Page 13 of Mercy Fletcher Meets Her Match
The thread tangled in Mercy’s fingers for perhaps the tenth time in the last hour or so, and she bit back a sigh as she delicately worked the needle backward through the fabric in the hope of unraveling the knot. She winced in the glow of the candlelight as she searched for the offending knot amidst a chaotic backdrop of untidy stitches and fraying threads, uncomfortably aware that she was the only lady present who had had such difficulty maintaining her concentration. Even Juliet, who still possessed all the exuberance of her youth, hadn’t had the slightest issue keeping her thread straight and her needle steady as she stitched away at the flowery border of a handkerchief.
Mercy’s thread seemed not only to have become irreparably snarled, but the once-smooth and shining perfection of it had grown nearly ragged, tiny fibers breaking themselves off of the strands. Resigned, she reached for a tiny pair of scissors and snipped the needle free of its mooring thread.
Tactfully the baroness, who sat beside her upon the small sofa and whose own handkerchief appeared perfectly tidy and organized, said nothing of the wretched state of Mercy’s own fumbling stitchery. Instead she asked, “Oh, have you finished already? Might I see?”
With a sigh, Mercy turned over her sampler over to reveal thepattern she had managed to stitch upon it. Not the perfect, intricate borders that ladies painstakingly stitched upon samplers, copied over from the pages of ladies’ magazines or else acquired from friends, that would inevitably end up upon gowns or gloves or handkerchiefs, but rather a design of her own devising that she had thought—hoped—she could work well enough to pass as a fabric pattern, since she still had not located her missing sketchbook.
Alas, the thread had cooperated somewhat less ably than a sketching pencil. Or perhaps her fingers were simply too clumsy with a needle, or too quick and restless for the delicate and precise art of needlework. She could have rendered a line in graphite in a hundredth of the time it had taken to stitch out the same. “I know it’s dreadful,” she said. “It’s just—I mislaid my sketchbook. I thought I could make do with needlework instead.”
Across the room, slouched into a large wingback chair and nestled within a corner which neither the candlelight nor the firelight had quite managed to breach, Thomas snorted over his glass of brandy.
The baroness turned to face her son, her gaze sharpening as her eyes narrowed to slits. “Thomas,” she said severely. “Have you not returned it already?”
“Returned what?” Mercy echoed, her brows pleating.
“Your sketchbook,” the baroness said. “I believe you left it in the library yesterday afternoon. Thomas found it—”
With a roll of his eyes, Thomas added, “And your shoes and gloves. You do have a remarkably tendency to leave things lying about. It’s hardly my fault I discovered your sketchbook.”
“Then you must fetch it now, Thomas, as I do seem to recall instructing you to return it immediately,” the baroness said, and the saccharine tone of her voice could not conceal the irritation thrumming beneath it.
“I meant to,” Thomas said, bracing his hands upon the arms of the chair as he made to rise. “I simply—” He paused, a queer expression crossing his face for a fraction of a second before it fell carefully blank.
“Forgot,” Mercy supplied in an eerily pleasant tone. “You forgot.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, highlighted by the shadows clinging to it. “One does occasionally forget things,” he said, a surly inflection coloring his voice. “Occasionally. I have never, for instance, forgotten my shoes. Or breakfast. Or a scheduled appointment to visit to the modiste.”
Juliet giggled, exchanging an amused glance with Marina. “How could you?” she inquired. “You’ve never visited the modiste.”
“No, but I have never missed an appointment with my tailor, either,” Thomas said, adjusting his spectacles upon the bridge of his nose. For all that he had slouched within his chair, still his clothes bore not a wrinkle, his dark hair not so much as the slightest tousle. But those spectacles— still they sat upon his face just a bit crooked, made him look just a bit more human. Fallible. Imperfect.
Mercy took a perverse enjoyment from that imperfection she had given him. If he had not deserved it then, surely he had now earned it.
“I didn’t intend to pry,” the baroness said as Thomas headed for the door. “Into your sketchbook, I mean to say. Thomas, however, did.” With one hand the baroness reached over and smoothed at the mangled mess of fabric upon Mercy’s lap. “This is quite good,” she said. “Do you mean to turn it into a pattern as well?”
Goodwas probably more praise than she deserved, given that she hadn’t had the patience to do it justice. But still Mercy’s cheeks warmed at the encouragement. “Probably I’ll sketch itout again first,” she said. “I have toseeit to know—and I haven’t much talent for needlework.”
“No,” the baroness agreed, though her eyes glinted with amusement. “Thread is not your medium, I’m afraid. But you’ve an incredible artistic talent with a pencil. I must say, I had no idea that your father’s patterns were your doing.”
Because she’d never thought it particularly worth mentioning. They were just sketches upon a page, which Papa had delivered to his mills. “When I was younger,” she said, “and still in the schoolroom, I sketched a pattern for Papa to take to London with him. I only meant to ask him to find a fabric with something like it to bring back for me. But there was nothing to be found that he deemed close enough. So he took it to his mill instead, and had it made up especially for me. It was meant to be special, personal. Just enough fabric for a dress.”
Marina sighed, “How lovely.”
The baroness inclined her head. “But?”
“But the mill’s manager thought it was a shame to have spent so much time working up the pattern block only to never use it again. As soon as Papa came home again, he had it done up in half a dozen different color variations. Lighter colors for young ladies; darker for matrons. Even some on machine-made netting embroidered with silver thread, and gold, for those with the blunt to pay for the extravagance of it. It sold like mad. He couldn’t produce it fast enough to meet demand.” Her lips twitched at the memory of Papa’s incredulity—and exasperation. “Papa had to go back to London within a month to unravel the mess of it. And then he had to open another mill, buy more machinery, and hire additional workers necessary to produce the fabric at the volume required.”
“And was your Papa angry with the manager?” Juliet inquired, with a tilt of her head.
“Oh, yes. He’d accidentally turned what was meant to be aspecial gift into something rather common. Papa shouted himself hoarse about it, so he said. But in the end he gave the man quite an extravagant raise in his wages for having such a business acumen. He oversees several of Papa’s mills, now. I provide him with my patterns, and he chooses the ones he thinks will sell best.”
It wasn’t exactlydonefor a lady to be involved in business, but Mercy was her Papa’s only child, so the business would one day fall to her management. Her involvement, presently, was minimal—but she had devoted many long hours to learning everything she could about fabric mills, about the machinery involved, the methods for printing on fabric, about machine-made netting and which patterns could best be adapted for it. She’d modified patterns for weaving silk brocade, and those very same patterns had become some of the most sought-after fabrics to be had in London.
The drawing room door opened once more, and Thomas strode through with her sketchbook tucked beneath his arm and a fistful of letters clutched in his hand, thumbing through them one at a time.
Juliet gave a tiny shriek of delight, casting her needlework aside to scramble to her feet. “Have we got invitations?”
“It would seem so,” Thomas said absently, though he paused with a vague frown of confusion over a particular letter. His dark eyes lifted, gaze landing upon Mercy. “Who is C. Nightingale?” he asked. “You said you hadn’t any friends in London.”
