Rhapsody for Two - Theresa Romain Page 0,3
to regard the new arrival. “Who’s this?”
“The younger Miss Fairweather by far.” Rowena scooped up the animal, cradling the familiar protective ball that Cotton made of herself. “This is my hedgehog, Cotton. She gobbles down all the insects that would otherwise eat my woods and resins and glues.”
“A useful partner, then.” Thorn extended a hand toward the animal, then halted. “May I pet her?”
Rowena liked that he wanted to, liked even more that he’d halted himself and asked permission. “Of course you may.”
She set Cotton on the counter, where the hedgehog nosed at the shining brass horn with her little quivering snout. Thorn was gentle as he stroked her prickly back, so gentle that Cotton didn’t even roll up again.
Rowena liked that, too, the care he took with her pet.
Once Cotton had determined that the horn wasn’t food, she regarded Rowena with reproachful black button eyes. No treats? Then she picked her way gently along the counter, pausing every step or two to sniff the air as if something new and delicious might have entered the shop.
Perhaps it had. Rowena regarded Mr. Thorn from the crown of his hat to the toes of his boots, and she couldn’t fault the sender of the hidden note for its seductive tone.
So she asked, “Who could have stuffed a note into your horn?” Curiosity might have killed a cat, but it had never been known to harm a person or hedgehog.
“The mother of the young fellow I was meant to be tutoring? Wife of the man who dismissed me? I can’t imagine who else.” Thorn frowned. “Maybe that’s why he dismissed me, if he saw his wife shoving a note into my horn.”
“Dear me, yes. Flirting with a married woman? How scandalous.”
“In this instance, it was one-sided. I can’t help what someone writes to me in a note.” He sounded frustrated as he began to pack his horn back into its case. “If How to Ruin a Duke is to cost me clients, I ought to bill the author.”
“Fortunately for him or her, the author is anonymous.”
“Ah. Bad luck for me.” He shook it off, flashing a grin. “Or not so bad, since it brought me here.”
“I thought you weren’t an incorrigible flirt, Mr. Thorn.”
“Well. Not incorrigible.” Those brown eyes were warm on hers, or maybe it was Rowena who was warm. And why not? It was a fine spring day, and the light slanting through the shop windows was bright and clear.
“As we’re indulging each other’s curiosity, Miss Fairweather, will you tell me how you came to run this shop?”
“Because I’m a Fairweather,” Rowena said simply. “It’s in my blood.”
Though she wished she had as much fortune as she did pedigree.
Fairweather’s was a shop to be proud of, nestled in the heart of London at an elegant address. On Bond Street, there was foot traffic at all hours, with a jeweler and a music seller and a china warehouse and a cutler almost at hand. Her great-great-grandfather had chosen the spot well, fashionable and fast-paced, and taken a ninety-nine-year lease.
Unfortunately, that lease was now up for renewal, and the landlord offered the building at a dramatically higher rate. The old rent of one hundred pounds a year was a scramble and scrimp now that Rowena was doing the work of two on her own. To pay one hundred fifty guineas? She might as well have been asked to fetch St. Edward’s Crown from the Tower of London.
“The shop is secure and in good hands,” she added, as much for her own benefit as for Thorn’s. “I build upon generations of good reputation.”
“And this good reputation persists under the management of a young woman?” Thorn appeared curious rather than skeptical, so she gave him an honest reply.
“It does to anyone who’s honest about the matter. Even before my father’s death a year ago, I was doing much of the repair work. He had developed arthritis, so mine were the hands and his the mind, until he’d taught me all he could.”
In truth, though Rowena maintained the same quality of work, Fairweather’s wasn’t quite the same anymore. Her father had been chatty and personable, making a friend of everyone whose instrument he took on for repair. Customers seemed to miss him as much as Rowena did—and upstairs, in the family quarters, she felt her solitude even more.
Once upon a time, she’d been told, the large building bustled both upstairs and down. In past generations there had been Fairweather brothers and sisters and their offspring,