A Heart Most Worthy by Siri Mitchell

counter and draped himself closer to hers.
    Alarm fired the look that she gave him, and she moved back toward the screen.
    He’d never have the chance to speak to her if she kept moving away like that!
    “You’ll have the gown finished by November?” The strega had put up a hand to adjust her hat.
    Madame nodded. “But I’d like you to take a look at another design I just got in.”
    Mrs. Quinn had already turned from the counter toward the door. “I haven’t the time.”
    “It’s a lovely gown that mixes wool serge and silk satin.”
    “I haven’t the time to be lounging around here all day, looking at books.” Indeed, she didn’t. There were so very many tedious things that had to be done oneself if one wished them to be accomplished properly. “Send them later. With your girl.”
    Billy lifted his hat toward Luciana before he put it on his head and sauntered out of the shop behind his mother, regretting that he hadn’t been afforded the chance to speak with the girl.
    Both Madame and Luciana let out a sigh of gigantic proportions as soon as Mrs. Quinn and her son had left the shop. Madame retreated behind her counter, pulled the sample book close, and turned to the design Mrs. Quinn had ordered. And then she turned to the page after it.
    Luciana raised a hand to hide a smile. It seemed Madame Fortier had persuaded Mrs. Quinn from the gown her heart had been set on into another gown entirely. The one on the very next page.
    Madame looked up and caught the glimmer of humor in the girl’s eyes. “Sometimes it seems my clients don’t know what they really want. In that case, it is my job to tell them.”
    Although, that wasn’t quite the truth. Not in this case. During many other appointments over the years, with many other clients, Madame had done exactly that. But with Mrs. Quinn, things had always been different. Madame had a particular image and particular look she had in mind for Mrs. Quinn. She always had. Ever since the beginning. Ever since she had made the woman’s wedding gown. And so it wasn’t so much a case of Madame talking Mrs. Quinn into a particular style or color; it was more a matter of trying to talk Mrs. Quinn into the person Madame thought that she should be. And Mrs. Quinn had always been amenable. Until now.

    Madame summoned Luciana once again, late that afternoon, placing several sample books into the girl’s hands. “I need you to deliver these to Mrs. Quinn. She may look at them while you wait, but she is not to keep them.”
    Luciana nodded, though she couldn’t imagine what she would do if the woman tried.
    “She shouldn’t keep them. If she tries to keep them, then I won’t be able to order her new gowns.”
    Luciana nodded.
    “You can remind her of that.”
    But of course she couldn’t. Luciana didn’t speak English. A fact that Madame had conveniently forgotten if she had ever known it at all.
    The shop owner frowned. She wasn’t sure about this. She’d never sent her books to any of her clients before. Without her books, Madame was worse than useless. She was impotent. She was nothing. Her customers made appointments to view them at the shop. That’s how it was done. Before now. But what else could Madame do? Mrs. Quinn had changed the rules.
    Madame glanced at the girl before her. A very frightened-looking girl. “I’d send Julietta, but the girl is sometimes too bold for her own good.”
    Sometimes?
    “I’ve called a car for you. You’ll present Mrs. Quinn with the books, and you’ll wait to bring them back. You must bring them back.”

    Luciana was handed into the car by the chauffeur. She cowered on a seat in the back, not quite daring to look out the window for fear of being seen as she was driven from Temple Place around Boston Common and up Beacon Hill. Down not-quite-straight Mt. Vernon Street, lined with its bow-fronted faded brick townhouses. It was here that she started to relax. What could happen to her in a motorcar, after all? And wasn’t