couldn’t explore that wonderland. He could help, collect money for Howard, and move along. That was all.
He had to keep reminding himself.
“You might consider an apprentice someday.” His voice sounded stuffy and falsely cheerful. “You might find many eager souls in Bloomsbury, or among the ranks of my fellow musicians.”
She waved this off, nudging at a pebble with the shiny toe of her boot. “I don’t have time to train an apprentice. Foolish though it might sound, I’m too busy to get help.”
“Except from me,” he blurted.
“Ah, well. You jumped into my life and started helping. I didn’t have to train you.”
“Taking a little time now to train an apprentice would help you in the long term.” Why was he trying to help her dispense with him?
Because it would help her. Full stop. It was for her good, and the good of Fairweather’s. What a selfless fellow he was.
She looked interested. “You seem keen on the idea. Would you care to be an apprentice yourself?”
I tried that once. It was a disaster. “No.” The word came out sudden and harsh. He tried to temper it, to sound merrier. “I’m not suited to that sort of work. I’m a come-and-go sort of fellow. Though I do like knowing I’m doing some good before I go.”
“But you hardly know me,” Rowena said. “Why should you care what good you do for me?”
He looked at her, hatless and freckled in the morning sun, and wondered how he could not care. How anyone could not.
“I don’t know what you dream about while you’re asleep,” he said. “Or your favorite flavor of ice, or why you named your hedgehog Cotton. But I know what you dream about when you’re awake. There’s something familiar about you.”
He permitted himself to look at her deeply, a long drink of sensation. “Besides, our fortunes are connected now.”
“Because you connected them,” she reminded him. His face must have fallen, for she added swiftly, “Not that I mind. I am grateful for new ideas. I am very glad you came into the shop. And—and my favorite flavor of ice is pineapple.”
This was hardly a profession of love, but it made Simon feel marvelous all the same. “I like pineapple too. And maybe I’m not as come-and-go of a fellow as I thought.”
She smiled. “Come and go once more, if you don’t mind. Come back to the shop, and take a look at the window before you go.”
As they retraced their short path to the luthiery, she admitted that there was a sort of security in knowing that her life had always been decided. “It’s allowed me to be more than if I’d been born into a different family. As a Fairweather, I’ve learned a trade—really, an art. I’ve become part of a tradition.” As Simon opened the front door for her, the little bell jingling a greeting, she added, “I’m not only…me.”
“There is nothing only about you,” he said.
She greeted the maid who had kept watch over the shop—the girl’s name was Alice, Simon recalled—then led Simon into the workshop to poke about the space.
“Do keep the curtain drawn,” she requested. “My hands aren’t very pretty. That’s part of why I didn’t want the shop window to show me at work. I hide my hands when I can, since they’re unfeminine.”
Simon shook his head. “They’re attached to your body, so they must be feminine.”
She laughed, replacing a violin bow in a rack along the wall. “Please don’t think I’m not proud of what I can do. But I recognize it’s not within the scope of the ordinary.”
“That is why you shall triumph.” Simon stepped closer to her, and before he could restrain himself, he took up her hands in his. “Your hands repair musical instruments, so they are talented. Your hands care for an old woman and a household and a hedgehog, so they are caring. And your hands belong to you, so they are beautiful.”
She blushed. “You say exactly what people want to hear.”
Did he? Maybe he did think about what would suit his audience. A man who sold his labor—be it metalworking, copying documents, playing a horn, or training a horse—needed to win over the people who might hire him. He needed to convince potential employers he was capable, even when he knew himself to be nothing of the sort.
But with Rowena, he’d come to her in a state of incompetence. Twice! First with an unplayable horn, then without a job. And somehow, both times, she’d chosen to work