Hattie Glover’s Millinery
The Providence Street Shops
Book One
Bonnie Dee
© Copyright 2020 by Bonnie Dee
Text by Bonnie Dee
Cover by Dar Albert
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 7968
La Verne CA 91750
ceo@dragonbladepublishing.com
Produced in the United States of America
First Edition September 2020
Kindle Edition
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
About the Author
Chapter One
London, Spring 1907
“Votes for women! It is our right!” the shouts of the suffragettes marching down Providence Street toward the park were muted yet audible inside Hattie’s shop. She watched the women through the display window beyond a line of severed heads sporting elaborately plumed, flowered, and beribboned hats. The march had stalled due to some bottleneck ahead. She prayed it was not the police come to break up the demonstration.
Her motive in hoping so was not as altruistic as Hattie would have liked. As much as she admired and supported the women’s cause, she was more concerned about having a riot immediately outside her place of business. Windows might be broken. Customers would definitely be put off.
Even as she thought this, a pair of ladies dressed in stylish day dresses and light linen dusters stopped on the sidewalk to stare at the protesters. They leaned together in whispered conference, their broad-brimmed picture hats keeping them a good three feet apart. The purple-dyed ostrich feathers on the taller woman’s hat seemed to quiver in indignation. A moment later, the pair turned heel and retreated in the direction from whence they’d come.
“Blast!” Hattie muttered.
“What’s that?” Rose called from the glass display case of gloves she was replenishing. “Did you need me, Mrs. Glover?”
“Nothing, dear. Merely noting that our coffers are languishing with every second the marchers linger at our doorstep.”
“But, Mrs. Glover, don’t you find the suffragettes courageous and daring? I should love to stand with them to hear Mrs. Pankhurst or any other leader of the Women’s Social and Political Union speak.” Rose came to join her employer at the window. “Surely you agree that we women deserve a say in government.”
“I do. But I don’t want history to be made right outside my millinery. Violence is often paired with these demonstrations, and mere proximity casts us in a bad light. Reputation is crucial for a woman in business. Remember that.”
For a woman living in the world, Hattie might have said. She knew first-hand what a ruined reputation meant for a female, having lost hers once upon a time when she was Hortense Gladwell rather than Harriet Glover.
“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, missus. I spoke out o’ turn.” Rose’s nearly perfect grammar slipped into the colloquial accent of her childhood whenever she grew nervous. The poor thing was easily cowed by the slightest chastisement. Although the bright-eyed redhead showed flashes of innate pluck and determination, as well as a merry sense of humor, at any remonstration from Hattie, Rose collapsed like chiffon in the rain.
“Honestly, I am not finding fault with you merely expressing a belief,” Hattie assured her. “You’re allowed to disagree with me.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Rose repeated. Her blue eyes reflected the afternoon sunlight as she gazed raptly at the long line of women on the street. “Ain’t—Aren’t they a sight, though? Wish I was brave enough to wear one of those sashes. But I never could be.”
Despite her remonstrance, Hattie wanted to blurt that Miss Rose Gardener could do anything she liked if she simply straightened her backbone and stepped forward into risk. But it would be hypocritical to suggest what she would never do herself. Hattie knew there were some risks that simply weren’t worth taking.
“Have you finished trimming Miss Pruett’s straw boater? ‘More cherries,’” she mimicked the young lady’s high-pitched, breathy voice. “‘And a scarlet ribbon! I want to be seen.’”
Rose giggled at her mimicry. “Mrs. Glover, you’re such a stitch.”
Hattie smiled. “And you need to get to stitching. Those cherry clusters aren’t going to fasten themselves.”
Rose laughed harder at the jest as she headed toward the back room.
Hattie took a quick look around to admire her shop as she did many times a day. Satisfaction and pride filled her until it felt as if the buttons would pop off her bodice. The millinery was all hers, from the
