“My rose petals should be dry, so yes, I’ll be heading into town, but I don’t need the mirror.”
“Because you already have Mr. Miner so wrapped around your finger that you don’t need to worry about your hair like I do?”
Mrs. Tucker laughed. “No, because I don’t need my hair to look perfect if I’m going to be making soap. Now come and eat some breakfast before your fiancé arrives.”
Mrs. Tucker left the room and closed the door behind her. Lucy’s hair wouldn’t look any better, no matter how much timeshe spent on it, so after putting away her pins, she left the room and went to the kitchen.
“Do you really only go to Mr. Miner’s shop to make soap?” Lucy asked Mrs. Tucker when she entered the room.
Mrs. Tucker kept stirring the porridge, but turned her head to see Lucy. “Of course that is why I go to the soapmaker’s shop.”
“Not because of Mr. Miner?”
Mrs. Tucker shrugged. “Mr. Miner is pleasant enough, but I was sitting around this house for two weeks with nothing to do before someone offered to teach me a new skill. Of course I’m going to do it.”
“Do you like it? Soapmaking?”
Mrs. Tucker stopped stirring then and turned around fully, their breakfast porridge forgotten. “Lucy, I love it. And the wonderful thing about it is that after we are done here and you ride off to London with a fiancé in tow, I can go home and start making my own soaps. I’m so very tired of taking in laundry. I don’t know how I was so fortunate to be the woman you asked to accompany you here. The free time I’ve had since coming has me feeling like I could try something new, and I’m enjoying making soap.”
“So that is why you have been going into town?”
“Yes, I’ve told you that all along.”
“True, but I thought…”
“That I’d set my cap at Mr. Miner? No.”
“Does he know that?
Mrs. Tucker shrugged and went back to stirring the porridge. “One thing I know for certain is that Mr. Miner takes pleasure in someone else being interested in soap. So either way, he is happy to have me there.”
“I can’t wait to see what you make.”
“I’ll bring some soap home tomorrow and you can give me your honest opinion on it. But enough about my plans for the day. What are yours?”
“Making deliveries, just like every other day.”
“I don’t mean what are youdoing. What are you plotting for that fiancé of yours?”
Lucy sighed. She didn’t know what she was plotting. Ever since he’d discovered her interest in the Arctic, things had been going extremely well. She wasn’t in a hurry to change anything. In the past three years of being engaged, nothing had given her the kind of enjoyment she had while simply laughing and talking with Mr. Harrison while they got their work done.
“He still hasn’t said anything to you?”
Lucy picked up a book she’d left on the kitchen table earlier and moved it to the counter, clearing it for breakfast. “What do you mean, said anything?”
“Has he said he is interested in you?”
“No, we don’t really interact in that way. It is more like we are friends.”
“And that is enough for you?”
“It is better than him not talking to me at all.” She flipped through the pages of the book with her thumb, not really seeing what was inside it. “I don’t want to press my luck.”
“You’ve got less than a week's time left with him. You might need to press your luck, at least a little bit.”
Lucy clamped the book shut. What did pressing her luck even mean in this situation? She practically begged him to hold her while she was freezing in the rain, and he’d made her use Marge for warmth instead. “How would you suggest I do that?”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Tucker nodded with her chin toward the bowls they used each morning, and Lucy picked them up from the counter and brought them to her. “My husband didn’t understand subtlety. So I knew I was going to have to tell himoutright I was interested in him, or kiss him. He wouldn’t have understood anything less.”
