That goodbye didn’t have to be final.
He kissed her cheek rather than her lips. “Off to work, then. No more throwing your heaving bosom into my embrace until dinnertime.”
“My heaving bosom is now a respectable distance from your waistcoat,” she pointed out primly.
His eyes twinkled. “Aye, so you admit your bosom was heaving.”
She smacked his shoulder before slipping around to the other side of the counter. Her lips couldn’t stop smiling. He was incorrigible.
“Are you going to read or sketch today whilst I work?”
“I thought I’d share a wee bit o’ Scotland.” He held up a book and made a show of clearing his throat. “Robert Burns, Address to a Haggis.”
She covered her face with her hands. “You’re lucky I don’t actually listen to you.”
But the truth was, she’d listen to him read anything. She loved the low, smooth timbre of his voice, the soft burr on his tongue.
“I almost forgot,” she said as she set a string of paste rubies into the holly. “I thought of jewelry you could offer with Fit for a Duke.”
The ode to haggis ceased abruptly. “Something better than a cravat pin?”
“A lover’s locket.” They were often beautiful gold capsules with a secret frame inside, bearing a tiny portrait of a loved one’s eye. The locket could be worn as a brooch, or hung from a necklace next to one’s heart.
She glanced up in time to see his jaw fall open with enthusiasm.
“That’s brilliant,” he breathed, abandoning Robert Burns to come and sit across from her. “Lover’s lockets are all the rage, and can be fashioned in so many styles. Wheat, plumage, Greek...”
“Mosaic, cameo, intaglio...” At his blank look, she explained, “Designed with recessed engravings.” She held up the adornment she was working on. “Like the texture of these leaves.”
Jonathan pulled his notebook from his inner pocket and began madly scribbling notes. “They won’t come with their lover’s portrait inside, of course.”
“Or the wisp of their lover’s hair,” she added with a grin. “But it could be designed in such a way that all your client need do is slip the lock of hair and partial portrait in place, and voilà. He can keep his lover hidden next to his heart.”
“That’s what we’ll call it! ‘The Duke’s Secret.’ Everyone will be clamoring for a locket of their own.” His eyes shone with excitement. He could barely sit still. “When can you start?”
“When... what?” she stammered.
“Just a prototype,” he said quickly. “Not thousands of them for all of England. I just need one to show Calvin and Nottingvale. If you’re the one who designs it, they’ll see the genius at once. No one else will do.”
His confidence in her was simultaneously wonderful and terrifying. He clearly believed in her, thought no one else would do it justice. She wasn’t interchangeable with any other jeweler. Genius, he’d called it.
It was the most flattering thing anyone had ever said about her talent.
But she had no time to add anything new to her already overworked days. She’d be lucky to plait her nieces’ hair and manage a few hours’ sleep before dawn came and she was in front of her worktable anew.
“I have to finish the last adornment tonight,” she reminded him.
“After the indoor tree ceremony,” he said. “I doubt the roads will be clear by then, even if it stops snowing tonight, which means we’ve plenty of time before Calvin and Nottingvale arrive.”
“There’s no time.” She pointed at the unfinished piece on black velvet. “I’ve these pieces to finish as well, and...”
And if she believed in Jonathan even a fraction of as much as he believed in her, his catalogue was about to be far more widely read than Noelle’s article in the Cressmouth Gazette.
She did believe in him, Angelica realized. He had his own brand of genius. And his excitement was infectious.
“I won’t do it for free,” she said. “If you want my work, you’ll have to pay for it.”
“Obviously.” He didn’t even glance up from his notebook. “Name your price.”
She had the odd sensation that there was no number she could name that he wouldn’t agree to out of hand. But that wasn’t what she wanted. She was more ambitious than a lump sum payment and a handshake goodbye.
Instead of fighting their attraction, what if they worked together? Not temporarily, but for good?
“Ten percent,” she said.
His head shot up from the notebook. “What?”
“Ten percent of the profit for every lover’s locket sold from my designs.”
She held her breath. What if he said no?
What if he said yes?
If her family had not understood any of her past decisions, they definitely would not understand if she suddenly canceled Christmas while they were right down the road, so that she could shutter herself in her workroom, designing lockets for a company that did not yet exist. She would lose the minimal time she had with them now.
But with ten percent of all future profits made from her designs, she would have more time to spend with her relatives, not less. She’d be able to visit them in London. Take them all on holiday wherever they wished. She could have the distinguished presence she’d been working toward as well as time to enjoy it.
If Jonathan said yes.
He narrowed his eyes. “Twelve.”
She blinked. “What?”
“All right, fifteen,” he said. “But only on the lockets you design, and of course only if my partners agree to it.”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “That means yes?”
“They’ll be surprised,” he said slowly, “but I don’t see how they can deny the logic. Calvin shall receive a large percentage of the entire company’s earnings based on his fashion designs, so why shouldn’t you earn a portion of the profit we make off of yours? If they like your prototype, of course.”
“They’ll adore my prototype. They’ll walk about with ten gold lockets strapped to their chests because they won’t be able to decide which design they like best,” she informed him.
“In that case,” he said, “I suppose we’re a team.”
A team. Her heart skipped.
She hadn’t
