Chapter 7 - The Thread and the Needle
The seamstress arrived from Milan on the Tuesday of the second week.
Her name was Signora Bellini—a tiny, bird-like woman of seventy with gold thimbles on both index fingers and eyes that looked through human flesh directly to the underlying bone structure. She did not speak English, but she did not need to; she communicated through sharp tugs of tailor’s chalk, the hiss of hot pins between her lips, and the rhythmic snap of heavy shears through white satin.
Willa stood on a circular walnut platform in the center of the penthouse gallery, her arms held out from her sides until her shoulders burned with lactic acid.
Around her, four bolts of silk lay unrolled across the slate like drifts of frozen snow. It was not the crisp, artificial white of modern polyester; it was the heavy, cream-colored silk of old French looms, so dense that it didn't wrinkle so much as it carved itself into sculptural folds around her hips.
"Hold still, please," Donald said, standing at the base of the platform with a ledger open across his forearm. "Signora Bellini is setting the waistline for the corset. If you breathe too deeply, the boning will pinch your ribs when you sit for the dinner service."
"I don't need a corset," Willa grit out through her teeth, her ribs aching under the pressure of twenty steel stays being laced together behind her back by two silent Italian assistants. "I’ve carried forty-pound trays for six hours straight without a single piece of steel in my clothes."
"Trays require leverage, Miss Vance," Donald remarked without looking up from his notes. "The high society of New York requires structural containment. The distinction is subtle, but legally significant."
The heavy double doors of the gallery swung inward.
Penny ran in, her small black velvet shoes pattering across the floorboards. She carried a small, silver-plated brush in one hand and a battered paperback book in the other. Behind her walked Titan, his heavy jowls swinging rhythmically, his claws clicking on the slate like small hammers.
"Daddy said you have to wear the veil that looks like spiderwebs," Penny announced, stopping at the edge of the silk bolts.
Signora Bellini let out a sharp hiss of displeasure as the dog’s tail brushed against the hem of the unrolled satin, but one glance at the mastiff’s amber eyes made the old Italian woman swallow her complaint back down into her throat.
"I don't want to wear a veil, Penny," Willa said, looking down at the child from her pedestal. "Veils are for people who have something to hide."
"Everyone has something to hide," a voice said from the arched entryway.
Kendrick stood there, leaning against the doorframe. He had just returned from the financial district; his trench coat was damp with the early autumn drizzle, his hair swept back, his dark eyes taking in the spectacle of Willa wrapped in thirty yards of bridal silk with the cool detachment of an art collector appraising an acquisition.
Signora Bellini immediately dropped a deep, formal curtsy, her assistants bowing their heads until their chins touched their aprons.
"Leave us," Kendrick said.
The Italian women did not hesitate. They gathered their pins, their chalk, and their shears with the frantic speed of people who knew that when Kendrick Ashford cleared a room, those who lingered rarely had a chance to leave twice. Donald bowed, took Penny by the small hand, and led the child out through the side terrace, closing the glass partition behind them.
Only Titan remained, flopping down at the base of the walnut platform with a heavy, contented grunt.
Willa stood alone on the pedestal, the heavy white silk dragging at her waist, her breath shallow and tight against the steel stays of the corset.
Kendrick walked toward her. He did not stop at the edge of the platform; he stepped up onto the wood, his heavy leather dress shoes coming to rest inches from the hem of her train.
He was so tall that even with her elevated on the pedestal, their eyes were nearly level.
"You look like an empress who just executed her ministers," Kendrick said softly.
"I feel like a sheep being led to an altar," Willa replied, her voice refusing to tremble. "Why are you doing the full mass? You have the deeds from Barrett Hayes. You broke his son’s wrist. The council is terrified of you. Why do you need three hundred guests at St. Patrick’s Cathedral?"
Kendrick reached out. His fingers, cool from the rain outside, brushed against the exposed skin of her shoulder where the silk neckline had been pinned back. His touch was light, but it burned like dry ice against her collarbone.
"Because fear is an unstable currency, Willa," he whispered, his thumb tracing the delicate curve of her neck up to the angle of her jaw. "Fear makes men desperate. Fear makes men like Barrett Hayes hire Serbian snipers to sit on rooftops three blocks away."
He leaned closer, his breath warm against her ear.
"Legitimacy, however... legitimacy is an armor that bullets cannot penetrate," Kendrick said. "When you take my ring at the altar of the cardinal, you cease to be a girl from Queens whose grandfather died in a harbor. You become the co-trustee of the Ashford port authority. An attack on you becomes an attack on the Archdiocese, on the maritime union, and on the three state senators who sit on our charity boards."
Willa turned her head slightly, her lips inches from his cheek. She could see the tiny silver scar near his temple—the mark of a bullet that had grazed him twenty years ago.
"And what do I get, Kendrick?" she asked, using his first name for the first time without the shield of 'sir' or 'Mr. Ashford.' "What does the dishwasher get for standing in your line of fire?"
May you like
Kendrick’s hand slid from her jaw to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in the loose chestnut curls that had escaped the seamstress’s pins. He pulled her forward—not roughly, but with an irresistible, terrifying gravity—until her silk-covered ribs were pressed against the cold wool of his suit.
"You get the man who killed the wolves, Willa," he whispered against her mouth. "You get the keys to every gate between here and Montreal. And you get my word... that no man will ever make you look down again."
