Mine Is the Night_ A Novel - Liz Curtis Higgs [31]
Elisabeth eyed her. “Michael, is it?”
Anne did not blush often, but when she did, her pale skin turned quite rosy. “We attended school together, just down from the shop.”
“Then you knew Jenny, his late wife.”
Anne’s cheeks grew pinker still. “Aye.”
When her cousin said nothing more, Elisabeth stood and carefully folded the shirt. More pieces were falling into place. Anne clearly harbored feelings for her old classmate. Whether he returned them was less certain. “I shall give Mr. Dalgliesh your regards and return in time for supper.” Elisabeth looked toward the hearth. “Eight o’ the clock,” she promised her mother-in-law, then hurried down the stair.
The sun bronzed the lower western sky and cast long shadows across the marketplace, less crowded now with nightfall approaching. She clutched the shirt to her bodice lest it slip from her hands onto the dirty cobblestones of Kirk Wynd. Nodding at folk in passing, she realized some faces were beginning to look familiar. A pockmarked lad in dingy clothing, head bent to hide his scars. A barefoot dairymaid who danced when she walked yet never spilled a drop of milk. A crookbacked man with a hazel walking stick, making his way from one shop door to the next. She would learn their names, one by one, until Selkirk was truly home.
A minute later she knocked on the tailor’s door.
“Anither shirt?” His look of astonishment melted into a grin. “I suppose ye’ll be wanting anither shilling as weel.”
“ ’Tis our agreement,” Elisabeth reminded him, then placed the finished garment on the only uncluttered surface she could find. “Your thimble is to blame, Mr. Dalgliesh.” She wiggled her thumb. “Now I can sew even faster.”
“ ’Twas Jenny’s,” he said simply. “She sewed a fine shirt too.”
Yet you parted with your wife’s thimble so easily. Elisabeth found his nonchalance unsettling. Did he care nothing for material possessions? Or have little use for sentiment?
“I am honored to use Jenny’s thimble,” she finally said, slipping the coin he offered into her hanging pocket. “Bless you for sending it home with Annie.”
Some emotion flickered in his blue eyes. Not sorrow, not remorse, but something.
Thinking it prudent to change the subject, Elisabeth glanced at the turnpike stair. “I was hoping to finally meet Peter.”
Mr. Dalgliesh reached for a waistcoat in need of buttons. “His granmither in Lindean claimed him for the nicht. She thocht it might help me with my wark.”
Elisabeth could see how exhausted the tailor was. The lines round his eyes were more pronounced, and his shoulders sagged. “I wonder, have you considered taking a partner?”
His head snapped in her direction. “Whatsomever d’ye mean?”
“Another tailor. Or an apprentice.”
She’d not seen him frown before. He was frowning now.
“Anither tailor must be paid, and an apprentice taught.” Michael stood, tossing aside the waistcoat. “Jenny and I managed the shop verra weel thegither. But it hasna been the same without her.”
Regret washed over Elisabeth. Whatever was she thinking? Prying into this man’s life, making suggestions. She hastened to his side. “Please forgive me, Mr. Dalgliesh. We have only just met. ’Tis not my place—”
“Nae, nae,” he said, his features softening. “Dinna mind my ill-natured self. On the morrow ’twill be three years syne I lost my wife. ’Tis a hard time, ye ken?”
Elisabeth nodded, imagining how she might feel come the seventeenth of January. “You are right to mourn her still.”
Michael’s gaze met hers. “As ye do yer husband, I’ll warrant.”
“Aye.” But it wasn’t Donald who came to mind as she stood near the tailor. Elisabeth noted the measuring tape draped round his neck, the chalk poking out of his waistcoat pocket, and the sleeves pushed up to his elbows and thought of Rob MacPherson. A childhood friend from the Highlands, Rob had moved to Edinburgh with his father, Angus, and had worked in his tailoring shop, as she had. Alas, Rob had grown too attached to her, seldom letting her out of his sight. Even now she shuddered,