Page 104 of The Muse of Maiden Lane

Ahmad half smiled. “If you’re lucky, one or more might have a background in masonry or carpentry already. Many of us had entire careers in our home countries before we set foot on English shores.”

“Perhaps Mr. Jones can ask about for you?” Evelyn suggested. “You wouldn’t mind that would you, Tariq?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Mr. Jones replied. “I know several fellows who are eager for respectable employment. Women, too. There’s a sailor’s widow in our community—Mrs. Mukherjee—who would make someone an excellent housekeeper.”

“We will be requiring a housekeeper-cook eventually,” Stella said. “If that’s something she, or anyone else you know, might be suited for.”

Mr. Jones inclined his head to her. “I’m happy to make inquiries.”

“Thank you,” Teddy said. “We’d be grateful to you.”

“The joys of staffing a new household!” Laura said, smiling at her husband. “How well I recall having to start from scratch when we moved to France. We were lucky to find so many good people.”

“I was lucky in my wife,” Alex said warmly, gazing back at her.

“To our wives.” Tom raised his glass of champagne.

The rest of the gentlemen happily followed suit, each lifting their glasses high. “To our wives!”

“And to those who are soon to be so,” Teddy added, raising his own glass in Stella’s direction.

“Hear, hear,” Mr. Jones cheered, lifting his glass to Mira.

“Handsomely done, as ever.” Jenny smiled at Tom. “And an excellent reminder that it’s time we ladies withdrew before you gentlemen get any more in your cups.” She rose. “Ladies? If you’ll follow me.”

Later, after port and cigars in the dining room, Teddy and the other gentlemen joined the ladies in the parlor. Jenny played a rousing polka on the piano, and the guests laughed, danced, and talked amongst themselves. It was Alex and Laura’s last night in London. The mood was both merry and a little sad, just as it always was at the close of their annual visits when the time had finally come for the friends to bid each other farewell.

Teddy and Stella sat beside each other near the window, he in his wheeled chair and she on an overstuffed chintz chair beside him. With so much music and merriment about them, they could converse in something like privacy.

“I could have happily strangled my sister when she told me how she’d commandeered you in Bond Street,” he said, his words for Stella’s ears alone. “What exactly did she say to you?”

“She was merely concerned.”

“No doubt.” He paused before asking again, “What did she say?”

Stella replied at length in a voice as low as Teddy’s had been. “That you had been in poor health for a time after your illness.”

Had she, by God.

A muscle tightened reflexively in Teddy’s cheek. “I see.”

“She was concerned that I might inadvertently hurt you.”

Teddy could only imagine. “She’s excessively overprotective. She’s had to be in the past. I’ve had the devil of a time convincing her to give up the habit.”

“It wasn’t an exaggeration, then?” Stella asked softly. “About your being unwell?”

“Define unwell,” he quipped.

“She said you’d fallen into a deep melancholy. That everyone feared—”

“Quite.” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “It’s true,” he admitted grudgingly. “Before—when I first realized I wasn’t going to get better—” He broke off with a flinch of bitter memory.

It still stung him to recall the desperate hope he’d once cherished in those early years. The foolish dream that his paralysis was only temporary. That one day, as if by a miracle, he’d wake up and be himself again. Wholly himself.

“I had to withdraw for a time,” he said. “I took refuge in my art, until…”

“Until when?”