Free Betina Krahn by The Unlikely Angel Page B

newly installed windows, that the designs and patterns for her new garments were being painstakingly assembled.
    The litter of creativity was everywhere. Bolts of fabric were propped against table legs and cabinets; sketches, drafting squares, and curve templates hung on pegs near the door; and pattern books and drawing pads were stacked on shelves and spilling over onto the worktables that lined the walls. Half-cut pattern pieces, palettes of fabric swatches, bolts of trims, and huge spindles of thread and rubberized elastic were piled higgledy-piggledy on every horizontal inch. In the center of the room stood a pair of wire dressmaking forms wearing a collage of paper patterns and pieces of fabric.
    She felt a surge of warmth in her chest. The room was a mess, but in some ways it was her favorite place in the entire village. It was here that she started every morning, thinking, imagining, helping Jessup Endicott, her pattern maker, translate the ideas in her head into manufacturable pieces.
    A commotion outside drew her back down the hall, where she discovered Emmaline Farrow, standing in the middle of the main office with her shawl hanging from one shoulder, looking distraught and clutching a wriggling eight-year-old in one hand and a six-year-old in the other.
    “I’m so sorry that I am late …”
    “I only just arrived myself,” Madeline responded.
    “It was just …” Tears were working their way up Emily’s throat into her eyes. “I tried making porridge again and it scorched and stuck to the horrid pan and I had no time to do it all over again.…” The boys set up a wail as they buried their heads in their mother’s skirts, and she looked as if she might swoon.
    This was the third time this week that widowed EmilyFarrow had ruined her children’s breakfast and arrived in the offices looking frazzled and overwhelmed. She was having a difficult time adjusting to a life of reduced means—cooking her own meals, laying her own fires, doing her own laundry, and looking after her own children.
    Madeline peeled the children from her secretary’s skirts and took their damp faces in her hands. “Theodore, Jonathan … Mrs. Davenport has some scrumptious buttered toast and jam left from our breakfast. I believe she may have some kippers tucked away somewhere too.” She looked up at Emily. “Why don’t you take them over to our house for a bit of breakfast? Beaumont will be here at any moment, and we’ll manage for a while without you.”
    Poor woman,
Madeline thought, leaning against the door frame and watching as Emily’s darlings pulled her toward the stairs, then abandoned her to race down the rotted steps. She didn’t realize she had also spoken it aloud, until a voice answered her.
    “She’s in a bit of a fix, all right.” She turned to find Beaumont Tattersall standing behind her, watching Emily too. “Trying to keep up with those two … keep up her house … keep up her work … all while keeping up the old standards. It’s a lot.”
    Madeline nodded ruefully. “But she’ll learn. She just needs a bit of help now, at the start.” She headed for the sample room to do a bit of sketching. “When Endicott arrives, tell him I want to see him straightaway.”
    “Miss Duncan, before you begin …” Tattersall called her back with an apologetic tone. “I’ve a stack of drafts for you to sign and, while you’re at it, I’d like you to go over the accounts with me. I fear a number of bills have come in over the initial estimates.”
    She glanced wistfully at the sample room, then retraced her steps. Where would she be without Beaumont? The wiry, self-effacing little man was the epitome of organization. Small wonder Ecklesbery, Townshend, and Dunwoody had goneinto near apoplexy the moment he announced he was leaving their office to join Madeline’s Ideal Garment Company. His defection to her cause had proved the last straw where her gentlemen trustees were concerned. Knowing now just