Truthseeker

Three

“And how is the suit for the button man?” Steve Taylor poked his head around Lara’s open office door, startling her and garnering an embarrassed smile.

“Mr. Mugabwi’s suit is coming along nicely. You’re not supposed to know I call him the button man.” Lara lifted one of the buttons in question, an antique ivory beauty with subtle age striations. “I can’t help it, though. I get a thrill every time I work with these.”

“Well, it’s not every day we have a client arrive with a jar full of buttons as our starting place.” Steve came in to sit on the edge of her sewing desk—Lara was on the floor like a proper tailor, legs folded as she judged one button’s pattern, then another’s, against the suit fabric—and grin down at her. “You did a good job, you know, convincing him to the browns.”

Lara shook her head. “You convinced him with this fabric. I didn’t even know we had it in.” The brown wool weave was silken under her fingertips; yellow and red threads gave the fabric incredible rich depth. Mr. Mugabwi, in Lara’s private opinion, should always wear browns; his skin tones were suited for it, and the sepia-tinged buttons he’d brought in would have been jarring against a black or gray suit.

“It was new,” Steve said deprecatingly. “You would have selected it for him if you’d seen it.”

“Only if I’d seen his bank book first.” The fabric was a special blend, the makers having produced only enough for perhaps ten suits, and was priced accordingly. Not that anyone came to Lord Matthew’s without deep pockets: bespoke tailoring was unabashedly expensive.

“Ah, yes.” Steven nodded, expression deadpan. “After all, he came with hundred-year-old buttons. If he’s recycling that much, he must be very cautious with money, indeed.”

Lara laughed and mimed throwing one of the buttons at him, though she kept it safe in her palm. “The buttons are from his grandfather’s suits, and you know it. It’s not nice to tease me.”

“I tease all my girls.” Steve shifted off the desk and crouched in front of the suit, flicking away imaginary bits of lint as he examined her handiwork. Lara sat back, smiling. He was a master tailor and had four daughters of his own, ranging from a few years older than Lara to several years younger. That, more than anything, was what he meant by “my girls”—she had worked for him since her second year of college and, having watched her grow up, knew he half-thought of her as one of his own. She loved the sense of belonging, and worked harder than she probably needed to, wanting to make him proud.

“This is master class work, Lara. I’m sure you know that, but it’s worth mentioning.” Steve stood up again, lips pursed as he studied the suit. “Mugabwi’s ordered three suits. I’ll want you to make them all. But I also want you to discuss linen with him, when he’s in for his final fitting. These will be perfect for corporate meetings, but a lot of his charity work is done in Africa. He’ll need cooler material, even just for the high-level glad-handing he does.”

“Maybe silk dupioni, not linen.” Lara got to her feet, examining first her employer, then the suit before them, dubiously. “Linen’s crisp and cool, but Mr. Mugabwi’s job is asking corporations for huge amounts of money. I think his suits need a visual warmth that I’m not sure I’d get satisfactorily from linen. I mean, this cloth …” She brushed her fingertips over the fine wool and shook her head. “The depth of color and the elegance of the buttons, when combined with the suit’s fit, are going to warm people toward him instinctively. Wool can do that. So can silk. I’m just not convinced linen’s the right fabric.”

Steve was beaming at her. Lara trailed off, then ducked her head to stare at her feet a moment. “That was a test.”

“And you passed with flying colors. I’ll leave the design of the summer suits entirely in your hands, Lara. You can consider it your master test.”

Heat rushed her cheeks and she put her hands over them. “Two years early?” Tradition expected a seven-year apprenticeship, and she’d only worked for Lord Matthew’s for five.

Steve passed it off with a wave of his hand. “The modern world’s a faster place. Besides, you were nearly at journeyman status when you started working for me, and you know it, Lara. Your portfolio was a lot stronger than most college sophomores’ would be. You were doing body work on suits within eight months, and you know some of the others were still doing hems after eighteen.”

Lara winced, but nodded. She was meticulous and always had been; the work came very close to making music in her mind, as if someone was whispering truth just out of her hearing. When errors were made, they reverberated sourly just as falsehoods did, and so she’d learned almost at the same time she’d begun sewing that it was far more worth doing well than quickly. Her coworkers hadn’t always learned the same lesson.

“All right.” Steve brushed the suit’s shoulder once more. “Choose the fabrics you’d like to present to Mr. Mugabwi and we’ll discuss them before he comes in again. Meanwhile, keep being a genius.”

Lara laughed and waved as he left, then settled back down to work with a smile on her face. Gleaming pinheads marked the buttons’ eventual locations; it was now only a matter of judging which buttons looked the most striking against the fabric. This was Lara’s favorite part of her work, even more than the choosing of fabrics or the discussion of design: the fine details, most of which were invisible to the untrained observer, that finished a suit or gown to impeccable specification.

A knock on her office door pulled her out of her reverie as the last button went on. Pins in her mouth, she mumbled, “Mmm?,” then extracted them from between her lips to blink at Cynthia Taylor. “Yes?”

“Someone’s here to see you.” Cynthia, at barely seventeen, was the only daughter interested in her father’s business. She worked as a receptionist after school during the brief hours the bespoke shop was open to the public, but Lara was certain she would someday be a master tailor.

“Me?” A glimpse out the frosted windows said evening had fallen while she worked. Lara sat back on her heels and moved a cup of tea to be certain she wouldn’t spill it. “I don’t have any fittings scheduled this evening. I should probably already be gone. So should you, for that matter.”

Cynthia rolled her eyes. “You should have told Dad that when he came by earlier. We’re going to be late for dinner again, and Mom’s going to kill us. But if we weren’t still here, I wouldn’t have been able to open the door for this man. I don’t think he’s a client. He’s not wearing the right kind of clothes. But he did ask for you specifically, so maybe I’m wrong!”

“I don’t know how anybody could even know to ask for me. I’m only a journeyman. Well.” Lara climbed to her feet, brushed nonexistent dust from her knees, and put the tea on her desk. “Do I look suitable enough to be presented to a potential client?”

Cynthia pursed her lips, taking the question seriously enough that Lara bit back laughter: the girl’s critical examination was better suited to a woman three times her age. “You’ll do,” she said after a moment, then lost her serious demeanor and dimpled. “You look wonderful. But you should probably put some shoes on.”

Lara looked down at herself with a quick nod. She’d changed from rain-soaked clothing to a white silk blouse and gray wool three-quarter-length pants, their wide legs nearly a skirt. She’d been working in stocking feet, but she reached for knee-high boots now, slipping them on and adding another inch and a half to her height. “I don’t have a suit jacket,” she muttered. “I didn’t expect to see anyone today. And my hair’s all frizzy from the rain.”

“Here.” Cynthia scurried from the room, then returned moments later with a round hairbrush. “Brush the curls out and tie it back in a chignon and you’ll be perfect, even without a jacket. Perfect,” she repeated when Lara’d done as she’d instructed. “You look like one of those old paintings.”

“Cracked and split?” Lara flashed a smile, patted her hair one more time, and followed Cynthia out of the office.

David Kirwen waited in the lobby, expression animated over whatever news his cell phone shared. Lara stopped in the archway leading from the private fitting rooms and offices, surprise slamming her heartbeat high. She curled one hand around the door frame for support, and wished, for a moment, that she could retreat and try her entrance again, this time knowing who awaited her. Cynthia slowed, peering at her, and Lara gave her a halfhearted smile of reassurance.

Kirwen looked up from his phone and offered a disarming grin. “Miss Jansen. I’m glad I caught you. I only realized after the fact that we hadn’t set a time or place for dinner.”

“I’d noticed that, too.” Lara swallowed against a dry throat and gave Cynthia another smile, this one tinged with embarrassment. Cynthia’s gaze brightened and she turned to give Lara a discreet thumbs-up before scurrying into the back offices and leaving Lara alone with David Kirwen.

He was considerably more handsome dry and smiling than he’d been dripping and cold on the street. That was her first thought: not what is he doing here or how did he find me, but Kelly is right. He really is awfully good-looking. More than good-looking: he bordered on pretty, features sharper and more chiseled than men’s usually were. Men in general suddenly seemed rather blunt and thick when compared to David Kirwen, as if much of humanity were discarded rough drafts to his final sculpture.

A sculpture that could be far better dressed. Lara’s palms itched with the desire to step forward and adjust his lapels, or better yet, to simply strip his clothes away and learn the canvas she had to work with. His stance suggested he would be beautiful in clothes cut to his form; as if he were meant to be dressed by someone like her, who could take the ordinary and trick the eye into believing it was extraordinary. Given the extraordinary to begin with, she could create such a vision that people would stop on the street, an emperor in new clothes.

She actually stepped forward to do that, to touch him and see if the gift she’d been given was real, before she remembered he wasn’t a client. Curiosity lit his eyes, then turned his smile warm and amused. Lara, cheeks afire, stopped where she stood, and Kirwen’s smile grew broader still. “Am I that bad, then?”

“No. No, I just forgot you weren’t here for a fitting, Mr. Kirwen. I’m not used to men dropping by for any other reason.” While true, the statement had a ring of pathos about it, and stung her into a straighter spine and lifted chin. “Really, I’m very sorry about Kelly’s behavior this afternoon. She doesn’t know when to quit.”

“Occasionally we all need someone like that in our lives. I have Dickon finagling us a table at Troquet, so I hope that despite the unorthodox approach you might have dinner with me tonight anyway?”

“I—” Puzzlement took hold. “How did you find me?”

Kirwen laughed. “If I answer, will you say yes to dinner? No.” He passed off the bargain with a wave of his hand. “Your friend mentioned you were a bespoke tailor. There are only a handful of shops in Boston that do that kind of work. I set my assistant on Google while I recorded the evening’s weather report.” He nodded toward a window, where rain still spattered against the pane. “Fortunately, it didn’t require much guesswork as to how it would turn out.”

An inkling of humor worked its way through Lara, though she kept her expression cool. “So you’re a stalker, Mr. Kirwen?”

Dismay shattered across his face. “No, no, not at all. I just wan—Oh. You’re teas—No,” he said again, this time with more dignity. “But my assistant takes stalking assignments as routine when necessary.”

“I’m sure she does.” Lara ducked her head, partially to hide amusement at Kirwen’s story, but more to take refuge in the meaningless phrase. I’m sure she does: people usually meant it sarcastically, or as a way to pass off a topic they were uninterested in. It was one of a handful of things she could say, though, without triggering her own discomfort. Particularly when someone like Kirwen was making light of something but still spoke essential truth. Lara was certain his assistant took stalking, or at least Internet searching, in stride. She looked up, smiling. “I’m not sure, Mr. Kirwen. Your assistant was the one who did all the work. Maybe I should have dinner with her.”

Genuine surprise filtered through his expression by degrees, and though they didn’t stand close together, Kirwen fell back half a step. “I imagine that could be arranged, although I don’t think Nat—my assistant—is, um, I don’t think she typically dates wom …” He trailed off, peering at Lara in much the same way Cynthia had moments before. “This is impertinent, Miss Jansen, but would your friend have been trying to set us up on a date quite so enthusiastically if you preferred dating women?”

Laughter bubbled up and broke. “No, but it seemed like your assistant ought to get some benefit from doing your dirty work. She finds me, you get a date, and she gets …?”

Kirwen, hopefully, said, “I could bring her the leftovers from Troquet? Okay,” he admitted as Lara arched an eyebrow at him, “I wouldn’t be impressed with leftovers, either. What, then? Roses? A paid holiday in Bermuda?”

“I was thinking more in terms of a box of chocolates, although if you’re inclined to offer paid holidays to Bermuda, I think Kelly might want to talk to you about a job.”

“Kelly? Not you?” Kirwen smiled. “I thought that kind of job perk would make anyone stand up to be counted.”

Lara shrugged one shoulder, then glanced back toward her office. “I like my job, Mr. Kirwen, that’s all. I’ve never been inclined to say I’d want something that I don’t. Even jobs whose side benefits include trips to Bermuda.”

“How extraordinary,” Kirwen murmured. Lara looked back at him and he shook himself, a hopeful smile reappearing. “Does that mean you’ve said yes?”

“I suppose it does,” she said, surprising herself. Kirwen’s eyes lit up, and Lara, truthfully and teasingly, explained, “Kelly would never let me live it down if I refused.”

His face fell comically. Lara laughed, then gestured toward her office. “Let me get my coat and call her, and we can go.”