Read The Watchmaker's Daughter (Glass and Steele Book 1) for Free Online

Steele's—I mean, Hardacre's—does."
    "Your father is an honorable man."
    She placed her hand over mine on my lap and gave me a sympathetic smile. "I'm glad you still think so. I know it wasn't easy to forgive him after the guild made their decision, but he had to go along with the majority."
    "I don't blame him."
    I must have sounded convincing because she seemed to believe me. The truth was, I did blame Mr. Mason for not standing up to them. Father had said he'd sat quietly and not said a word during the meeting among the senior guild members at which my application for membership had been tabled. A mere week before that, Mr. Mason had urged me to apply. The about-face baffled me. The relationship between our two families had never been quite the same again, although my friendship with Catherine remained unchanged, thank goodness. I knew so few other women of similar age that the loss of her friendship would have been worse than my broken engagement to Eddie.
    "Tell me about your new position," Catherine said. "Does it involve watches?"
    "In a way."
    "Good. You've got a knack for fine repair work, so Father says. He was quite impressed by how quickly you learned everything. He used to hold you up as an example of why women ought to be allowed to perform men's work if they chose." She screwed up her nose. "Sorry, India, but I am glad he stopped all that. I began to feel quite inadequate next to your perfection."
    "I'm hardly perfect," I scoffed.
    "Father has always appreciated brains over beauty." She patted her bouncy blonde curls. "Some men do, you know," she added, as if such men were a rarity.
    "Most prefer a little of both," I said, laughing, "but not too much of either."
    She broke into giggles again.
    "We'd be quite the combination if we were one person," I said, still smiling. "With your looks and my watchmaking skills, we'd have all the gentlemen for miles around purchasing our watches."
    "Stop putting yourself down like that, India." She nudged my elbow. "You're pretty. I don't know why you think you're not."
    "Because next to you, I'm not."
    "Bollocks." She giggled at the crass word. "That Eddie Hardacre has a lot to answer for, always putting you down the way he did. I don't know what you saw in him."
    "Nor do I," I said on a sigh. "I suppose it was because he was the first man to pay me much attention and the first to ask me to marry him."
    "He was only the first because you intimidate most other men."
    "I do not!"
    "You do. Ask Ronnie and Gareth. You frighten them to death."
    "That's because I don't fall at their feet and run hither and thither to please them like other girls."
    "That and your quick tongue. They think you're going to tease them."
    I rolled my eyes, but her words were quite a shock. Did men truly find me intimidating? All men, or just pretty brainless twits like her younger brothers?
    "Where's the shop located?" she asked. At my blank look, she added, "The shop where you'll be working?"
    "It's not a shop. It's a short-term commission to help a gentleman find a certain watchmaker he met some years ago. I know it sounds odd," I said when she blinked back at me. "But the gentleman seems very nice and he's paying well. The work won't be much, and I can continue to make inquiries for further employment while I'm driven to every watchmaker in the city."
    "See what I mean. I would never have thought of that. How clever of you. Soooo…" She nudged me again. "Is this gentleman handsome?"
    "Very. He's also amiable and wealthy. We had tea at Brown's."
    She gasped. "Then you must wear something prettier than that old dress." She jumped up and opened the drawer where she kept her gowns.
    "Catherine, I won't fit into any of your clothes."
    "Oh." She closed the drawer and regarded me with a critical eye. "Then we'll do something with your hair. I've been wanting to modernize your style for some time."
    I sighed and succumbed to her ministrations. She plucked out the pins and ran her hands through the