Henry watched him go, brow furrowed.
“Hmph,” he muttered to himself. “What an odd thing to say. Did you hear that, Percy? His parting shot?”
“Hear what?”
“Ah, never mind. It was odd, though. Whatdoeshe mean by it? I dread to think.”
Chapter Twenty
“I thought it best that we go alone, you see,” Charles Fairfax said, pressing a handkerchief against his mouth. “Eleanor always wants to be involved, but Mr. Spencer isnota man who wants to do business with women.”
“I see,” Henry responded acidly. “If the books are correct, Mr. Spencer doesn’t send agreatdeal of business our way, does he?”
“No,” Charles conceded, “but we’ve been doing business with him for years. Decades, even. He was originally my father’s client. It’s practically tradition.”
“Well, not all traditions are advantageous, are they?” Henry remarked smoothly, ignoring the look of vague horror on Charles’ face.
The two men were rattling along in the Fairfax carriage, on route to a porcelain shop to renegotiate a contract. Henry found himself wishing Eleanor was here. Charles had a great deal of experience, to be sure, but he seemed to miss more and more details of late, to say nothing of his tiredness and disorientation.
But that was irrelevant now. He was here, and Henry would make the best of it.
“Thank you for taking care of me at Lady Grantham’s soiree the other night,” Charles said suddenly, a little nervously. “I didn’t intend to make such a fuss. I hate to cut Eleanor’s fun short.”
Henry bit his lip. He’d seen the expression on Eleanor’s face when Sophia Redford dragged her away, and the thunderous scowl she wore when she came back. It had been pretty clear to him that nofunwas being had.
“It’s no trouble,” he said firmly.
They rattled on silence for a while longer. Shops and other cabs slid past them in a pleasant blur, the usual cobbled scenery to be found in London, broken only by the occasional swathes of greenery, gates to parks, and so on.
Henry found himself remembering the altercation with Lord Grenville last night. It had left a nasty taste in his mouth. He and Percy left shortly after.
“Is Mr. Richard Grenville a serious competitor of yours?” he found himself asking.
Charles chewed his lip, considering.
“They were once, but Lord Richard is something of a rattling fool. He makes poor business choices and won’t take advice. The shareholders don’t trust him, his partners don’t like him, and his staff are chronically overworked. The product is good, but none of his creativity or his work has gone into it. Mr. Richard is not a man I am worried about. He’ll run that business into the ground in another five years, you mark my words.”
Charles sounded fairly confident about that. Henry sat back against the carriage seat, mulling it over.
Richard Grenville was a man who acted confident, but it was clear he was a little… defensive. On edge. Perhaps a man who’d realized he was in a difficult position and thought that getting rid of a competitor would be the best way to improve his position.
But how could he do that? How could he manage to get rid of us? Surely not,Henry thought, twisting his fingers together.The man’s a fool.
That didn’t help. Fools were unpredictable, and they were capable of just about everything.
The carriage lurched to a halt, cutting into his thoughts. They’d pulled up in front of a neat little porcelain shop, withSpencer’s Fine Chinawritten across the storefront.
“We’re here,” Charles said, patting Henry’s knee.
***
Mr. Spencer was a short, stocky man with a face like a china bulldog, and he seemed to be unable to decide who he disliked more – Henry, or the concept of Eleanor.
“Glad you didn’t bring that girl of yours this time,” Mr. Spencer burbled, maneuvering his bulk around a too-small office. “Talks, talks, talks, she does. Glad my girls don’t yammer on like that, I can tell you. I’m surprised you allow it, Charles.”
Henry took his seat, eyes narrowing. The anger which Richard Grenville had conjured up last night was still bubbling near the surface and didn’t take a great deal to appear again.
“I suspect,” he said coolly, “that Miss Fairfax was concerned as to why our supplier prices haven’t been lifted in – well, close to a decade. You’re paying the same price for our services you paid ten years ago, Mr. Spencer.”
