuddered and raised my head. In the dim light, Sophie’s eyes seemed blacked out too.
Chapter Seventeen
WE SKETCHED, CUT PATTERNS,and sewed every night for the rest of the week and into the next. We worked in Sophie’s fitting room on her sewing machine during the night and then, because customers came to her room during the day, we brought the pieces up to our chamber and hid them under our beds. It seemed like we were always rushing up the stairs with the pieces stored in our sewing caddies, or back down to work on them in the fitting room, all while we prepared our wedding gowns for Lady Harrison’s viewing.
Sometimes the stress and exhaustion made me want to scream. Other times, it seemed to be the only thing inspiring me to sew another stitch.
“You look tired, Sophie,” I said. She was hemming the duchess’s gown while I worked on a skirt for the collection. We’d brought both pieces up to hide before Tilda came in to tidy up, but decided to take a few more minutes to work before we put them under the bed. For once, Tilda’s neglect of my side of the room worked in our favor.
Sophie’s creative output seemed to have turned her insideout. Her cheekbones were pronounced, and her eyes were bloodshot.
“I’m fine,” she said. I paused to stretch my fingers. They were numb from sewing for hours, except for my thumb, which was raw from forcing needles through thread. I’d finally started wearing a thimble, but it only served to inflame my finger further.
I pulled the skirt I’d created for our collection over the head of a mannequin, painstakingly working it inch by inch to get it down over the shoulders. I handled the charcoal-gray charmeuse delicately, trying to maintain its sharp pleats. It had taken me hours to iron them one at a time with a lead iron and a measuring tape.
Carefully, I added the next part of my look: a leather corset. It was easy to put on the mannequin because it closed via a series of gray ribbons in the back. I tied it on and stepped back to look. It gleamed just like the tackle and saddles for the workhorses back in Shy.
“It’s seven,” Sophie said. We lifted our sore necks and aching heads from our work to look at the clock Sophie had brought into our chamber from her fitting room. Its hands were exaggerated curlicues, so it almost appeared that the time could be eight, seven, or nine. I peered hard. Seven. We’d worked through breakfast. Francesco had squeezed one final fitting in for me this morning before I’d have to change for my press duties—my first appointment in a while—so we’d both be needed downstairs. This was the second time we’d worked through breakfast, and I wondered if anyone had noticed our absence. Suspicion was the last thing we needed.
The thought of removing my gown from the dress form was almost too much, but I couldn’t leave it out. I unlaced the corset and then gently eased the skirt off. I folded both items up, praying it wouldn’t undo the pleats in the skirt, and slid them under my bed where they would rest next to the other finished and half-finished pieces.
