The Nanny Arrangement Read Free Page A

genteel clientele that will spend a fortune on our creations season after season.”
    “Yes, but if our bonnets are affordable and well-made, we will garner loyalty from the villagers—the women who cannot afford something grand, perhaps, but may require a bonnet that is sturdy and hard-wearing. Those women are the bread and butter of our shop.” Nan leaned forward, her mild blue eyes wide and cajoling. “Come, now. Susannah left the shop to our care when she married Daniel. Isn’t it up to the pair of us to see to it that it becomes a successful venture?”
    Well, when Nan put things that way...Becky was hard-pressed indeed to think of a retort. To buy some time, she concentrated on another stitch, pursing her lips tightly together as she did so. Of course she didn’t want to see the shop fail. But what was the harm in offering lovely bonnets as well as serviceable ones? “If we restrict ourselves to one kind of trade, surely we chance losing a portion of our customers,” she admonished in as gentle a tone as she could manage. “After all, it was the commissions of three gentlewomen who gave us our start, if you will recall.”
    “I know.” Nan leaped from her position on the settee and began pacing, a nervous habit that wore on Becky’s nerves. “But honestly, a simpler style of bonnet is more easily made, and I can train our other helpers to make them quickly. The finer stuff must be left to the two of us, and already we’re stretched thin as it is. The profits we make are higher, and they sell more quickly. And the villagers pay more quickly than gentry. I really do feel most strongly that we should stop making fancy creations and concentrate on the plain and sensible.”
    Becky heaved a deep sigh. Plain and sensible. There was little room for imagination and artistry in the plain and sensible, particularly if Nan kept buying such dreadful fabric. She would be chained, for the rest of her life, to stretching scratchy cotton across buckram frames. A vista of ugly, cheap bonnets unfolded before her, and her heart gave a lurch of revolt. True, she was stuck. A spinster forevermore with no hope of marriage to Lieutenant Walker. But did that mean she needed to relinquish any sense of beauty in her life?
    “I’m going to see Susannah,” she declared, casting the bonnet to one side and rising from her chair. “She founded the shop. I’ll put my case to her.”
    “I shall go too,” Nan rejoined. “After all, I have been seeing to it that the shop is a gainful venture since I took over.”
    “Since you took over?” Anger surged into Becky’s being, leaving her trembling in its wake. “The shop was given to both of us when Susannah married. We are equal partners, Nan.”
    “We would be, if you had a practical bone in your body! But honestly, how are we to make any money at all if you squander our resources? It’s been up to me to make sure that the shop stays profitable.”
    “If you say that word once more, I shall scream.” Becky took her own bonnet from the peg near the front door and clamped it on her head, rebellion singing through her veins. “Since the store is so beholden to you, you can stay here to manage it while I talk to our sister.”
    She flounced out of the shop and slammed the door shut behind her. Whatever had taken hold of her? Even if she wasn’t the practical one in the family, she had always gotten along well enough with her sisters. Why was she letting Nan needle her so? And why was she getting angry over each little thing?
    “Because they’re not little things any longer.” She spoke the words aloud as she scuffed the grass with the toe of her boot. For once, the distance to Goodwin Hall was worthwhile. She needed time to compose her thoughts. If she couldn’t put her argument to Susannah sensibly, then her elder sister would simply say that her emotions were running too high. That would discredit her argument before she’d even begun.
    “If I can’t have beauty and