“I’m forgiven. I wish I’d been ready to be forgiven a long time ago, but I wasn’t done blaming myself. I’ll never be done wishing I hadn’t hurt my friend, but that’s not the same thing as shame or guilt.”
“I’m glad you’ve found peace.” She hesitated, then admitted, “I thought you might stay there if you did.”
“I went where I needed to go. I came back to where I want to be.” His eyes creased with humor. “Though it took me longer than expected. I had to track you through a violinist at the Mallery Lane Theater. Thank the Lord you’d given the musicians your new address.”
“Yes, the move came as a surprise.” She explained about the abrupt hike in the weekly lease rate. “I’d learned about that shortly before your letter came from Howard.”
“And you never said a thing? You are a goddess of stoicism.”
“Hardly.” She laughed, then caught sight of the sign painter, just beginning to brush the second half of her name above the door. “W-e-a-t-h-e-r-apostrophe-s, remember?” she called to him, relieved when he nodded.
“As you can tell, we’re still getting settled into the new space,” she told Simon. “I must have spent every second of our grace period in the Bond Street house looking for this one. It’s smaller than the old building, but I quite like it. And the rent is a dream.”
Simon grinned, nudging her with an elbow. “Well done you. Moving the shop when you thought you couldn’t or shouldn’t. What changed?”
“Circumstance, for one.” She considered. “And I was inspired by my father, in a way. And also by How to Ruin a Duke.”
“By that book?” His elfin brows lifted. “How did that delightful drivel inspire you?”
“Alliteration! That’s well done you.”
Simon bowed. “We’ll take turns accomplishing mighty deeds. Though I admit, yours are far mightier.”
Laughing, Rowena explained, “Through that book, someone has earned a fortune by the work of their own hands. It reminded me that there are many ways to do that, not only my father’s. Once the possibility of the Bond Street lease was gone, I felt…unburdened. Because the Bond Street address was a burden. It kept me from living or doing the work I want to do.”
“Too many pianofortes,” Simon said wisely.
“And not enough of everything else. Violins and repairs and…”
“Moonlight kisses?” he suggested.
“Must they happen only in moonlight?” Rowena asked innocently. When Simon’s jaw dropped a little, she laughed. “I know I’ll lose some business, not having a tonnish address anymore. Not being where customers have found Fairweather’s for a century. But I’ll tune all the pianofortes I must to communicate the new address, and that’s really all I can do for now. The workshop’s not settled for repairing or building yet.”
“But it will be?”
“As soon as my hands can make it so.” She held a picture in her mind of how she wanted it to be: compartments for the wood currently stacked in random rooms, racks for the tools she’d neatly oiled and wrapped in heavy cloth. And a cushion, of course, for Cotton. It would be nearly like the workroom she remembered, but not quite. Everything would be arranged for her, within reach the way she wanted it.
She added, “If the Fairweather name is the draw, and not the address, then the name will be a draw elsewhere, don’t you think?”
“I absolutely think so. The name, and the fine work you do.”
“Then that’s my family’s true legacy. Not a building.”
Save the shop, her father had told her. Run it as I’ve taught you, and all will be well.
“I thought,” she told Simon after sharing her father’s final words with him, “that he meant I had to run it just as he had. But what he taught me was to use my skills and my judgment. And so I have.”
Simon looked interested. “Is that what he meant?”
“I think it is not what he meant,” Rowena said dryly. “I think he wanted things to continue as they always had. But it’s up to me to decide now, isn’t it?”
“It is, and look what you’ve done. It’s wonderful.”
“Well.” At the warmth of his words, she suddenly felt shy. “I hope it will be.”
Was Simon blushing too? Was he scuffing his boot against the pavement? The moment had shifted, tipped. It wasn’t all business. With the word wonderful, it had become something more.
“If you’re amenable…” Simon coughed. “I know you don’t want an assistant. But if you’d like a carpenter, I’m a fair one.”
“One of the million jobs you’ve had in