Page 4 of Fair as a Star

Beryl laughed. “If only every problem could be solved with such efficiency.”

“With an appropriate Bible verse or a meaningful quote from scripture? Venable believes it can.”

“You don’t, I take it.”

“I find it easier to listen to their complaints than to force them to a biblical solution. They only want to be heard.”

She looped her arm through his. “And you’re a superlative listener.”

His muscles tensed at her touch, and then relaxed. “We can’t all be baronets or war heroes.”

Rays of sunshine shone down through the branches of the oaks that lined the road, filtering through the leaves to warm Beryl’s face. “Do you miss him?”

Mark didn’t need to ask who she meant. “Every day. Sometimes, when something humorous happens in the village, I still have the urge to write to him. I have to remind myself that he’s gone.”

She squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here for you.”

“For Henry, you mean.”

“For both of you. I’m afraid I haven’t been a very good friend. I’ve been selfish. Absent when you most—” She stopped herself. There was no point in self-recrimination. “But I mean to remedy that. From now on, I’m completely at your service. Anything you require of me, you need only ask.”

“Anything?” He smiled.

“So long as my mother and Henry can spare me. I don’t mean to be idle.”

“You never were.”

“No,” she said. “Only restless.”

He touched the back of her gloved hand as it curled around his arm. His fingers brushed over the small whitework figure she’d stitched into the fabric. “Is this one of your own designs?”

“It is.”

“A dragonfly?”

“A damselfly.” She’d worked on it in the evenings during her final weeks in Paris. The thread had been chosen with care to perfectly match her gloves, each stitch placed with faithful intention. “They were often flitting about near the Seine. I was able to sketch some images to work from.”

He traced the embroidery. “Hiding in plain sight.”

“That’s the beauty of whitework. It’s never ostentatious.” It was her favorite form of embroidery, white thread on matching white fabric. She liked to place small figures on the corner of a linen handkerchief or the hemmed cuff of a cambric undersleeve. Secret stitches that hid in plain sight, just as Mark had said. The sort that were discovered unexpectedly, and that gave the finder an instant of surprised delight.

He looked at her. “You have a formidable talent.”

Her mouth tilted up at one corner. “For whitework.”

“Don’t be dismissive of it.”

“I’m not. I only dispute what you call it. A formidable talent. As if there’s anything particularly formidable about embroidery. It’s a ladies’ pastime, that’s all. Something to fill the empty hours. It has no real worth outside of a moment’s pleasure in looking at it.”

“It gives you pleasure, doesn’t it? The hours you spend in creating it? That alone makes it a thing of value.”

She privately conceded his point. Her whitework embroidery did have value to her. It steadied her mind, and gave her the means to be creative. To exercise a skill which she imagined to be similar to that of a miniature portrait painter, albeit with a needle and thread.

“You gave me an embroidered handkerchief once,” he said. “Do you remember?”

“Of course.” She’d given one to Henry as well. It had been years ago. A small Christmas gift to each of them. “I’m surprised that you do.”

“I still have it.”