Her Every Wish Read Online Free PDF Page B

asked.
    â€œIt prospers.” Daisy gave her friend as confident a smile as she could muster. “In fact, I’ve been awarded additional compensation for my valiant efforts. We’re positively flush.”
    Not a lie. Five pence more a week—it had gone a long way. She and her mother were actually saving money in winter now, not bleeding it slowly away in coal bills.
    Judith smiled, as Daisy had known she would.
    The sad thing was, their friendship was already over. Judith just didn’t know it yet. There was the literal distance between them—four miles, difficult for Daisy to manage on her own unless Judith sent a carriage, as she’d done today.
    There was the way the maid’s eyes cut toward Daisy as she placed the tea on the table, as if Daisy were a bit of refuse that she longed to sweep from the room. There was the fact that Daisy suspected Judith’s servants earned more in a week than the owner of the flower shop bestowed on Daisy. Daisy would have been lucky to scrub floors for her friend.
    â€œTell me all the gossip,” Judith said. “I don’t want to miss a single story.”
    Daisy went through all their former mutual acquaintances: Fred Lotting and his wife, Mr. Padge, Daisy’s mother… She talked of everyone but herself.
    Daisy was lying, she realized as they spoke and laughed. They were still friends. They still had those years of poverty binding them together. Judith had been her support, the shoulder she cried on when everything went wrong. In turn, she’d held her friend through every reversal.
    They were friends still, fragile though that friendship was. Their hours together felt like spider silk—ready to dissipate with one good sweep of a servant’s broom. One day it would break. One day. Still, it held. Spider webs tended to remain in place if you held your breath when you were close.
    Daisy was trying not to breathe.
    â€œIs there anything else?” Judith asked.
    Daisy almost told Judith what she’d done about the charity bequest. She almost told her of entering the competition, of the grocer mocking her because she wasn’t a man.
    She didn’t, though.
    Daisy’s Emporium was a dream that was as unattainable and unrealistic as gold leaf on radishes. Deep down, Daisy knew it would never come to pass. Dreaming was one thing. Entering a competition she couldn’t win? That was a little worse.
    Telling her friend about it? That would make this serious. Real. Judith would want to hear the details. She might even offer to help. And if she did…
    Daisy would end up another one of Judith’s servants, running a storefront for her. And if the store failed the way her father’s store had…?
    She did her best not to breathe on the attenuating cobwebs of their friendship.
    â€œNo,” Daisy said instead. “That’s all there is. All this about me, and we’ve scarcely spoken of you. How are you? How are the terrors?”
    The terrors were Judith’s younger brother and sister.
    Judith laughed. “I’m well, as you can see.” She gestured around the room. “Theresa’s being fitted for dresses at this very moment. Imagine her in silks, if you will.”
    Daisy couldn’t imagine that sort of transformation. Judith’s younger sister was a hellion at the best of times. She’d rip a silk gown in a minute flat. She’d smear grease on the skirts.
    But of course, the cost of repair would no longer matter to her friend. And who knew how a deportment teacher might have changed the girl she’d known just a few months ago?
    â€œWe’re well,” Judith said. “Very well, and I’m glad to see you. I miss you. A few stolen hours here and there are hardly enough.”
    â€œI miss you, too.” A few hours was all Daisy had. “But I need to go back to my mother.”
    â€œI know, dear.” Judith patted her hand. “Is there anything you