He faced the notebook in her direction.
Angelica’s friend Virginia gazed back at her as though she’d posed for the portrait.
Something Virginia would never do.
“I cannot believe you drew that so quickly!”
“I don’t know her name,” he explained, “which made this the most expedient way to convey her identity.”
“Expedient?” she sputtered. “Why didn’t you tell me you were an artist?”
He looked at her in surprise. “I’m not an artist. Artists carry arty things about. I have a pencil and a notebook, and sometimes I draw things.” He seemed to think this over. “I will have to paint a few dozen illustrations when my business partner arrives.” He shook his head. “An anomaly. My watercolors won’t be part of the real catalogue. We’ll employ a skilled professional once everything goes through.”
She pursed her lips. “I haven’t seen you paint, but if your efforts are anywhere near as ‘amateur’ as that portrait you just sketched, something smells of false modesty.”
“No, no, no.” His eyes widened earnestly. “I’m unquestionably talented at art. But I’m not an artist. I’m a wanderer. I wander. It may or may not be what I do best, but it’s who I am.”
Her fingers embossed mistletoe into the adornment. “Is that why you’re here? You wandered into town, and then into my shop?”
“In a sense. I wandered into your shop that first day, and then kept coming back because I liked what I found. I wouldn’t have chosen Cressmouth, but I needed an audience with Nottingvale, and I’ve already been to London. I won’t visit the same town twice,” he added, as though that explained anything.
Or perhaps it did. Maybe that last aside was meant to remind them both that he would soon be gone and would not be coming back.
“Don’t you ever want to stay in one place?”
“I have a noble mission,” he replied without hesitation. “My constant travels are what will initially spread the news—and the excitement—about Fit for a Duke.”
“And then after that?”
“Growth will be self-sustaining, with or without my help.” From the corner of her eye, she watched him sketch idly in his notebook.
“I meant, and then you’ll find something else to do?”
“Finding things is my specialty.” His pencil flew across the page. “That’s how Fit for a Duke began—I found Calvin. Before that, it was clock-making. And before that, ormolu-weaving. That’s the best part of roving about. I find people who aren’t as successful as they ought to be. I invest in them, which pays off for everyone. What price is ten percent for a year, when they’re suddenly earning dozens or even a hundred times more than they were before?”
Angelica set a trio of paste diamonds in silence. She was impressed despite herself. Providing opportunities to those who would not otherwise have them was not something she could criticize. It was what she had always wanted for herself, and precisely how she’d ended up in Cressmouth… with terms that had cost her years with her family.
This time, she would succeed on her own.
“Wait,” she said. “You didn’t say your friend was going to owe you ten percent for a year. You called him your business partner.”
“You’re right,” he admitted. “This one isn’t temporary. Fit for a Duke is special. Nottingvale will own a small percent, and Calvin and I will split the rest.”
“What makes this different? It looks more profitable?”
He waved a hand as though money were the least of his concerns. “It has the potential to be ubiquitous. If everything goes to plan, five years from now—maybe less—everyone in Britain will have heard of us.” His eyes glittered. “If a catalogue for a company I’ve created is on everyone’s table, no one can deny my success.”
Oh, Angelica wasn’t too sure about that. Other people had all sorts of ways to decide you weren’t living up to your potential. Even those who meant well. There were plenty of friends and family members who thought her unnatural because she’d chosen to run a jeweler’s shop instead of starting a family.
But she understood what drove him. The wish for status, for unarguable proof of her worth. All the people who thought nothing of asking her when she was going to be a wife wouldn’t think so little of her talent if her jewelry was the talk of England.
As it was, her shop was barely the talk of her village. Wasn’t that why she’d agreed to take on more projects than she had time for? Once her jeweled holly sprigs were the stars of the Christmas festivities, and her name was featured in the Cressmouth Gazette, she too would have something to hold up and point to whenever someone dared question her success.
“You’d never go back to London?” she asked.
“I’ve been there before.”
“Have you been everywhere in London?” she challenged. “What about Fournier Street in Spitalfields?”
Rather than reply, he flipped to a new page in his notebook and sketched long, sweeping lines, followed by a flurry of shorter, lighter strokes. He held up the page when he finished.
Her pulse scattered.
It was her old neighborhood. Exactly as it had looked the year before she’d moved to Cressmouth. The same homes, the same shops. Her family’s awning was right there at the edge of the paper. Her breath caught as a white-hot burst of homesickness shot through her.
“What is it?” he asked, concerned.
“I spent the first twenty years of my life right there.” She pointed with her cross-pein hammer. “I have two communities. Cressmouth is one, and that’s the other.”
She regretted it as soon as she said it. It sounded like bragging. She had two homes, and he had none.
Even if he liked it that way, she could not help but feel sorry for him.
He tucked the notebook in his pocket.
“What are you going to do for Christmas?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said flatly. “Wander to the next town.”
His tone closed the topic. Not that she had more to say. What was she to do, invite him to join her family holiday? She could just imagine the
