“Still, what an accomplishment.” She tried to keep the southern twang from her voice, having heard from Leon at the Livery that most northerners didn’t cotton to southerners. “Your mother must be…” she caught herself before saying “right proud” and corrected herself, “proud of you.”
The good humor on his face fled and he turned to examine another set of porcelain teacups. How could a body use so many teacups in one lifetime? And her aunt a widow woman.
“My mother has yet to find anything to be proud of in anyone besides herself.” Although he laughed, Theo’s voice held restrained bitterness.
“Oh my. I hope you’re not funning me.” She covered her mouth. She should have said another word. “Joking?”
He pressed a hand to his vest-covered chest. “I wish I were.”
“Hmmm, I’m not sure any of these teacups will please her, then.” Lilly picked up a pretty pale green and gold cup with tiny doves painted around the rim. “They’re old.”
“Old?” He laughed. “You mean antique.”
His back was to her, so she wasn’t sure if he was mocking her. Yes, the teacups were all old but she’d washed each and every one and dried them. Antique meant really old. Was he insulting her aunt’s collection as too old to be worthwhile? Mama nearly wept any time Pa had brought her something new. Would Theo’s mother want her son to buy an untouched teacup and saucer from the mercantile? Had he been sending the poor woman things that were secondhand?
He held a blue and white cup aloft and looked at the bottom. “Limoges,” he gasped. “And if I’m correct this is from the beginning of the 1800’s. My mother would be ecstatic over this.”
“You sure your Ma would want that, Theo—it’s nearly a hundred years old.” Her Kentucky twang could not be stifled.
He faced her, eyebrow raised. “Lilly?”
“You’re the fella from the mercantile. You rode home, sick, in my carriage.”
“Yes, I’m Theodore Reynolds, but everyone calls me Theo.” He set the teacup down. “And your name?”
“Lilly Smith.”
“Lilly of the chamomile tea.” The silky way he said it, was like the way a poet read verses. A thrill shot through Lilly.
“Did it help?” Her own voice sounded husky.
“Yes.” He met and held her gaze. A question seemed to linger there.
“I’m glad.” She averted her gaze. She shouldn’t be staring at the handsome man like that. She didn’t even know him.
“Do you serve it here?”
Serve it? What a way to put it. Serve tea? “I make it up now and again.”
He slowly shook his head and then scanned her briefly from head to toe. “All I could see of you the other day were your old boots—which I see you’re not wearing today—and your beautiful hair.”
He’d called her unruly mop of curls beautiful. Lilly beamed.
His face turned crimson. “I mean, that is, my vision was so obscured from my migraine that was all I could see.” If anything, Theo’s face reddened further.
Lilly frowned and patted her chignon. “It’s easier to work with my hair secured up.”
“Yes, well, I can imagine so.” He picked the teacup up again. “How much is it for this one?”
“How much?” Lilly blinked.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out some cash.
How embarrassing. Yes, she’d wondered what to do with her aunt’s goods but she’d not yet considered selling things off. She’d have to pray about that. Still, with Aunt Lillian’s stipulation that none of the bank money’s initial withdrawal could be used for anyone but herself, Lilly had wondered how she’d get her sisters up north. Church ladies had stopped the previous night and asked for donations and all Lilly had been able to give them was a dime, not sure if donations would go against her aunt’s wishes.
Theo cocked his head at her.
She swallowed. She wasn’t used to taking money from anyone. But it wouldn’t be for her. Rubbing her arms, she nodded toward a crystal bowl on the center table. “You can put it in there. Take the saucer, too.”
“Do you have any bags?”
“Bags?” Why would she? She’d brought only the one carpetbag on her trip.
He waited. “To put them in?”
“Oh! Let me get a little box.” She went inside and grabbed one of the many boxes she’d found stacked in a corner. With her handkerchief, she wiped dust from one, on all sides before returning outside.
When she handed him the fancy peach and yellow swirled box, a smile tugged at his lips. “How clever, using a box just like those used at Roquefort’s in Detroit.”
While traveling on the train, Lilly had heard a matron mention Roquefort’s to her daughter as “the place” to register for wedding china. She didn’t know how to reply to Theo’s comment, as she’d never seen a box from the place. She certainly didn’t feel clever, as the handsome man suggested. “I just hope your Mama likes it.”
The lilac bushes, along Theo’s walk home, leant their heady fragrance as though congratulating him on his good luck. He clutched the fancy box to his chest, tempted to throw his straw boater overhead in celebration. Lilly hadn’t departed town. And she ran a tea shop. Which gave him every excuse to return to her establishment frequently. Would tomorrow be too soon?
Soon he neared the rooming house. Mrs. Elsner sat in a chair on the front lawn, watching the street. She gestured for him to sit beside him. “What’s got you looking like the Cheshire cat?”
He thrust out the pastel box.
“What’s this?”
“An antique teacup and saucer that even my mother can’t deny are beautiful.” Almost as lovely as the teashop owner.
Mrs. Elsner gingerly opened the box and held up the cup. She drew in a sharp breath. “It’s fantastic.”
“Nearly a hundred years old, too.”
Her eyes grew wide. “Ya don’t say.”
“Yes, ma’am, if I remember correctly. My grandmother had some like this at her home.”
“Doesn’t your mother have them now?”
He stifled a snort of derision. His mother’s obsession with tea sets had begun when her mother had stipulated in her will that all of her collection of teacups and teapots and the like were to be donated to the local Daughters of the American Revolution chapter to which she belonged. Mother had been furious for weeks. That anger transformed into a cold chill. Then began the demands that her son and daughters find her the most beautiful teacups they could, for any special holiday.
“Where did you buy this?”
“The Tea Shoppe on Portage.”
“Nice place but I didn’t know they carried anything of this quality.” Mrs. Elsner frowned. “And I didn’t think they were exactly on Portage. . .”
“Almost at the end of the street.” Theo rubbed his chin. There had been no sign, but perhaps Lilly had removed it while cleaning. “I think she was clearing out stock that had been in the attic or some such thing.”
“Maybe she’d been holding back some of the better stuff for summer. Vacationers should arrive soon and they’ll pay better than locals will.”
“I’m going back tomorrow.”
“Why?”
To see a brown-eyed beauty. “I want to make sure I look through all of their items, in case Mother doesn’t care for this one.”
She sighed. “Good idea.”
“I’ll never tell that Canadian proprietor what she said, either.” Theo and Mrs. Elsner had gone to the twin city of Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario to an expensive shop she’d heard about.
His landlady laughed. “I should have sent you to the Tea Shoppe first.”
The faint scent of roast beef carried on the breeze. “Dinner smells good.”
“Oh my.” The sweet-faced lady rose. “I best get that out of the oven.
Theo went inside, allowing himself a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dark interior. He grabbed an oil lamp from a stand and went up the dim stairwell and to his room. This place
was so unlike his home outside of Detroit. The descendant of wealthy French merchants, who’d left France after Napoleon’s downfall, Theo had been taught to work hard. And from his father’s side, American investors with a penchant for gambling on high risk investments and winning, until recently, he’d learned that everything came at a cost. Wouldn’t Father be shocked to see Theo brushing off his own suitcoat?
He poured water from the chipped enamel pitcher into the shallow basin. Then he grabbed a cloth, dipped it in the water and then ran it over a bar of the English Lifebuoy soap that Mother claimed had health benefits. After washing up with the carbolic soap, which smelled of coal tar, he patted on some cologne. Then Theo headed down to join the other boarders for dinner. Afterwards, one of the brothers suggested a game of cards while Mrs. Elsner played the piano in the parlor. And for the first time, in all the time he’d been living there, inexplicable loneliness washed over him. And a longing to be spending his evening with Lilly.
Chapter 3
“Theodore? Did you hear the numbers I quoted?” Mr. Dickerson drew in a deep inhalation on his pipe—a sign he was annoyed. Then the supervisor puffed smoke rings up to the paneled ceiling. The golden oak finish appeared grayish above the man’s usual seat, stained by his habit.
“I was thinking about. . .” While Theo’s mind was normally occupied by numbers and charts, the image of Lilly’s sweet face was the only thing he’d contemplated all morning.
The youngest engineer, Franz Klassen, steepled his fingers together. “He’s distracted by something.”
“Or someone.” George Rush winked. “Someone from the Tea Shoppe?”
Their superior waggled his eyebrows. “Enough of that, let’s pay attention to why or why not this system will work with these changes.”
The four men bent over the diagram that stretched out on the rectangular work table. After much debate, and Theo rubbing his stiff neck, they’d reached a consensus. It wouldn’t work.
“Back to rework the calculations.” Klassen sighed. Being the latest hire, he usually was tasked to redo the numbers.
Theo drew in a deep breath and inhaled. As he returned to his desk, he withdrew his pocket watch from his vest. The deer’s head, engraved into the gold piece, reminded him of the trips he and Father had made together. They’d hunt not far from where Theo now worked. Those trips had given him a love of the north woods.
“Coffee?” The coffee girl walked by with a tray loaded with German pastries, from her nearby shop.
“Wish you’d bring us tea.” As soon as the words left his lips, Theo regretted his grumbling. “Sorry, it doesn’t make sense to do that.”
The tiny blonde flicked her long braid over her shoulder. “Did you ever find that strong English brew you wanted?”
“No.” Did Lilly carry it?
“I’ll get my mother to order some through the store.” Married, with three children, the woman wasn’t much older than Theo.
“Thank you.”
“Try the strudel. I made it this morning.” Her blue eyes widened. “My kinder love it.”
“I’m sure I will, too. Thank you.”
He followed her to the staff room. A small bouquet of garden roses sat surrounded by all manner of pastries. “Those flowers are pretty.”
“Thank you. I picked them from our garden. Our early roses.”
Mother would have turned up her nose at the casual arrangement of the lilacs and roses. Only hothouse flowers, professionally arranged would do for her.
George joined him and grabbed up a Danish dotted with cream cheese. “I say we test the system soon before we go any further with those calculations.”
A test? They performed them often enough.
“Good thing my wife didn’t perform any system stress tests on me before we married.” George tugged on his lapel, plucked a single rose blossom from the arrangement and pushed it through, patting it. “I’d not have passed the test, yet here we are fifteen years later.”
Franz guffawed. “If you can manage two sets of twins and three more children during that time, I’d say you’ve passed the fatherhood stress test!”
Lilly wasn’t a hothouse flower type. Was she? Maybe his landlady would help him put his question to the test. He grinned, imaging his hoped-for reaction.
After work, and fetching a bouquet from the rooming house’s backyard garden, with Mrs. Elsner’s permission, Theo strode off to the tea shop. What would her reaction be?
As he approached, he spied her sweeping the front porch, curls drooping around her pretty face, the rest of her hair wrapped in some kind of scarf. She’d scare off customers if she waited on them attired in the tattered dress she wore and appearing so disheveled. Despite her attire, though, her loveliness shone through.
“Lilly?” He held out the bouquet as he approached.
Lilly pressed a hand to her cheek. Perspiration glinted on her forehead as she set the broom aside. A minute passed before she took the flowers. She stared at them, a perplexed expression on her face.
He’d failed. She didn’t like them and didn’t know what to say. “They’re from my landlady’s garden.”
Puffing out a breath, Lilly sank into a nearby chair. A different array of teacups and saucers were neatly arranged on the table beside her. “Well, I never. . .”
Lilly pressed a hand to her chest. Was a man—this man—actually bringing her flowers? She gestured to the chair on the other side of the small table, covered by that day’s assortment of teacups.
Theo’s grin faltered. “I thought these would look nice on one of your tables.”
“Thank you.” She inhaled the flower’s fragrance and smiled. What was one supposed to say when receiving flowers? Thank you didn’t seem enough.
“Do you have a vase?” He remained standing, looking down at her.
Should she stand back up? No, if she did, she might collapse. She was too exhausted to look through any more of Aunt Lillian’s overstuffed closets to find a vase, although it seemed she’d seen one somewhere.
He glanced around. “Maybe putting some flowers in vases out here would draw more customers.”
“Customers?”
“For your wares.” He cocked his head to the side in such an adorable manner that she couldn’t correct him.
“Ah, well, you’re my only so-called customer.” She chuckled. What a strange sense of humor this man had.
His forehead crinkled. “Busy earlier?”
“I’m slap wore out, if you want the truth.” She blew out a puff of air, causing a stray curl on her forehead to bob.
“Why not let me help?”
Lilly pulled a rose from the bouquet. “Why don’t we cut these and fill the cups with water?”
“That’s an idea. Where is your aunt’s shed? I’ll go get some snips.”
“It’s in the back.” Lilly lifted a lilac to her nose and inhaled. “They smell so lovely.”
Theo grinned down at her before he scrambled down the steps, and around the side of the house like one of her young cousins might, back home.
Lilly felt in her apron for the letter from home. Even though Mama was feeling better, she wanted the eldest of Lilly’s younger sisters to come up North with her. Would Daisy and Iris mind her? Was Mama truly well now that the specialist had seen her?
Her cousin Garrett and his wife and children would be coming to visit soon. They would take many of Aunt Lillian’s collection over to Mackinac Island for their tea shop. How funny that Theo seemed to think this house was a shop. No sense disappointing the handsome young man. She rose and went inside to start the tea kettle.
She entered the house, cool and dim. She got the stove going and pumped water into the kettle before setting it back on the fancy new stove from Detroit. Aunt Lillian had written of it in her letters to Mama, but Lilly had never seen anything like it in her life and it had taken a bit of time to get accustomed to it.
“Lilly?” Theo rapped on the screen door frame. “I couldn’t find the cutters.”
She went back to the front and opened the door. “Come on back. I have kitchen scissors that should do and I know I saw a vase somewhere.”
Sunlight streamed through the large side windows in the foyer as she led him through, to the kitchen. She dare not open the cabinets on the right, which were crammed with teapots and teacups. Instead she went to the left side, which she’d already organized. “Hand me the stepladder, please.”
Theo opened it and set the stepladder beneath the tall cabinets. “I see it up there. Let me get it.”
Soon he’d retrieved a creamy milkware vase painted with roses and camellias. He glanced around the large room. “Did she serve in her parlor, in the winter?”
Was he hinting at wanting dinner? “I’m not sure, but probably so.”
He returned the stepstool to its place. His stomach growled.
Lilly couldn’t repress her laugh. “Would you like to stay for supper? It’s almost time.”
In the parlor, the grandfather clock chimed, as if in agreement.
“How about some fried chicken?”
“Fried chicken?” His face screwed up, as if in confusion.
“Well, I’d have greens, taters and gravy, and I’ve already got biscuits made—so you won’t go hungry.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Sounds lovely.”
“It’ll take a while.” She was so excited about what awaited in her icebox. “But I have to tell you something I am so thrilled about.”
“What’s that?”
“I didn’t have to pluck the chicken nor did I have to cut off the darned thing’s head!”
Theo felt his eyebrows must have launched clear up to his hairline. Having grown up in a household where the closest he’d gotten to a chicken was at dinner, dressed for the occasion, and cook and the servants having prepared it. “I’m so happy for you.” What else could he say?
Lilly beamed at him. “I thought you might be. You seem to be such a nice down-to-earth fellow.”
Tea Shop Folly Page 3
