The Apprentice Girl // Book 3 in the Rosie Grey series

Chapter One

I tried not to think about the Ealing's or my life in service since leaving the household just a month prior. James had taken me to a different Doctor when my knee played up and none of us even discussed the past six months. It had been easier to pretend none of it had happened then to face up to what I refused to admit to myself.

We reached the shop with a few minutes to spare before usual opening times so whilst James pottered around the small back room making tea to warm us up, I took a seat on the sofa and went through the paperwork that had been left out the night before. My time working with Doctor Ealing and at his office had taught me enough about paperwork and how to keep track of it. When James had finally agreed to allow me to re-organise his shop, I had been able to put that skill to good use. A month later and the shop had almost been finished, though James still protested as he had never been partial to a clean workspace. It caused him more difficulty then a messy one ever did.

"Anything important in that pile or is it just scribbles?" James asked, placing the tray of tea onto the coffee table.

"Mostly scribbles and an order form for some buttons that I need you to sign," I said.

"Remind me later and I'll sign it. What with Christmas around the corner, I doubt we'll get far without buttons. All of the dinner jackets that will need mending or made for the celebrations, we'll need a bucket load."

"We'll be better off with a carriage-full," Kitty added as she took her cup from the tray.

"I doubt I'll go that far, but I'll get enough in to see us through to the New Year and then we can bulk order whatever we need when the festive period is over."

"What would I ever do without you?" He asked. He reached down and grabbed one of the cups on the table, blowing on it slightly to try and cool it down before he drank it.

"Nothing, probably."

James glared at me, but I could see the trace of a smile on his lips as I reached down and grabbed my own cup from the tray and taking a sip. I cringed slightly at the state, still not a big fan of the liquid within. James made tea for us when we arrived on the colder mornings, but no amount of drinking it would help it to taste any better. The only thing I had found myself partial to since leaving the factory was drinking chocolate. At the Ealing's, it had been a luxury we were not often allowed to partake in and although I had been allowed it more frequently since moving in with James, he would never allow me to drink it at the shop as it often put me to sleep.

Still, I took small sips from the tea as James flicked through the pile of scribbling to see if he could find something salvageable. He hated anyone throwing anything away since he had a belief that everything would have a purpose in the end, even faint lines drawn across a sheet of paper. Although some of it looked as though he had simply closed his eyes and dragged the pencil over the paper, he had still managed to create dress designs of dinner jacket sketches from them. Often, they were left in a pile on the sofa that just made the entire shop look untidy. It took me a week to convince him to put them elsewhere and we ended up having to compromise. He could keep his office however he pleased if I had full reign over the rest of the shop.

Whilst I drained my cup, James had already finished his and had set about opening the shop for the working day. He pulled open the curtains and exposed the sunlight which streamed through the window and lit up the entire shop. He then twisted the sign on the door to tell the whole of London that we were open and ready for business. Kitty had also finished her tea and had grabbed a dusting cloth from a side table to begin dusting off the shelves and making the shop floor look cleaner. She had been on board with my ideas to reorganise the shop since I had first proposed them, and I doubted it would have happened at all had she not managed to convince James that it needed doing.