Page 60 of Trouble

‘I intended it to be .?.?. a surprise.’ This, too, sounded strange coming out of his mouth. He did not seem like somebody who had ever intentionally engineered a surprise that hadn’t ended in a hundred dead and a ship at the bottom of the ocean.

‘Well, it certainly will be that,’ said Emily.

She was exactly the wrong person to bring on an expedition to the haberdashery. She had once cared very much for dresses, but had quickly abandoned her interest when it became clear that new ones were not to be on the horizon, and had decided to look down on the whole thing as silliness and frippery.

‘The mockery, Miss Laurence. Just a little less of it, if you please.’

She was hardly mocking him at all, but she shut her mouth and they travelled the rest of the way in peaceful quiet. She ducked her head slightly when they eventually passed the Rose and Crown, as if Captain Edwards might know just from seeing the two of them together that she had been up to no good there, and only straightened up when they were pulling into the village proper.

It was rather busy for a Friday morning of no consequence; Emily spotted a handful of sailors standing by the door to the inn, and wondered if this was one of the places the shipwrecked men had scattered to.

Captain Edwards noticed, too. He pulled the horse to a stop as far away from the inn as possible and helped Emily out of the carriage with perfect cordiality. Then he walked with purpose towards Bimpton’s, which had such a silly name that Emily had to restrain herself from laughing when she saw it painstakingly painted on the sign.

Inside, there were a few women perusing the ribbons; they looked up at Captain Edwards and immediately set to whispering to one another, darting glances and small smiles at him as they did.

He looked rather as if he was dying inside, and immediately walked up to the velvet and stared very hard at it.

‘It’s September,’ said Emily, when she caught up with him.

‘Yes?’ said Captain Edwards.

‘You usually do not wear a velvet dress in September unless you wish to suffocate luxuriously.’

‘Oh,’ said Captain Edwards, sounding a little flustered. ‘Right. Fine. What do you wear in September?’

‘I’m sure there’s somebody who works here who can help us,’ Emily said, peering into a back room through the half-open door. ‘I can ring the bell—’

‘No.’ Captain Edwards had stopped her from ringing said bell by gently touching her arm, and when he realised what he’d done he frowned down at his own fingers and immediately released her. ‘No. You can help me.’

‘All right,’ said Emily, leading him towards the many varieties of cotton and muslin. ‘But I am far from an expert, so it is very much your funeral.’

‘If only it were,’ muttered Captain Edwards. ‘Nobody would take issue with velvet.’

Emily bit back a laugh and then gestured to the rolls of cloth.

‘Here.’

‘What do you mean,here,’ he said tersely. ‘This is .?.?. twenty types of fabric. I need it narrowed down a little beyondhere.’

‘Well, she likes pink and blue,’ said Emily. ‘So perhaps start there.’

‘I think I might be colour blind,’ said Captain Edwards.

He sounded so genuinely miserable that Emily rolled her eyes and started making some choices for him; he relaxed somewhat, and stood silently at her shoulder while she deliberated.

She had been so glad, as a child, that more colour seemed to be coming into fashion; she remembered coveting gowns of rosy peach and Pomona green before she learned that the whims of fashion were now very much out of her family’s reach. Now she briefly fingered a pale gold satin before landing on something soft and lustrous and blue.

‘This?’ Captain Edwards said.

He tentatively reached the fabric as well, and for a second they were both holding it, their hands almost brushing.

‘Maybe,’ said Emily.

‘What doyoulike?’

‘I don’t know,’ Emily said, immediately removing her hand and taking a step back. She hadn’t thought about what shelikedin years – just what she needed, or more accurately, whatAmyneeded.

‘Well, if you were picking out a dress,’ Captain Edwards said impatiently, ‘would this be the one?’