Page 47 of A Wicked Business

Chapter 14

Dear Miss Bodrott,

I beg you will forgive me for writing to you when I know I ought not, but I had such a wonderful time in your company. Might I beg to know when I can see you again? I shall be at the British Museum this Saturday afternoon and would be delighted to see you there if it is not too presumptuous of me to suggest it. I shall wait in the Elgin Saloon, at 2.30 pm.

In anticipation.

―Excerpt of a letter from Mr Charles Kirby to Miss Doris Bodrott.

5th August 1850, Montagu House, St James’s, London.

The heavens had opened once more, so Ashburton arranged for his carriage to convey Felix, Belinda, and Doris to Grosvenor Square. Belinda found herself suddenly shy as Felix closed the carriage door and Montagu House was left behind them. She sat beside Doris, who had closed her eyes, sleepy after all the excitement and running around she’d done today… not to mention the brandy. Doris began to snore softly, just audible over the rain drumming on the carriage roof, and Belinda looked at her with fond amusement.

“I can see why you think so much of her. She’d move heaven and earth to see you happy,” Felix said with a smile.

“I know it,” Belinda replied softly, finding herself blushing as she met his gaze. She told herself to stop behaving like a ninny before he decided all his misgivings were worth heeding and called things off. Instead, she studied him with the same intense regard he was giving her. She wished she knew what he was thinking, but he seemed a mystery, though one she was excited to unravel. Belinda had never met a man she found so intriguing, who surprised her and challenged her without belittling her or assuming she was a featherbrain who ought not to make decisions more challenging than what kind of hat to wear.

She studied his face. Upon first meeting him, she had admired him but thought his harsh features made him seem intractable. She knew now that he could be, but also that he could admit he was wrong and even apologise for his behaviour. His green eyes, which had captured her from the start, were warm now and full of amusement. Her heart skipped a little as he smiled, a slow, sensuous curve of his lips that gave her the sensation of being too hot and rather flustered.

“Well, now we’ve done it,” he said, the deep timbre of his voice giving her shivers. Belinda rather wished poor Doris had walked home instead of accompanying them.

“We have,” she agreed, smiling at him a little uncertainly. “I know you have misgivings—”

He snorted and she gave him an impatient look.

“And you don’t?” he replied, amused, but then reached across the carriage, taking her hand. “We’re not going to be the sort who live peacefully with never a cross word, are we love? But then, I don’t think that’s what makes a good marriage. My parents have the most frightful rows on occasion, but I have never doubted the depths of their love and respect for each other. They have differing opinions on a whole range of topics, but the thing is that they can discuss them openly, even if tempers flare now and then.”

Belinda gazed down at the strong fingers clasping hers with a rush of happiness. She squeezed his hand tightly. “I would do nothing to disrespect you, or to cause you embarrassment, but I do have strong opinions, Felix,” she said, savouring the intimacy of using his giving name. “And I don’t want to give up my print shop,” she said, looking up at him with a touch of defiance, wondering if this might be the first cause of strife between them.

To her relief, Felix just laughed and sat back. “You don’t say,” he replied dryly. “Heavens, what a shock.”

Belinda let out a breath and smiled at him. “You are an extraordinary man, you know.”

Felix shook his head. “Not me. I’ve been given every advantage that wealth can provide and I’m just trying to do my best not to disappoint. My father is the extraordinary one. Can you imagine the kind of poverty he was born into, existing in the workhouse where just staying alive was the hardest thing to do? And yet he began by trading a bit of bread for a bit of cheese, by finding things that people wanted and needed and trading those things. He found a better supplier of bread to the workhouse, cheaper and better quality and his cut of the deal gave him his first bit of working capital. Within a year, he’d replaced most of their usual suppliers, getting better, fresher food for less money and taking his own cut from each deal.” Felix shook his head in wonder.

“But you are said to be a prodigy too, are you not?” Belinda smiled at him, realising she had been correct in thinking him carrying something of a burden with the towering figure of his father to emulate. “It seems to me hardly a week goes by without some story in the paper in which you have secured some deal or begun some new enterprise. I have followed your career, Felix, and my admiration for you is quite genuine. Don’t sell yourself short.”

He opened his mouth in surprise and then smiled, a tinge of colour cresting his cheeks and pleasure in his eyes, and she knew she was right. “You’ve followed my career?” he repeated.

Belinda nodded. “For some time now. Why else do you think I contacted you.”

“To thumb your nose at your father,” he said with a laugh.”

“No. Because I was desperate to know you, foolish man,” she told him, the words soft with everything she felt for him.

“Well, you got your own way as usual, my lady,” he replied, chuckling. “And now we must admit all to my father, so I hope you’re happy!”

“You feel a little trapped in his shadow, don’t you?” Belinda said with sympathy.

“No, I—” Felix began, looking a little indignant, but then he let out a breath. “I suppose, but how could I not? I know of no better man. He’s a financial genius, driven and still full of ambition. Not for money, you understand, but to create more. Bigger. To succeed in everything he does and to create jobs and make people’s lives better. It’s a lot to live up to and sometimes it can feel rather overwhelming.”

“Does he drive you hard?” Belinda asked, understanding on some level what it was to have a parent who expected perfection.

Felix laughed. “Yes, and no. The thing is, he still has the restless energy of a man half his age and so he doesn’t see that the rest of us mere mortals can get a bit weary. But I don’t mind that. I relish the challenges he sets me, and the pride in his eyes when I succeed is worth every late night and missed party. But sometimes I fear I will never live up to his expectations and that he is only being kind when he praises my efforts.”

“I do not know your father, but I know you, Felix, and I promise you that no father could have a finer son to take pride in.”

“I live in terror of letting him down,” he admitted softly.