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“Honestly,” she started slowly, “I think it has been struggling for some time—and not the way Izzie thinks. From what I can tell from the paperwork I’ve found, rationing did have an impact, but things were beginning to slow well before that.”

“How long?” he asked.

“Since before the war. In some ways, it appears my mother made some good decisions. She had no debt to speak of and she did have some money saved, but none of the records I’ve found show any investment either. There have been no efforts at advertising or expanding Mrs. Shelton’s customer base. There has been no expansion into children’s clothing, soft furnishings, anything. It’s almost as though my mother tried to preserve the shop in aspic.”

“Have you told Izzie?” asked William, biting into his sandwich.

“I doubt very much she would listen to me.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Oh, William. I’ve made such a hash of things,” she said.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I found some sketches that Izzie made. They’re beautiful—a real cut above what Mum ever designed even in her heyday. Miss Reid and I thought that we use could use them as guidance to try to bring the shop’s offering in line with the new Board of Trade restrictions, but I was so excited I didn’t think to ask Izzie’s permission. She’d drawn them, so I assumed she wanted to see them worn by customers.

“When she came back on leave and saw what we were doing, she was furious.” She shook her head. “She doesn’t trust me.”

“Write to her. Explain why you did it,” said William.

“I have. I’ve written so many letters, and this was all she sent back,” she said, reaching into the desk to pull out Izzie’s most letter that amounted to one devastating line: Do not pretend that you know the first thing about what Mum was like.

She watched as William read it and let out a long breath. “She’s angry.”

“That’s why I tried to apologize.”

“No, Sylvia. Your sister is angry. About everything.”

“What does Izzie have to be angry with me about? She’s hardly spoken to me since I married Hugo,” she said.

William’s expression hardly changed, yet she couldn’t miss the pity in his gaze.

“Well,” he finally said, “that is something to think about, isn’t it?”

“We lost touch. It happens sometimes in families,” she said, but even as she said it she had to fight not to squirm. As the elder of the two sisters, Sylvia’s job had been to look out for Izzie, and she’d enjoyed having her little sister running around after her, bright-eyed and curious. But when their mother began to take Izzie under her wing and train her, Sylvia had felt pushed out. Lonely.

But that was not Izzie’s fault. That argument had been between Sylvia and her mother.

“Give her time. Your sister is still grieving your mother,” he said.

“And the fact that our mother bequeathed the shop to both of us?” she asked with an arched brow.

“And that,” said William.

She sighed. “I will never understand why she did that.”

“Perhaps Mrs. Shelton thought you would need it one day,” he said. “Like she wrote in her will.”

I hope that, as it has for me, the shop will take care of them when they need it most.

Sylvia shook her head. Why would she need the shop to take care of her? If anything, the shop needed her and her time and patience sorting it out.

“Give Izzie time,” William repeated, “and keep writing to her. She’ll eventually listen to reason.”

She dipped her head, not knowing what to say to that. This giving and taking advice felt so intimate—something reserved for a husband—but she had known William since she was a child. There was no calmer, more steadfast man than him.

“May I ask you something?” she finally asked.