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coronet to tickle her cheek, but she ignored the irritation and kept pushing the two pieces of rose taffeta forward, ever gauging the evenness and tightness of the stitches. Abigail cawed like a disgruntled crow when she found a flaw. At present, the tempting fragrance of toasted bread and hot tea drifted from the old hag’s living quarters, irrefutable testimony that the woman loafed behind the closed door, indulging in afternoon treats instead of working.
    Brianna knew it was wrong to have hateful thoughts, but since leaving Charles Ricker’s employ two months ago, she’d come to detest Abigail. The lady was mean-spiritedand miserly, never offering to share the bounty from her kitchen, not even with a child. She also had a propensity for hogging the glory. The shrew presented all finished gowns to her customers and took credit for their innovative design. Oh, how Brianna yearned to speak up and claim the creations as her own, but the fangs of hunger, always threatening to slash at her daughter’s belly, kept her silent. She needed this job. The paltry sum she received each week, along with what she made at the restaurant and doing odd jobs, paid their rent and usually, though not always, provided sufficient food for Daphne. For now, that had to be Brianna’s only focus.
    Nevertheless, she dreamed as she worked of owning her own dress shop. The display windows would sport the very latest in fashion and the finest quality available. Wealthy women would pay dearly to purchase Brianna Paxton originals. They would, oh, yes, they would, and Brianna’s coffers would overflow with the profits, putting an end to this hand-to-mouth existence.
    To Brianna, sewing was similar to a waltz, her partner a machine. She followed its lead, aware of every hitch in its gait. Even when pain stabbed like knives beneath her shoulder blades from sitting hunched over, she was grateful for her talent with a needle, for that alone would one day free her and Daphne from the clutches of poverty.
    Brianna often sent up prayers for the nuns at the Boston orphanage where she’d lived as a child. They had been wise to teach her a trade. Without this job to supplement her other income, she and her child would be out on the street, begging for handouts from the citizens of Glory Ridge, who were hard put to take care of themselves. As it was, Brianna occasionally had to snatch hunks of bread and cheese from the restaurant kitchen she cleaned every night and was sometimes left with no choice but to forage in trash barrels for food.
    It shamed her, that. Her Irish pride burned hot every time she thought of it. Fortunately, she’d been blessed with a goodly amount of stubbornness, which stood her in good stead when circumstances drove her to do things that wentagainst her grain and humiliated her. She’d heard people say that the end justified the means. In Brianna’s case, the end, keeping Daphne nourished, justified the depths to which she sometimes sank. Until their circumstances improved, there was no room in her life for a fierce sense of dignity. That was a facet of her nature she had to bury deep within herself. Daphne had to eat, and the child had no one in the world but Brianna.
    Brianna sometimes wondered from which of her parents she had inherited her strong personality. They’d both been Irish, according to the nuns, and apparently impoverished, because they’d left their infant daughters on the orphanage doorstep with only a note to provide the good sisters with their first and last names. Other than that, Brianna knew nothing about her sire or dam. Her identical twin, Moira, had been humble and malleable of nature, giving Brianna reason to believe that one of their parents had been iron willed and the other possibly complaisant.
    Or perhaps life itself had molded Brianna into the willful person she’d become. Growing up in an orphanage had made her feel unimportant. She’d been one of a flock, like the offspring of a brood hen that had