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E mily stepped deeper into the dressmaker’s shop, her mother’s terse conversation with the seamstress following her.

‘Somehow, we must make her figure more appealing,’ her mother said.

‘If you could…’ Emily blotted the rest of the words out; she’d heard them all before.

She trailed her fingers over bolts of fabric that were covering a large table, each roll stacked on another.

She loved to browse through materials; you never knew what treasures you might find tucked away in the back of the shop.

Adorning her dresses with little extras that others had overlooked gave her great joy.

As she stepped deeper into the room, the sound of her mother’s voice faded and the muscles in Emily’s back loosened.

Dress fitting with her mother was always an ordeal, but today, Emily’s turn had gone quickly and she’d managed to escape with only four comments on her lamentable absence of a proper woman’s shape and only two on her posture.

It was a record with which Emily was thrilled.

She knew she didn’t have curves, but there was very little she could do about her flat chest and she couldn’t really understand why her mother kept commenting on it as if Emily could somehow inflate her breasts.

Fortunately, her two married, older sisters had accompanied them on their expedition and the three of them were now ensconced with the dressmaker, preparing outfits for the next ball of the season.

The trio were happy together and somehow Emily didn’t quite fit.

She wasn’t even sure why because she loved clothes as much as the next person.

She and her best friend, Eloisa, could while away the hours talking about fashion, but when it came to talking about the same thing with her female relatives, Emily’s comments always fell flat.

A bolt of shimmering gold caught Emily’s eye and she moved over to it.

She’d been looking for something just this colour to add to a deep-blue dress she’d recently acquired.

She loved it but thought it rather needed something to contrast with it; something yellow might give it the same uplift as a sunny day in the height of summer.

She began to push through the fabrics, piled on top of one another, in order to get a better look.

Just as she pulled it from the pile she heard the sound of a voice which did not belong.

‘Well, well. If it isn’t the trespasser.’

Slowly, she straightened her spine, but she did not want to turn around.

She’d managed to survive a dress fitting with her ever-critical mother; she did not want to be dragged down by a conversation with Freddie Dashworth, especially if he was going to keep harking back to a moment she’d already asked him to forget.

‘And how are you on this fine morning, Miss Hawkins?’ the voice enquired.

She sighed. Why couldn’t he ignore her presence here?

It would be so much better for both of them if he pretended he’d not noticed her.

After all, she hadn’t been aware of him and they needn’t have whatever awkward interaction was about to follow.

She could tell by the lack of footsteps that he wasn’t going away, however, so she turned to face him.

He was standing in the corner of the room, hidden from the rest of the shop by a stack of rolled fabrics.

She must have walked past him on the way to the golden fabric, although how she had not noticed him, she did not know.

He always drew attention, no matter where he was, and today was no exception.

Light from a nearby high window slanted down on him, throwing him into sharp relief.

His lips were turned up in his ever-present smile, his dark eyes twinkling with laughter.

How wonderful it must be to never take anything seriously, to go through life with such ease, not to worry that you might say the wrong thing at any given moment.

‘Are you lost?’ she asked.

He glanced around at his surroundings. ‘Why, yes, it would appear I am. Here I was waiting for my fencing partner to turn up and yet I seem to be surrounded by fabric. Whatever am I to do?’

She crossed her arms. ‘There is no need to be ridiculous.’

He rolled his eyes, a gesture he did so often in her presence it was a wonder he didn’t get a headache from their encounters; perhaps he did. ‘You obviously think I have very little intelligence. I was merely playing along.’

‘Then you do realise this is a dressmaker’s shop?’

He shifted on his feet, the smile on his face fading away, and heat swept across Emily’s face, burning her skin.

Freddie may be perennially popular, but he was not the type of man to parade his lovers around town, a point in his favour.

However, that did not mean that he did not have one.

Perhaps he was here getting a woman a dress or a pretty ribbon.

Although Emily had no idea if men did this for the women in their lives, not having a man in hers.

Still, he was not in here for himself and he did not have any female relatives so…

‘Whatever are you thinking?’ he asked dryly. ‘Or do I not wish to know? Doubtless, it is something that calls into question my morals otherwise you would not be such a fiery red colour.’

Her hands flew to her cheeks. How like Freddie to point out the obvious. A normal man would not point out her discomfort.

‘I’m not thinking anything,’ she murmured, desperate to end this conversation in any way possible .

‘A trespasser and a liar,’ he said softly.

She gasped. What he said was true but also mean, and an unspoken rule of their encounters was that they were light-hearted barbs not mortal wounds. ‘I should go.’ She made to step forward, no longer caring about the golden fabric, only about getting away from Freddie.

‘No, wait.’ He held up a hand to stop her.

‘I am sorry. What I said was unpardonable and it is not the first time I have been callous and foolish towards you. I am trying…’ He sighed.

‘You know that I am a fool and I just keep making the same mistake over and over, because for some reason, I appear to disengage my brain whenever we speak. From this moment forth, the incident that we shall never talk about will be wiped from my brain, never to be referred to again.’ His voice was deep and serious and very un-Freddie-like. ‘Please forgive me.’

In all their years of sparring, he had never apologised to her so sincerely before. In fact, he looked stricken, the look so unfamiliar on his normally laughing countenance that she stopped.

She was closer to him now and could make out dark smudges beneath his eyes. Perhaps the laughter she’d thought hidden in their depths was not as present as she’d first thought. ‘Are you well?’ she asked.

He rubbed a hand down his face. ‘I am very tired.’ His gaze flashed to her.

‘And before you say it, it is not because I have been out to the early hours of the morning. It is because….’ He closed his eyes briefly and Emily wondered if he was about to fall asleep where he stood.

She reached out an arm to hold him up but stopped herself before she got too close.

She’d never touched him, not even in a dance, and she had the absolute conviction that would somehow change the balance between them.

‘Sebastian has a daughter, and I and my remaining brothers are looking after her. None of us had any idea how utterly difficult and exhausting it is to understand the moods of someone so small. ’

‘Sebastian is dead.’ The words flew out of her mouth unbidden and her whole body tensed; she hadn’t meant to be so brutal.

He rolled his eyes again. ‘Well, obviously, he has not had the child recently. She is three years of age. She is…’ His lips curved slightly, his eyes softening.

‘She is the most beautiful child you ever saw. She has adorable little ringlets and the roundest cheeks. And she sucks her thumb, which we all know we should stop but none of us can bring ourselves to make it happen, not even Tobias.’

Emily couldn’t have been more surprised by this outburst had Freddie produced a hen out of his pocket.

If anyone had told her prior to this moment that Freddie Dashworth, her nemesis and bane of her existence, would stand in a dressmaker’s and wax lyrical about a three-year-old, she would have dismissed it as a fantasy worthy of a Gothic novel.

But here he was doing exactly that, and to her of all people, the woman he found as dull as a blade of grass.

The tragedy of it was, she had no idea what to say in response, thus proving his opinion of her.

A silence followed his monologue, becoming awkward as it appeared to take up the spaces around them.

Emily searched her mind for something to say, but it was as if all her words had fallen out leaving her skull cavernously empty.

No wonder he thought her boring; she couldn’t even respond to commonplace remarks about a child.

‘How lovely,’ she managed belatedly, her skin heating at the banality of her comment.

‘I should leave you to your…’ She waved her hand around, still not sure what he was doing hiding in the corner of the shop.

‘Please, do not go. I need…’ He rubbed his eyes. ‘I would be very grateful if you could spare me a few minutes of your time. I could use some advice.’