Page 46 of The Allure of Attraction

Chapter Ten

“BUT DON’T YOU think this means something?” Siobhan asked for the fourth time in as many hours. “After all of these years, Mrs. Wark is asking you to dine with the family.”

“Seems dodgy to me,” Caleb grumbled from his post just outside Lavinia’s bedroom door.

Lavinia sighed. She’d managed to keep the news of Wark’s invitation to herself until Tuesday, when she’d had to ask her head seamstress to stay late to help finish an order in her absence. However, the quiet word she’d meant to have with Siobhan and only Siobhan had spiraled out of control when Caleb had overheard them as he was coming up the stairs. Now he’d parked himself in a chair in the corridor and refused to move.

“All this means is that Mrs. Wark is a generous woman,” she said.

She certainly wasn’t going to disabuse Siobhan or Caleb of the notion that Mrs. Wark and not her son had issued the invitation. To admit that would’ve meant facing an entirely different slate of questions, and her nerves were already a mess.

Still, her brother wouldn’t be put off. “Are you certain that it was Mrs. Wark’s idea?”

“She does seem like the most horrible snob,” Siobhan agreed. “Not that I mean any offense.”

“None taken. Perhaps she was short a lady and needed to make up the numbers at the table.”

“We’re supposed to believe that the Warks know no other single women whom they could invite?” asked Caleb sourly.

“If you’re so intent on finding out, you should ask Mrs. Wark yourself,” she said, turning to the mirror to smooth the front of her skirt. She was wearing her most attractive gown of deep purple shot through with a pattern of black embroidered flowers and a long row of tiny gold buttons marching up the front of her bodice to its low square neck. It was a fine dress—far too elaborate for a tradeswoman—but since fashion was her livelihood, she’d justified the expense of making up the fine fabric for herself. Of course, that had been before Caleb had come crashing into her life with another disaster.

In the mirror she could see Caleb crane his neck around the door.

“You should wear something with color,” said her brother.

“Purple is a color,” she said.

“You know what I mean.”

“It doesn’t have to be anything bright, but it would be lovely to see you in something . . . different,” said Siobhan gently.

“Are you two actually agreeing on something?” she asked.

Siobhan and her brother said in unison, “Yes.”

“This will do for tonight,” she said. Wark had seen her in nothing other than black, gray, and purple since he’d become her landlord. If he liked her in those, that was enough.

Her brother’s sour expression remained unchanged as Lavinia hurried downstairs to hail a cab on the Grassmarket. Her parents hadn’t had a carriage, but Alistair had. He’d proudly driven her all over Eyemouth in it for a full eight months before selling it and the team of horses who drew it to try to prop up his quickly diminishing funds. It had been so long since she’d been anywhere that might require one that it hadn’t occurred to her to hire one for that night until she was dressing. When she reached the street, however, she saw a large black vehicle with gold-painted wheels waiting just outside her shop door.