A Beautiful Mistress with Teeth

"My father gave me a knife to protect against Edinburgh's dark corners. He never thought to warn me about the dangers I might walk towards willingly, curtsey to politely, and call 'madam.'"

The last remnants of daylight were fading from the Edinburgh sky as I made my way through the winding streets of the Old Town. Dusk settled over the city like a velvet cloak, softening the hard edges of ancient buildings and church spires. The cobblestones beneath my feet, still slick from the morning's rain, reflected the warm glow of newly lit street lamps, and each puddle became a small mirror to another world—a world below, where light and shadow danced together in patterns I could not quite decipher.

Much like the secrets and truths that had begun to entwine in my understanding of Moira MacKenzie's establishment.

The air was heavy with the scent of damp stone and wood smoke, that particular Edinburgh perfume I had known all my life. Tonight, however, it seemed different—layered with new meaning. I was not the same girl who had walked these streets this morning, clutching her shawl against the chill and her hopes against her chest. Something had shifted. I carried knowledge now, fragments of understanding that changed the way I saw even these familiar passages.

As I navigated the narrow closes and wynds—pathways so constricted that in places I could stretch out my arms and touch the buildings on either side—I could not shake the feeling that I was being watched. The sensation crept along my spine like a cold finger, raising the fine hairs on the back of my neck. Every shadow seemed to hold a secret, every darkened doorway a potential threat, every window a pair of hidden eyes marking my passage.

I pulled my worn shawl tighter about my shoulders, though the woollen fabric offered little true protection against either the evening chill or my mounting unease. You're being fanciful, I chided myself. A day amongst secrets has made you see shadows where there are none.

And yet I could not quite convince myself.

The familiar sounds of the city enveloped me—carriages clattering over uneven streets, their iron-rimmed wheels striking sparks from the stone in the growing darkness; the murmur of conversation spilling from tavern doorways; the occasional cry of a street vendor hawking the last of their wares before retiring for the night. These were the sounds of my childhood, the rhythm against which my life had always been set.

Yet even these comforting noises could not dispel the sense of unease that clung to me. It was as if I had stepped from one world into another this morning, and in doing so, had altered my perception of both.

"Elspeth! Elspeth Stewart!"

I started at the sound of my name, my hand flying instinctively to my breast. But the voice that had called out was familiar—Mrs Callum, the fishwife who sold her husband's catch near the Mercat Cross. She stood in the doorway of her lodging, a basket of unsold herring still hanging from her arm, her weathered face creased with curiosity.

"Late for you to be out, is it not?" she asked, her sharp eyes taking in my attire—the good green dress, somewhat rumpled now from a day's labour, but still finer than what I usually wore. "Your mam will be worrying."

"I've taken a position, Mrs Callum." I made myself smile, though my face felt stiff with weariness. "At a dressmaker's. Today was my first day."

"A dressmaker's!" Her eyebrows rose towards her linen cap. "Well now. Moving up in the world, are we?" There was no malice in the words, merely the frank assessment of one who had known my family through better times and worse. "Your father would be proud, God rest him. He always said you had clever hands."

The mention of my father caught me off guard, a sudden tightness gripping my throat. "Thank you," I managed. "I hope to do well."

"Mind you get home safe, then. The streets are no place for a young lass after dark, position or no position." She nodded once, firmly, and retreated into her lodging, the door closing with a decisive thud.

I walked on, her words echoing in my ears. Your father would be proud. Would he? If he knew the nature of the establishment where I now worked—the secrets that passed through it like threads through a loom, the hidden pockets and coded messages, the dangerous knowledge that brushed so close to the city's corridors of power? Would he still be proud, or would he counsel me to flee whilst I still could?

I would never know. That was the cruelty of death—it robbed you not only of presence but of counsel, leaving you to navigate the difficult waters of life with nothing but memory as your compass.

A group of young men stumbled out of a nearby tavern, their laughter echoing off the close-set buildings. Their faces were flushed with ale, their fine coats and cravats marking them as students from the university or perhaps the sons of prosperous merchants. I quickened my pace, keeping my eyes fixed upon the ground, making myself small and unremarkable.

I felt their gazes following me, appraising me like merchandise at market. My skin crawled beneath my shawl. For a moment I feared they might accost me, their liquid courage overriding the restrictions that usually governed such encounters. But they merely continued on their way, their voices fading into the general din of the evening, leaving only the ghost of their attention clinging to me like an unwelcome touch.

I let out a breath I had not realised I was holding and pressed on.

Rounding a corner into yet another close—this one so narrow that the overhanging upper storeys nearly met above my head, cutting off all but a sliver of darkening sky—I nearly collided with a cloaked figure hurrying in the opposite direction. The impact was slight, merely the brush of fabric against fabric, yet it startled me so thoroughly that a small gasp escaped my lips.

"Forgive me," I said automatically, the words bred into me by years of my mother's gentle corrections.

But the stranger merely brushed past without acknowledgement, their face hidden beneath a deep hood that cast their features into impenetrable shadow. For a brief moment—fleeting as a shooting star—I caught a whiff of expensive perfume. Lavender and something else, something exotic I could not quite place. Ambergris, perhaps, or spices from the Orient.

The scent stopped me in my tracks.

I knew that fragrance. I had breathed it in only hours ago, lingering in the air of the Emporium after certain clients departed. It was the perfume of wealth and refinement, of drawing rooms where decisions affecting the lives of thousands were made over delicate china cups. Could this stranger be one of Moira's clients? Had our paths crossed by mere chance, or was there something more deliberate in this encounter?

I turned to look after the figure, but they had already vanished into the shadows of the close, swallowed by the gathering dark as completely as if they had never existed at all.

My heart was beating too quickly. I forced myself to breathe, to calm the racing of my pulse. Edinburgh is full of wealthy people, I reminded myself. Not every expensive perfume leads back to the Emporium. Not every shadow conceals a secret.

But the words rang hollow, even in the privacy of my own mind.

My thoughts kept returning to the events of the day, playing them over and over like a musician practising a difficult passage. The Emporium, with its façade of elegance and refinement, had revealed itself to be a place of layers and complexities I had never imagined. The way Moira had spoken of discretion, her storm-grey eyes flashing with unspoken warnings. The sharp, knowing looks exchanged between clients, carrying messages visible only to those who knew how to read them. Agnes's voice, low and urgent: Information is her real stock in trade. The dresses are just the wrapping paper.

And the folded paper, slipped into that hidden pocket with such practiced ease. The glimpse of numbers—or was it a cipher?—inked in an elegant hand.

What secrets could be so important that they needed to be concealed in the very fabric of a gown? What messages were being passed through the seemingly innocent medium of fashion? And who, beyond Lady Aberfoyle, was party to this clandestine correspondence?

So consumed was I by these questions that I failed to notice the loose cobblestone until my foot caught upon it. I pitched forward, arms flailing, and would have sprawled full-length upon the damp ground had I not caught myself against a nearby wall. My palm scraped against the rough stone with enough force to sting sharply, and I bit back a cry of pain.

The sudden hurt brought me back to the present with jarring clarity. I could not afford to be lost in thought, not here, not now. A serious injury could mean the loss of my position at the Emporium—a position my family desperately needed me to keep. The streets of Edinburgh could be treacherous after dark, and I had been wandering them with all the awareness of a sleepwalker.

I examined my palm in the dim light of a nearby street lamp. The skin was reddened and abraded, but not bleeding. Still, I would need to tend to it when I got home—it would not do to have rough hands when working with fine fabrics. Even a single snagged thread could ruin an expensive piece.

Chastened, I continued on with greater care, my eyes fixed upon the path before me.

I had nearly missed the turn that led to Advocate's Close, where my family made our home. It was only the familiar sight of the crooked lantern that hung at the entrance—its flame guttering slightly in the evening breeze, the iron bracket that held it rusted to the exact shade of dried blood—that alerted me to my location. The narrow passage was darker than the main street, the tall buildings on either side blocking out what little light remained in the sky. It stretched before me like a throat, swallowing the darkness.

I hesitated for a moment before plunging into the shadows, my hand going instinctively to the small knife I kept hidden in the folds of my skirt. It had been a gift from my father, given to me on my sixteenth birthday with a solemn warning about the dangers that lurked in the city's dark corners.

"Edinburgh is a beautiful mistress, my lass," he had told me, his calloused hands closing mine around the sheathed blade, "but she has teeth, and she is not above using them on the unwary."

The memory of his voice, so clear it might have been spoken only yesterday, brought a fresh ache to my chest. What would he think of me now, working at the Emporium, stepping into a world so far removed from the honest labour of his smithy? Would he see it as rising above our circumstances, or sinking into something he could not have countenanced?

I thought of the coin I would bring home at week's end. I thought of Violet's worn shoes, of Katrina's longing glances at books she could not afford, of Effie's carefully mended dresses that fooled no one. I thought of my mother's sleepless nights, the worry that had carved new lines into her face with each passing month.

Whatever the Emporium truly was, whatever secrets it harboured, it was also my family's best hope. Perhaps my father would understand that. Perhaps he would counsel caution and discretion rather than flight. Perhaps—

But I would never know. I could only guess at what he might have said, could only imagine his voice offering wisdom I could no longer hear.

The close opened before me, and there stood our building—smaller and humbler than the grand houses I had passed on my journey, but solid and familiar as my own heartbeat. Its stones, weathered by centuries of Scottish rain and wind, seemed to hold within them the memories of all who had sheltered there. The windows glowed with the soft light of candles and hearth fire, warm beacons against the encroaching night.

Home.

I approached the threshold and paused, my hand resting upon the worn wood of the door. The grain was smooth beneath my fingertips, marked with small indentations and irregularities that I knew as well as the lines of my own palm. This was where I had grown up, where my memories were rooted deep as the foundations of the city itself. Here, I had learned to walk, to talk, to sew my first careful stitches under my mother's patient guidance. Here, I had laughed and wept, dreamed and despaired.

But it was also a place that held reminders of loss—of my father, gone too soon, his presence still so palpable that sometimes I thought I caught glimpses of him in the corner of my eye, turning just in time to see empty space where his broad-shouldered figure should have been. The life we had once known, comfortable if not luxurious, had been stripped away by debt and death, leaving us clinging to what remained.

The weight of responsibility settled upon my shoulders, familiar as the shawl I wore. This was why I had sought out the position at the Emporium. This was why I would keep its secrets, learn its ways, navigate its dangers as carefully as I had navigated the dark streets tonight.

For them. For my mother, for Effie, for Katrina, for Violet. For the memory of my father and the future he would have wanted for us.

I took a deep breath of the cool evening air, tasting coal smoke and the distant salt of the Firth. Beyond this door lay warmth and family and the blessed ordinariness of home. Questions would be asked—How was your day? What is it like? Will they keep you on?—and I would answer them as best I could, offering truths where I was able and careful omissions where I was not.

Already, I was learning to divide myself. The Elspeth who crossed the Emporium's threshold each morning would carry secrets her family could never know. The Elspeth who returned home each evening would smile and reassure and pretend that nothing had changed.

Perhaps that was what Agnes had truly meant when she spoke of invisibility. Not just in the stitching, but in the living. The art of concealment, practised not upon fabric but upon oneself.

From within, I could hear movement—the scrape of a chair, the clatter of crockery, a high-pitched voice that could only be Violet's, asking something with her usual impatience. The sounds of my family, waiting for me without knowing all that I now carried.

I lifted the latch.