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As their voices droned on around her, she thought about what Hawthorne said.Renovations. What if it became more than an excuse?
Maybe this could be the perfect plan to keep things exactly as she wished them to be.
* * *
It was a short walk from Letty’s house to Swann’s Ale Rooms and Eatery. Her apartment had a fireplace in the main room, and she had a handful of pots and dried goods that her housekeeper could use to cook in a pinch. These days, however, she most often had her main meal with friends, and Robert likewise. He worked so late that it was unusual to see him until long after nightfall, stumbling in bleary-eyed and rumpled from hours spent toiling over his books and writing up case notes for the solicitors he clerked for.
Two years ago, her smart townhouse had a proper kitchen, and she had employed a full staff instead of a housekeeper and one maid-of-all-work. She spared a thought for the life she once had, then shook her head and picked up her pace. Life had moved on, and so must she.
It was a company mostly of men at Swann’s, but Letty was used to it. She fit herself into life as she wanted instead of how society dictated, and people were long accustomed to her ways.Independentwas how the kinder neighbors described her.Mannishandcockywas how others thought of her, and she knew it because enough of them had felt the need to spit the words in her face.
Two dozen booths, with room for four to six diners apiece, lined the walls under graceful arches and a high ceiling. The paintings that adorned the rooms featured hunting scenes and battlefields, which Letty had helped the owner purchase at auction. When she had been living on the stipend provided by Robert’s father, she had dabbled in decorating for friends and family and local businesses, talking to them about what they needed, and then piecing all the arrangements together like a puzzle. It had been a passion for her, long before it had turned into necessity.
It was early enough in the evening that one of the smaller booths was still unoccupied, so Letty snagged it and sank onto the padded bench. She leaned her walking stick against the wall. The past few days had been difficult. Although she had found replacement tiles for the judge’s foyer, they weren’t as nice as the marble and it had meant going over the budget. Again. She had a feeling that the untimely budget adjustments would be deducted from the total payment that she had negotiated for her work.
Fraser MacDougal slipped into the seat across from her. “You look exhausted, Letty lass.”
“Not words any woman wishes to hear, not even from a dear friend.”
As far as friends went, Fraser was one of the very dearest. He was a short Black man whose cropped hair and neat goatee glittered with gray, but she would bet that his coat and trousers were the same size as they had been when she had met him at twenty years of age.
“The privilege of friendship is the permission to make uncomfortable observations without incurring rancor from the other party,” he told her. He slipped his quizzing glass out of his brocade vest and held it to his eye, peering at her. “I observe that you look like you’ve not slept a wink in a week.” His gentle Scottish brogue was a balm to her tired ears.
“You don’t need your fancy affectation to observe that.”
“No, but there is a gentleman at the table behind you whom I am trying to impress.” He grinned at her and tucked the glass on its gold chain back into his vest, then nodded in the direction of the man.
“You are enough all by yourself to impress anyone,” she said.
“Thank you, lass, but I will take any help I can get these days. I haven’t had companionship in two months, you know. Not since Marcus and I broke things off. Again.”
“Two months? That’s nothing, Fraser. It’s been six for me,” she said, remembering the journalist that she had taken up with for a few months in the spring.
“Men are different. We haveneeds, Letty.”
She threw her hands up. “Are we back to this nonsense? Women haveneedstoo, you wretched man. You sound like you’ve been too long among the gentry, filling your head with fluff about doe-eyed girls who don’t know the first thing about the ways of the natural world.”
“Wynn has been trying to arrange a marriage between myself and his daughter,” he admitted. “It’s getting difficult to say no when it would strengthen our business connection.”
Fraser ran a furniture shop with his partner, Mr. Wynn. An expert woodworker specializing in luxury furniture, Fraser spent half his days now in the workshop and the rest of it managing the team of craftsmen while Wynn oversaw the sales and finances. Their showroom was on the ground floor of the building where she and Fraser both kept apartments.
“You would be content to be a husband in name only?”
“I could do the deed and perhaps beget a child,” he said thoughtfully. “But it wouldn’t be my first choice.”
They were joined by more friends as they sat together. Mr. George Smith was a ne’er-do-well gentleman, redheaded with a startling number of freckles, who was friendly with near about everyone in London. He dropped in on their dinners every few weeks or so. Mr. Marcus Thomson was tall and stocky with a cheerful disposition and tousled sandy brown hair that topped his pale face. He ran a stationary shop on Chancery Lane, which was always bustling due to the reams of paper and dozens of quills thatthe solicitors and barristers seemed to run through every month. Letty spent plenty of coin at his shop on Robert’s behalf, though she bartered with fresh paint and new upholstery every now and again.
Platters of food soon arrived as they caught up on each other’s news. Roast chicken dripping in gravy, pickled vegetables, thick beef pasties with golden crusts, mock turtle soup, and a basket of hot buttery buns were scattered in platters across the table. Coffee was poured, comforting and warm on a cold day.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Letty said, propping her elbows on the table. “I’ve been losing sleep, as Fraser not-so-kindly pointed out to me. Robert has been pressuring me to find work outside of Holborn. It would be best for his potential career endeavors, he says.”
“That’s not Robert’s decision to make,” George said, frowning.
“I know.” She fiddled with her spoon, then stirred more sugar into her coffee to cover the evidence of her nerves. “But he’s so close to being successful.”
“Young people often think they have only one chance to get it right, don’t they?” Marcus mused. “Yet look at all of us here. None of us are the same people we were at his age. The young must learn that they must adapt to life, no matter what those circumstances are.” He glanced at Fraser, then frowned down at his plate.
“It’s easier to say that when it’s not your child. Anyway, I have no jobs lined up in this neighborhood or any other, so things are looking precarious for me.”
