“Yes, sir. We did.”
“You and Robert—”
“We are keeping a watch out.”
“Good.” Philip squared his shoulders. “Get your coat. It’s time for a visit to the grimmer side of our business.”
Two hours later, Thomas fully understood his father’s lack of exaggeration with the word “grimmer.” His own choice of words would have been much bleaker. They began their “grand tour” with a visit to the dockside location of the shipping company. The office building, while neatly kept and almost clean, had a shabby construction that shook each time the wind picked up. The docks themselves were a riotous tumult of people from every London class. Longshoremen bellowed orders as young boys raced among them, carrying messages and running errands, their muck-smeared faces and ragged clothes matching those of the fishwives who hauled baskets of herring and cod on their heads and hips, calling out ribald suggestions to the sailors. Merchants in fur-lined cloaks stood out as they made their way from one ship to the next. Noblemen, such as themselves, arrived in carriages to oversee business among the companies and captains. The entire area smelled of salt, tar, and dead fish.
The warehouses, which lay not far from the company’s offices, were spacious but filthy and frigid. As they stood in one of them, watching men sweat and shudder in the chilled air as overhead pulleys and ropes moved freight around, Philip had muttered under his breath, “Yes, I have plans for improvements.”
Thomas listened to the shouts of the men, the movement of the goods, the interactions of the foremen with the workers. “It will be expensive.”
His father nodded. “When we get back, I’ll talk to you about a number of investment principles. These warehouses regularly lose workers due to injury and illness. Same with the seamen on the ships. I want us to do better.”
“Novel concept, from what I hear. If you are not cautious, your Whig fellows will think you have been infected by Robert Owen’s ideas on innovations and industry villages. You will develop the reputation of a reformer.”
“It’s a new age, and we are all mired in an economic miasma right now. Banks are failing. Some reform is needed or the businesses will perish. Just don’t try to tell Parliament. Ideas of reform make them shudder, as if they can hear the guillotine all the way from 1793.”
Thomas glanced at his father, whose enthusiasm for the vision before them radiated from his face. For the first time, Thomas realized he was seeing the man behind the instructions and dictates, the man behind the stern father who was also a duke, a businessman, and a member of Parliament. The man. And an odd surge of pride moved over him. Thomas looked back at the workers, and muttered. “I’m ready.” He didn’t think his father heard him, but a slow smile crossed the older man’s face.
*
Davis ushered themin, Rose evaluated them, and Cecily did her best to entertain them. They showed up alone and in groups. Her two o’clock appointment was indeed the first, and Cecily had more than fifteen minutes alone with him before the second and third arrived simultaneously. Rose ushered them out when they’d had a decent amount of time with her sister, perfecting the ability to stand abruptly, clear her throat, peer at them over her spectacles, and move the bat from one side of the chair to the other. The message was clear, and she’d only had to tap one on the shoulder all afternoon to indicate that he should leave.
Mostly, she sat in her chair, which was slightly to the left and behind the settee where Cecily held court, listened, and took notes on each gentleman: what they wore, how they spoke, their manner of behavior. She only had to warn two that they were moving too close to her sister. One was a young yap who was barely out of the schoolroom, far too young to be pursuing marriage, and somewhat unused to the restrictions of Polite Society. Rose did not hold this against him, but made a note that he needed quite a bit more experience before becoming a husband. The second dolt kept glancing at her, as if she could not see his attempts to slide closer to Cecily. She finally got up and stood behind the settee, glaring at him. At first he glared back, but Rose’s response was to pick up the cricket bat and continue glaring. He backed off.
Just after four, Rose informed Davis that as of half-four, Lady Cecily would no longer be accepting callers, and Rose began encouraging the remaining three to conclude their efforts and be gone. In just under three hours, twenty-six men had cycled through the drawing room, pledging their honor, promising a glorious future, and reciting some of the most horrific poetry Rose had ever heard. The bad poets received especially short shrift in Rose’s notes, and she murmured once to Cecily, “Never trust a man who mangles Shakespeare.”
As the door closed behind the last one, Cecily fell back against the settee and put her hands over her face. “I need a nap.”
Rose laughed. “Go upstairs. Take a bath and rest before dinner. I have one more meeting, then I plan to do the same. We can confer about today’s potentials after we eat.”
Cecily stood up and removed her gloves, gathering them both in one hand. “These things are like armor.”
“That would, in fact, be their purpose. Can you imagine accepting all those sloppy kisses without them?”
Her sister shuddered. “I would have to wash my hands every fifteen minutes. I would look like a scullery maid.” She headed for the door, her feet dragging. “I’m exhausted. Who in the world are you meeting with this time of day?”
Rose hesitated, but she was sure the word was already out among the staff. “Lord Newbury.”
Cecily snapped to attention. “Really?”
Rose nodded, but then Cecily grinned, a wicked expression. “Stop it. This is a business call.”
“Of course it is.”
“I’m meeting with him in my office.”
“Of course you are.”
“Go take a bath before I tell Papa you’re about to elope to Gretna Green.”
Cecily laughed and slapped Rose’s shoulder lightly with the gloves. “I will expect all the details when it’s over.”
If there’s anything to tell.“Of course you will.”
As Cecily retreated to her bedchamber, Rose headed to her office, asking Davis to deliver a tea service—“with really strong tea”—a few minutes after Lord Newbury arrived. She left the door to her office open, and she heard the doorknocker precisely at five. Davis ushered him in, dapper and precise in trim black and white and carrying a black leather case and his wolf’s-head cane. She stood to greet him, and he paused, glancing at her ungloved hands, as if expecting her to extend one for a kiss. Rose smiled and gestured to the chair in front of her desk.
