Her Graceful War Song by Summer's Blaze

Chapter 1631

Samuel no longer dared to show his face. On the other hand, Mr. Claude began appearing before me rather often.

Several times, he brought his servant and stopped by the shop set up to sell the embroidery made by the ladies at our workshop. Over the past few years, we had built up a fine list of noble ladies and officials' wives as regular customers. I would occasionally visit to play hostess.

Truth be told, the embroidery had no trouble selling. After all, in the entire capital, few could rival Ms. Moore's needlework. It was only when dealing with wealthy clients that the prices were higher.

Now that the court permitted women to register as heads of their own households, many of the ladies were eager to earn enough money to purchase a small house of their own and live comfortably.

As I held the title of duchess and was cousin to the regent's princess consort, the ladies of noble families were more than willing to befriend me.

At first, Mr. Claude only passed by the shop with his servant, casting a glance inside as he walked on. But when it became a regular occurrence, he began stepping inside to make purchases.

Besides clothing and robes, the shop also sold smaller embroidered goods like fans, handkerchiefs, folding screens, and other such objects. Most were made for

women.

He never bought clothes-only folding fans.

In truth, folding fans were rare. We mostly made round fans, stitched from fine materials and embroidered with birds, flowers, and all manner of creatures. Some were even double-sided, with designs so lifelike they seemed ready to fly off the silk.

trickier-harder to make as silk brocade didn't fold as easily as paper. Still, we created a few now and then, simply for their

quite taken with them. Every time he

I happened to be there, though not in the front hall. I was in the back room, going over the accounts, when I overheard him speaking with

have anything made by the duchess today?" he

planning to sell it at a lower price,"

to me at

he

Her Grace's needlework was this fine. It's far better than the rest. You mustn't sell it cheaply; it ought to be priced higher. I'll take it, but don't let Her Grace know I

rather embarrassed. My embroidery wasn't

it fell

such an awkward moment, I dared

only heard him ask, "Her Grace didn't come in today,

shop assistant cheerfully replied, "She did. She's in the back

coin pouch falling to the floor, followed by a long silence. After that came the clink of money being placed on the table and the

shop assistant stood stunned for a moment before muttering, "Why's he running off? No

sat in the back in a bit of a

and how she had persistently tried to arrange a match between Mr. Claude and I. Strangely, though I had always felt calm about