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Chapter Six
The voices around James droned while he paced behind his desk, transferring the wax seal used for his correspondence from hand to hand. With the flick of his wrist, the seal flailed through the air and tumbled across the desk.
He took to pacing again. An untold time later, he realized belatedly that all his employees were quiet; their eyes bore down on him.
Garrett Thomson shifted in his seat. His bright red hair stood on end, the work of his nervous hands. James half-smiled, remembering Thomson looking the same before every exam back at university.
Isaac Chavers, his right-hand man, looked troubled as he leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, regarding him strangely. In his middle forties, he was the oldest of the six men in James’s office. He’d been an accountant at the docks when James met and hired him.
His neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper hair and beard echoed the black-and-white tweed of his jacket. If not for his bright blue eyes and intensely intelligent gaze, his overall appearance could be passed over without notice.
James let out a frustrated puff of air, admitting, “Lads, you lost me there. My mind was elsewhere. Thomson, how many bales of wool have been unloaded from the ships?”
Chavers and Thomson shared a look, then Chavers saved the younger man from speaking. “We’re not talking about the unloading anymore. Thomson said that this last load arrivedunwashed. We ordered and paid for ‘washed and free from burr’ wool. We’ll lose a fair percentage in the washing.”
“And?”
“Mr. Robertson,” a manager of one of his woolen-goods factories asserted, “I propose selling this lot, and buying a new lot of washed wool for our own mill. We can’t go into the business of wool-handling. It must be sent for carding in the next month for us to stay on schedule.”
James looked at Thomson again, who managed his warehouse near the docks.
The man shook his head, tugging on his cravat. “We can’t store eight thousand bales until the next public sale. That’s another month, and there’s more waiting to be unloaded!”
“We needn’t wait for the public sale. We can show the wool in the warehouse and sell it directly. I can think of several buyers offhand,” Chavers countered calmly.
Again the voices blended into the background as they bandied back and forth about the benefit of cleaning and using the wool for their own enterprises—manufacturing flannel fabric and finished goods such as shawls, rugs, and blankets—or brokering the shipment and purchasing more suitable wool.
Until a few years ago, James had depended on the public sales to supply his factories. He’d seen an opportunity to improve on that and now sourced his own wool directly from Australia.
Now he owned one of the largest wool warehouses at the docks. It stabilized his supply and bolstered his profits significantly, but it also increased the complexity of his business. He and his employees were still learning.
Ordinarily, such challenges invigorated him.
Today, he couldn’t concentrate on his mill manager’s worries. Dirty wool wasn’t capturing his attention, either.
As inexorable as the tides, his attention returned to Clara Chadbourne. Never had it been such a challenge to prioritize business matters. His everlasting mistress had been his enterprise; he’d built his empire tirelessly, deal by deal, decision by decision.
James sat, hoping that could anchor him in the conversation. Within a minute, he was staring sightlessly at his hands atop his desk.
It was fortunate he hadn’t met Clara Chadbourne earlier in his life.I’d have starved if she distracted me like this while trying to build my enterprise!
“Excuse me,” he interrupted on impulse. “I must call an end to this meeting. At least my part in it. Chavers, I’ll find you later, and convey my decision.”
James walked out of his own office, aware of the perplexed looks that followed his departure. It didn’t slow him down as he exited the mansion that housed both his countinghouse and his residence.
He paused on his way around the corner to his home’s front door. He looked up at the five-story classical building, trying to see it through Clara’s eyes. Would the architectural perfection of the white stucco mansion impress her?
He shook his head rapidly, trying to dispel this pitiful line of thinking. His home was larger than either Clara’s or even David Chadbourne’s townhouses. They already knew of his wealth; Chadbourne was obviously unimpressed, and Clara sent him away.
There was no winning with a titled snob like David Chadbourne or James’s Belgravia neighbors—not when their sense of superiority stemmed from nothing other than the accident of birth.
James laid a possessive hand on the ornamental gate that matched the balcony ironwork above.To hell with Chadbourne! Let him disapprove.
He was nearly successful in dismissing the man when he felt the sting of untruth in his next musing.He has naught I covet.
The unbidden image of Clara passed before his eyes, sitting in that patch of late morning light in Chadbourne’s library, a translucent pastel butterfly illuminated on her shoulder.
Envy and desire washed over James anew. He didn’t wish harm to Chadbourne, nor would he deny him a sister. It burned, though, that man so cold had a sister like Clara.
