“I am informing you that it is not done. No respectable unmarried lady would do such a thing.”
“I should think it has been made rather clear this evening that I am not respectable, by the standards of your social set.” Her fingers itched to reach for the brandy decanter—or perhaps Thomas’ throat.
For a moment Thomas said nothing, though she could hear already in her head the suspicious cadence of the question he would no doubt pose next:What did you do to give that impression?Because it would have to be her fault, to his mind.
But the question never came. Instead he said, “I take it your last Season was not a particularly pleasant one.”
“Not particularly,” she said, somewhat surprised that he had avoided reaching for the low-hanging fruit of a judgmental quip. She had, after all, practically placed it within his reach herself. “I don’t care to discuss it.”
Another sip of his brandy, and he swirled the remaining liquor in his glass, peering down at it as if he might divine the solution to a problem from the bottom of it. “It is a fact—albeit I understand an unpleasant one—that certain things are simply not done by ladies. I am not telling you that you cannot meet with your father’s manager to be difficult or contrary, but because it would be injurious to your reputation to do so.”
Frustration snarled Mercy’s breath in her lungs. “They are expected,” she said. “Papa would have delivered them, had he come to town. But as he has not—”
“I am telling you thatyoucannot deliver them in person,” Thomas said. “Not that they will not be delivered.” He held out his hand expectantly. “I have recently been in contact with your father’s solicitor. I’ll see them passed along at the next opportunity.”
“Mr. Sumner?” she asked. “You’ve been in contact with Mr. Sumner?”
“Yes. He came round only an hour or so after we arrived in London, and assured me he would make himself available if there were anything required of him. Can he be trusted to deliver your patterns?”
“Of course.” Mercy blew out a breath of relief. She uncurled her fingers from the protective cage they had formed over her sketchbook, peeling it off the desk, hesitating for a moment before she handed it over. “You will truly…see that it gets to Mr. Sumner?”
“I’m notentirelyunreasonable,” he said, and he set his unfinished glass aside to receive the sketchbook she set into his hands. “I understand the import of your work to your father’s business. I’ll see that it gets where it must.” His thumb edged beneath the cover, and his eyes lifted to hers. “May I?”
He had already, she supposed. “If you like,” she said.
One by one, he flipped pages, studying the patterns drawn upon them. “You have a good eye for design,” he said. “I suppose you must know that, given how well your patterns sell. The lines are very clean.”
“Papa’s machinery is the best there is to be had,” she said. “Some of those—the more elaborate ones—will be woven into silk brocade. But the simpler ones will print well upon cotton.” Crisp, clean lines, with quality dyes that would not bleed so severely as they might otherwise.
“They truly are well done,” he mused, almost absently, as he flipped pages. “You have a gift, here.”
And again, Mercy found herself at a loss for words. Probably, she thought, it was the most civil conversation they’d ever had.
Chapter Eight
I’m not going to ask,” Thomas said as he walked into the drawing room late in the afternoon, picking a delicate path around the fabric had been strewn about across nearly every available surface, including the floor. “I’m certain I don’t want to know.”
Marina lifted a pair of silver scissors in her hand and snipped the blades in the air. “We are repurposing some of Mercy’s old things,” she said.
“I did say I wasn’t going to ask.” For Christ’s sake, the room looked like a modiste’s shop had exploded within it. Loose lace dripped from the tables, scraps of fabric draped across every chair and couch to the point that they all looked as if they had been reupholstered by a decorator who had gone mad, and—were those Mercy’s shoes wedged beneath a stack of gowns? “Where has Miss Fletcher gone, then?”
“Out to the garden,” Juliet said. “She lost patience for ripping seams about four gowns ago.”
Yet again, Mercy was walking about absent appropriate footwear. “And she does not mind you ruining her old gowns?”
“Why, no,” Juliet said. “It was her suggestion. The gowns are years out of style, Thomas—but the fabric is still quite valuable. These patterns are just impossible to find these days in such perfect condition.”
And yet Mercy had sacrificed them to the girls so easily. Probably because her last Season had not been a pleasant one for her, given the cold reception she had gotten from theTon, the certainty she had had that she would not be welcomed into their hallowed halls. Perhaps the gowns had meant little more to her than bad memories best forgotten.
Thomas cleared his throat, uncomfortably aware of the strange tightness within it. “Are they really so valuable, then?” he asked.
“Oh, yes,” Marina enthused, and she abandoned her scissors to sort through a bundle of fabrics—snipped skirts, he assumed—which she had laid aside. “These ones, here, especially. Ladies went mad for them, Thomas. They sold out just everywhere. I was furious with you for nearly a month because your tailor had one of these patterns made into a waistcoat, and I couldn’t manage to get a gown out of it. There just wasn’t any left to be had.”
“Really?” He’d had no idea. But then, he’d never paid much attention to his clothing. His tailor had always made excellent decisions on his behalf.
“I suppose Mercy must’ve gotten first pick of them,” Marina said. “The fashion went out of style, but the fabric hasn’t. It’s become something of a status symbol, I suppose. Even if they can’t be seen in such dated old gowns, many ladies don’t wish to part with the fabric itself. They want people to remember that they were lucky enough to own it from the first. I’ve seen it turned into all manner of accessories—decoration for coats and waistcoats, children’s clothing, skirts and hats and even hair ribbons trimmed with lace.” She spread her fingers over the top of the fabric, the colors still clear and bold from years spent tucked away out of the sun. “We were thinking of making some accessories for Mercy,” she said. “In return for her generosity. She should have something to show for these gowns, don’t youthink?”
Hell. He’d known—in the general sense of an older brother of younger sisters—that the girls had always been friendly with Mercy. Childhood friends, quite literally; the sort of friendship he had once assumed would fizzle out as they had aged, due to their differing stations. He’d always had the misguided idea that their friendship had forged of necessity, since the Fletchers had been their nearest neighbors in the countryside. And maybe that had been the case, when they’d been children.
