Page 130 of The Siren of Sussex

“Don’t change the subject.”

“You’re beginning to look like a feral wolf. It’s scaring the customers.”

He inwardly grimaced. “They can’t be that scared. They’re still coming, aren’t they?” He’d taken on four new customers in the last week alone.

“Oh yes, the ladies keep coming to you,” Mira said. “No doubt it gives them a thrill, just like it did the girls at Mrs. Pritchard’s.”

“You put our customers in the same class?”

“Why not? You do. You never saw any difference between those women and all the rest of them. They’re one and the same to you. Each just another figure for your designs.” She folded her arms. “Until you met her.”

Ahmad gave his cousin a bleak look.

“Why don’t you go to her?” she asked.

His spirits sank even further. He hadn’t thought it possible. He already felt as low as a man could get.

It had been two weeks since the day Evelyn had last come to Doyle and Heppenstall’s. An entire fortnight since she’d stood in front of him, clothed in the basted pieces of the figured green grenadine barege day dress he’d made for her. Flutings of dark green ribbon had trimmed the bodice and skirt, and there had been a dark green ribbon belt at her narrow waist. She’d looked beautiful. Vibrant as the spring.

And he’d wanted her so much.

He still wanted her.

Much good it did him.

“I have nothing to offer her,” he said.

Nothing save removing her from the society into which she’d been born. Making her an outcast. The same as any Englishwoman would be who yoked herself to a man of a different race.

And that was but the first obstacle standing in their way.

Even if they could clear it—somehow, some way—there would still be Ahmad’s lack of fortune to contend with.

“Nothing to offer her?” Mira scoffed. “Within a year you’ll be the most celebrated dressmaker in London!”

His mouth hitched. “You have a great deal of confidence in me, bahan.”

“I speak as I find,” she said. “Don’t tell me you disagree?”

“Not in that respect.” Despite everything, his faith in his work had never wavered. “But one year? Is that really your estimation?”

“If business continues at this rate, yes. Why? Is it not soon enough for you?”

It wasn’t. Not for Evelyn’s purposes. She needed a wealthy husband now, not twelve months from now. A respectable gentleman with the financial wherewithal to take care of her family, and to house and feed her horse. A man with financial security, not a newly minted dressmaker, dependent on the whims of London high society.

“A year is a very long way away,” he said. “Too long.”

Where would Evelyn be at such time? Married to someone else, probably. One of the many suitors who danced attendance on her—flirting with her at supper parties or sitting beside her at the theater. The society pages reported on them with regularity, speculating on which gentleman would ultimately win her hand.

The mere thought of it was another sharp knife in Ahmad’s heart. He was beginning to feel as though he was bleeding internally.

Mira slipped her hand through his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

“You don’t want to look around upstairs?” The second floor of Valmar and Richardson’s was dedicated solely to feathers. Ostrich, peacock, marabout. Any color and style of plumage a dressmaker or milliner could imagine, all displayed in the same neatly arranged glass-fronted cases as the floor below.

Ahmad had no appetite for any of it at the moment, but he wouldn’t deny Mira the pleasure.

“Not today,” she said. “Some other time when you’re in a better mood.” She pulled him toward the door. “Come. You’ll feel better after you’ve eaten something.”