The Bride Ran, So I Wore Her Crown and Married the Valley's Don novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: The Hem

Garo's wife sent the wedding gown back to my shop in a garment bag on Tuesday, with a card that said only: Clean and repair.

I took it out of the bag on my cutting table, the same lace and satin I had walked up the aisle in.

My mother's shop smelled the way it always had, of steam and starch.

Nobody had come in all morning except an old customer for a button, who paid without looking at me and left.

I let the hem down to repair the lace where Seta had stepped on it.

Halfway around, my thumb caught on a seam I had not sewn.

It was a short row of tiny stitches, pulled tight, in a lining that I had hemmed myself with my own thread.

I took my seam ripper to it.

A square of paper folded to the size of a stamp fell out into my hand.

It was Seta's handwriting, in pencil.

Papa sent me to look at his left hand. I saw it once at the engagement dinner when he reached for the salt. The glove bent at every knuckle. It is not what Papa thinks. I couldn't be the one to say it. Forgive me, Talin.

I read it three times.

Then I sat down on the stool with my hands in my lap.

The Valley said he had lost two fingers to the flood.

A glove with two fingers gone would hang empty, and it would not bend.

I had been married to him for ten days, and I had had him in my bed twice, and I had never once put my eyes on that hand.

That night I found him in his study with the lamp on and a ledger open on the desk.

I laid Seta's note on the page in front of him.

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