“If you don’t mind standing here a minute I’ll ring up the boutique. Just to make sure someone is in.”
Heather waited as he talked to someone called Belinda, and she tried, not very successfully, to avoid staring at him. She’d met men who were arguably better-looking than Daniel, but they were never as interesting or nice or funny. And his eyes. It was hard to think straight when he was looking at her with those silver-blue eyes.
“There. That’s sorted,” he finally said. “The boutique manager is in and we can wander around upstairs as much as we like. You don’t mind walking there, do you? It’s not very far.”
“I don’t mind at all.”
The streets were narrow, with equally modest sidewalks, and again and again Heather found herself brushing against Daniel’s side as she tried to avoid other pedestrians. He didn’t seem to object, and at one point, when she was about to step off the curb into oncoming traffic, he swiftly reached across her back and took hold of her in a sort of sideways hug.
“Not just yet,” he cautioned. “What would I tell Mimi if I let you get run down?”
Once the way was clear he let his arm fall away, but the echo of his touch lingered, and she couldn’t be sure if she welcomed or deplored the current of sensation that continued to hum so distractingly just under her skin.
He kept the conversation going as they walked, at first by recounting some of the history of Soho and its surrounding neighborhoods, and then by asking her about her flight and the hotel on Frith Street. And then, though she’d have happily kept walking for another hour, they were turning onto the ungainly assortment of old and new buildings that was Bruton Street. When they were about halfway along the block, Daniel stopped and motioned for her to look up. Just opposite, at number 26, was the main entrance for Hartnell. It was a grand sort of art deco affair, faced with dark green stone that looked a bit like marble, and both above the entrance and high on the white-painted fa?ade the designer’s surname was displayed in large capital letters.
“Where do we go in?” Heather asked, seeing how the main floor of the building was taken up by an antiques dealer. Hadn’t Daniel said something about a boutique?
“One door along. Their offices stretch between the two buildings.”
A tall, thin, and alarmingly chic young woman was waiting by the door of the boutique as they entered. The fair Belinda, Heather supposed, and wasn’t at all surprised when Daniel was greeted as if he’d been dipped in chocolate.
“Thanks for letting me prevail upon you again, Belinda. This is my friend Heather Mackenzie. Turns out her grandmother also worked at Hartnell.”
“How super. Well, you’ve come on a good day. Nearly everyone upstairs is on holiday, so you’ve got the place to yourselves. You know the way, right?”
“That I do. Thanks again.”
With Heather trailing behind, Daniel set off up the stairs, along a long hallway, and into a sunny room with tall windows and improbably high ceilings. The walls and much of the trim were painted in a pretty sort of grayish green, there were mirrors hanging everywhere, and several enormous crystal chandeliers further illuminated the space.
“This was one of the salesrooms,” Daniel explained. “Rather a miracle that it survived, when you think of it. So many of these buildings were stripped bare in the seventies and eighties.”
“It stayed this way the whole time Mr. Hartnell was a designer?”
“It must have done. Mimi remembers that everything seemed to glitter. It reminded her of Versailles, she says.”
“And what about the workrooms? I can’t imagine they had chandeliers hanging from their ceilings.”
“You’re right about that. Let me show you—they’re tucked away at the back.” Heather followed him through a part of the building that had definitely not been restored, for its decor, in contrast, was little more than peeling paint and dust-laden cobwebs. Along a narrow corridor, up and down several short flights of stairs, until finally they stood before a battered metal door.
Daniel hauled it open and ushered her through. “This is it.”
They were on a landing. A rickety run of steps led down to the workroom floor, which was largely obscured by stacks of folding tables and chairs and a hodgepodge of boxes. The far wall was nearly all windows, though they were so dusty they didn’t let in much light. In spite of the changes, Heather recognized it as the room where Nan and Miriam had posed for the picture as they waited for the queen.