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"He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer." —Exodus 35:35:
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THE BARONESS was finally in the house of Montgomery. The day after a beautiful woman purchased all of their products, their life started to sail smoothly. Little by little, they were able to pay off their debts. But the grace of the duchy for them didn't end there. One day after the purchased clothes were sent to the Montgomery house, someone suddenly showed up in front of their store and told her that their mountains of debts were all already paid. Not only that, the man even inquired on how his master could be able to buy the whole store.
The baroness was too surprised at that time and wasn't able to make a decision. Maybe the man knew about her dilemma so instead of pushing it further, he told her to visit the Montgomery house once she finally made her decision.
It took her a lot of days thinking about whether she would sell the shop or not. Though she had a lot of special memories in the place, she had to be rational in thinking. It had a lot of memories, but so what? In the end, she wasn't able to produce enough money out of it that could support her family. Who cared about the memories if her daughter was starving?
So, because she was finally able to come up with a conclusion, she traveled all the way from her small shop and went to the Montgomery house, trembling in so much anxiety.
"Hello, Baroness Leticia. I believe we've met before. I am Penelope Lantana Montgomery of House Montgomery," an angel-like familiar voice resonated in the living room which made the baroness stand up and find where it came from.
Then, when she looked up, she was met with the same gorgeous face that she had seen before.
"I greet the Princess of Montgomery," the woman said as she bowed her head which startled Lantana a little.
"No, no, no. You don't have to be so formal. You came here as my prospective business partner. Please be at ease," Lantana said to the baroness, which confused the latter.
"Business partner… I thought you wanted to acquire the boutique?" the baroness said, confused.
"I do, but that's not the only reason I wanted you to come. Anyway, let's stop talking about this for now. Let's talk about it at my study," the lady said to her before the lady turned.
"Emily, please bring pastries and tea to my study room. And Siegrain, please summon the head butler to my study and guard the door afterwards," Lantana said to the people behind her that the baroness didn't even notice.
"So, shall we go, baroness? I'll lead you there," the lady said to her as she gave her a bright smile.
Then, when they were finally inside the study—her, the lady and the man who inquired about their store—the baroness's anxiety resurfaced and doubled. However, it was immediately toned down as soon as Lantana spoke.
"Baroness, I'm not a great business person so I would like to go straight to the point of this meeting, is it okay?" the lady said to her.
Startled, she unconsciously uttered, "Oh?"
"I mean, it's alright!" the baroness immediately said as soon as she realized that she voiced out her surprise.
Lantana smiled widely. It looked like she wasn't the only one who was nervous.
"Then, I'll start. There are two reasons why I wanted you here. First, as you know from our butler, I want to buy your store because I like the way the clothes were made. They were nothing like the usual bone-breaker corsets. Second, I want to hire you as our head seamstress," Lantana said with a serious look on her face.
"Head seamstress?" confused, the baroness uttered.
"Yes! Because I like the way you make clothes, that's why. We will pay you what you deserve for your hard work so you don't have to worry about anything—especially on how to support your family. You can just focus on making clothes and training newly selected seamstresses. And oh! As you can see, I'm not good at business so our butler here will be the one who will manage the store for me," the lady added with an awkward smile on her lips.
After that, the room fell into silence for a while before Lantana's eyes widened in disbelief as she almost forgot to mention one of the things she wanted to acquire.
"I almost forgot, all of the designs which were originally made by you, I want to buy the rights to them too and sell them in the future. We'll definitely pay separately for each design and apply for patent rights too, together with the designs that I will be making. In fact, I've drawn a few sketches before you came and if you would like, you may check them out," Lantana said as she gestured to Emily to hand her sketches.
Truth to be told, Lantana was a little skeptical about her dress designing plan before because she thought that her drawing ability might suddenly make the others suspicious of her. However, her worries were useless as Penelope was surprisingly knowledgeable in arts and music, the fields where Lantana actually excelled in the past due to the complexity of her night job where she had to be good in everything.
Lantana learned about Penelope's talent through the latter's old belongings before some memories of the deceased's sketching and playing a few musical instruments flashed in her mind.
She saw a few old sketch pads, some faded watercolor, and cutesy colorful pencils hidden underneath the deceased's cabinet together with a cute photo where the young girl was playing a piano happily while sitting at the lap of a woman who wasn't looking directly at the camera.
She knew who it was though she didn't personally know her. But she didn't care that much as she was more curious about the sketches. And lo and behold! The sketch pad was full of prettily captured nature.
Lantana was in awe all throughout the time that she was checking the pages, not until the paper was flipped in the last page. There, a red cross made from watercolor was painted. Written in small letters at the end were words that infuriated Lantana so badly at that time to the point where she wanted to run towards the houses of those people, skin them alive and make them suffer.
"I really liked playing the piano because somehow I felt connected to my mother whom I couldn't even remember. I especially liked sketching and painting because somehow by doing that, I feel like my soul is being one with it that makes me able to breathe for a while. But my fiance told me today that I wasn't good at either of them and that I should stop now and focus only on losing weight, being beautiful and being a good wife like my friend, Mistica. I wish I was more confident about them because I really don't want to let them go. But Lord Hubert got angry at me. I love him so much so I guess this is the end of this."
After reading that note, Lantana's resentment towards the cheating couple multiplied a hundred times.
Then, realizing she was still in an important meeting, Lantana shrugged off her memory of that time and focused her mind on what was happening around her.
As soon as Lantana got her sample sketches, she placed them on the long table one by one, facing the baroness who was not able to speak much and unable to recover from shock since the first time the young lady opened her mouth.
Lantana, who finally noticed the silence of the baroness, had her smile cracked. The butler and Emily were also there but they weren't speaking either. They only had their business smile plastered on their faces. She sighed deep inside and looked at the woman.
"Uhm… What do you think?" nervous, Lantana asked.
As if taken out of her fantasy, the baroness blinked for a couple of times before she delightedly smiled as she faced Lantana.
"Amazing! Nobody told me that the famous cherished daughter of Duke Montgomery was such a brilliant girl. To be able to think of all of those that you proposed and to even be able to create your own beautiful clothes designs. The duke's daughter is simply a genius! How did you even come up with such brilliant ideas? Oh, dear…" And from that positive response, Lantana's first business in Leontios was established.