The Last Honest Seamstress Read Online Free Page B

window. "Come, Olive. Let's get some dinner."
     
    Three days later, Fayth sat in her office mulling over her list of potential husbands. Half-finished sketches of dresses were pushed aside, ignored. She must settle this matter of finding a husband.
    She had compiled her list from customers past and present, shopkeepers, bankers, and men who occupied businesses near hers. Men she had met. Men she knew something about. She would not trust her life and business to a total stranger. As she made the list, she waited for the emotional side of her nature to dissuade her from such cold rationality, from such a businesslike approach to life. But since breaking her engagement with Andrew Hanbrough, she'd done an effective job of subduing her emotions, at least, any tender ones.
    Drew. Memories came back unbidden. She should have been his wife for just shy of a year now. Was she happier without him? Or would she have been better off with naive illusions of love and romance, and a philandering, money-seeking mate?
    There were times she convinced herself she preferred the latter. To believe love possible, to trust, to rely on another person, to have someone take care of her. Sometimes it sounded like heaven, even if only an illusion. Why let reality ruin it? Was blissful ignorance preferable to truth?
    Drew! Blast him! Except for him, she would never have been in such circumstances. Too little money, business so tenuous. Now, sometimes it seemed anger was the only thing keeping her sane.
    Thoughts ticked rapidly through her mind. Worries. Fears. Anxieties. She shrugged them all off. She had to narrow the list, find the one.
    Her standards were exacting, and why shouldn't they be? Remembering Drew, she crossed off the name of any man too physically attractive. A handsome face could never be trusted. And lust, well, it only interfered with good judgment. She had no desire to be tempted, didn't trust herself to resist a physical pull. And why should she invite other women to admire her husband?
    She rejected as unsuitable any man who seemed interested in her, any man who had asked her out, certainly those who had already proposed. Her choice would have to understand that the marriage was purely business. There was no place for physical intimacy in the partnership she envisioned. She was not willing to risk having a baby and giving up her independence. Fulfilling this requirement necessitated crossing off well over half of those she had listed in her first, rough pass.
    She ran her pen through the name of anyone with a reputation of frequenting Seattle's whorehouses, or of womanizing. If nothing else, Drew's behavior had instilled a deeply rooted aversion to scandal. Seattle on the whole was a tolerant town, but she didn't care to link herself openly to disgrace again.
    The task could almost have been fun, if the list wasn't shrinking alarmingly. Finding a discreet man lost her another half of her remaining list. She excused one man because he didn't seem any handier with a set of tools than she was, and another because he gave incorrect change when she made a purchase at the store where he worked. He was either flustered by her presence, or unintelligent. In either case, she was unimpressed. What she wanted was an uninterested, intelligent, strong, discreet man skilled with a set of tools. And if he owned his own business, all the better.
    She wrote the new requirement in the margin and stared at the remaining names. Stumped, unable to narrow the field further, she drew out a separate sheet of paper and made a list of her precise needs, laughing at herself. As if committing them to paper would create the man she wanted!
    She shook her head. Her list rapidly dwindled. Her standards were too high, her requirements almost contradictory. Searching for such a man seemed futile. Did he exist in Seattle? If not in a city so full of men, did he exist anywhere? What she really needed was a man who wouldn't interfere in her life. A man with his own