The scent of beeswax and steam always hung heavy in the workroom by four o’clock, a quiet companion to the soft snip of shears. Today, however, the air felt thin and brittle. The Dowager Duchess of Wendover sat atop a straight-backed chair, her spine a rigid line against the soft drapes of the millinery models. She did not look at the ribbons; she looked only at Hester, her gaze as cold and grey as a London fog.
“The girl must be spectacular, Miss Lyle,” the Dowager said, her voice like gravel over silk. “Isabella is the last of the Wendover line to debut, and I will not have her looking like a common garden-party girl. The hat must be structural, imposing, and utterly silent.” Hester inclined her head, her roughened thumb tracing the edge of a silver thimble. It was a commission of immense weight, one that could secure the shop’s lease for a decade or see it shuttered by a single disparaging word at a tea table.
The Dowager did not reach for a chequebook. Instead, she leaned forward, the jet beads on her bodice clicking like teeth. The dowager reaches into her black beaded reticule and begins to withdraw a velvet-tied bundle of letters.
