St. James stepped up and peered into one bin. “Which is used in making your plum pot?”
She flushed at the memory of him in her bedroom, inspecting her private things. “That is something else—porcelain, not pottery. There is a different workshop for it.”
“Oh? How is it different?”
“Entirely,” she said brusquely, and no more. The porcelain workshop was a tender subject, and not one she wanted to discuss with him.
From the clay rooms they went into the production hall, which was a collection of workshops divided by shoulder-height walls. A walkway ran the length of the hall, with periodic staircases descending to the floor, and it was not unusual to see Papa storming down one of them in a temper, having spied a workman neglecting his work or engaging in unsafe or illicit behavior.
She led her husband through the hall, pointing out and explaining the throwers and turners, making items on the pottery wheels; the modelers, carving out of clay; the grinders and polishers, smoothing the surfaces of the unfinished pieces; the slip-makers and mold-makers, making delicate ornaments from the water-thinned clay called slip.
“This entire workshop is for teapot spouts,” she said in one doorway. Trays of neatly made spouts lined the shelves by the door, like the fat little tails of upside-down piglets.
“Odd-looking little things, aren’t they?” St. James studied them with a faint smile. “I never thought of the spouts being made separately.”
“As are the handles,” she replied. “And the lids.”
He slanted her an amused look. “Are they? Who might have guessed?” Bianca rolled her eyes. “Where, pray, are the lids created and when are they attached?”
“They aren’t—” she began, before catching herself. He was laughing at her. “The body of a teapot would be made in the previous rooms, while the spouts and handles are made here, then sent along to be attached before firing. You confessed you knew nothing about the pottery works. I was trying to be helpful and explain them.”
“Ah.” His dark eyes glinted at her. “And now I know that lids are not attached to the pots. A mystery I have pondered all my life, solved.”
She smiled sweetly back. “I’m sure there are innumerable others to perplex you.”
He gave her a sizzling, knowing look, up and down. “Perhaps there are, but I intend to solve them all.”
Meaning her. Her pulse roared in her ears, and she had to grip a handful of apron to keep her temper in check. “That should keep you occupied for an eternity.”
That Man leaned closer. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he didn’t touch her, but Bianca tensed all the same. “If that’s what it takes,” he said quietly. “I don’t quit, my dear.”
She inhaled raggedly. If he were anyone else, or if they were anywhere else in the world, she would ring a peal over him. But the very last thing she needed—even less than she needed St. James’s company, let alone his smoldering looks—was to spark rumors that the two of them were already quarreling on the workshop floor.
“Spoken with the sheer idiocy of Pyrrhus himself,” she returned, and marched away.
Chapter Ten
Max understood exactly what Bianca was up to, and it amused him to no end.
She was going to keep him at arm’s length; she was going to lose no opportunity to put him in his place and let him know she thought very little of his intelligence and ability.
Max was accustomed to being underestimated: by landlords and merchants, by the Duchess of Carlyle and her solicitor, by his own father. None of them had thought he had any brains in his head, nor any ambition beyond running up debts and being as languidly elegant as possible. So he was neither surprised, nor even upset, that Bianca felt the same. Like the rest of them, she saw what she wanted to see, and like the rest of them, she would be astonished when she eventually realized the truth. He looked forward to that day.
Also, he had seen the covert way she looked at him, and especially at his legs. Max wasn’t above displaying himself to best advantage in the hopes of piquing her interest, and unless he’d completely lost his touch, he sensed she was more interested, and attracted, than she would admit.
He followed her through the factory, docile as a lamb. Samuel Tate had showed him all this before, and Max had read a number of tracts on the subject of manufacturing and pottery production. He let slide her needling about him being perplexed until the end of time by her, as well as her smart retort about Pyrrhus. Nothing he’d seen so far made him think the costs would outweigh the benefits of victory. To the contrary—everything he saw and learned about Bianca made him think they would be an incomparable team . . . once he persuaded her they ought to be one.
In the packing house he couldn’t stop himself from asking questions. The issue of breakage in the contracts lingered in his mind. If Brimley and other merchants insisted on being able to write off a fifth of all wares sent to them as broken on arrival, there was a significant opportunity for improvement. Max expected there would be many such opportunities, but this one seemed an obvious choice to attack first.
So he watched workers nestling cups and plates into straw-filled crates, and he questioned every step. “What sort of straw?”
“The dry sort,” Bianca answered shortly. “It’s straw.”
Max scooped up a handful and crushed it in his palm. “Not so. Some straw is little more than dried grass. Some is as stiff as a willow. After the considerable effort it takes to produce these fine wares”—he lifted a finely wrought pot, awaiting packing, from the shelf nearby—“you would toss it into a crate filled with anything?” He shook his head and replaced the teapot. “But perhaps this is not an area of the business which concerns you.”
Her mouth was hanging open. “How— What— Of course I care!” she said furiously. “How do you know so much about straw?”
From the many nights I’ve spent scrounging for a spot to sleep, and never turned up my nose at any safe, warm, straw-filled stable, he thought. “I know many things that might surprise you,” was all he told her.
Incensed now, Bianca hailed a workman passing by. “William, what sort of straw is used for packing the wares?”
“Wheat, mostly, and barley,” answered the man, barely breaking stride.
“Wheat and barley straw,” she snapped at him and strode off.
Max contemplated the straw in his hand and let it fall back into the crate. “Use more straw when packing anything going by road,” he told the worker lingering curiously nearby. “One quarter more, on Mr. St. James’s orders.” The fellow nodded and scurried away, and Max went after his wife.
She led him back to the main offices and up the stairs to throw open the door and march in. Max followed, unhurried.
“And here is a place you must remember well,” said Bianca as he entered. “I believe you had some questions about contracts for my father?”
Samuel Tate came around his desk, his eyes sharp and interested. “Well now, I didn’t think to see either of you at the factory today. It was your wedding yesterday! Take a day free, man, to recover your strength.”
“Yes,” said Bianca warmly. She gave Max a smile he’d never seen before, one which made his heart stutter in surprise. Her eyes sparkled and her lips curved in true pleasure. “Do, Mr. St. James. This is all so very new and taxing to you! You must want a week’s respite at the very least.”
Max smiled back at her, letting the full force of his appreciation show. “New and fascinating, my dear. I find myself entranced, and utterly lost in my study.”
Tate laughed. “I knew it! I told you,” he said triumphantly to his daughter, whose face had turned pink. “I knew it would work out for the best. Wasn’t I right?”
She ignored him. Max could only guess what was in her mind as she made a graceful little curtsy. “If you are so happily occupied, sir, I shall leave you here and return to my work.”
“Of course.” He bowed, catching her hand when she tried to brush past him, and raising it to his li
ps. “I would never dream of interrupting your work, knowing how important it is to you and to Perusia.” Her mouth flattened. Max released her hand. “Until later, my dear.”
With a twitch of her skirts and a glare of pure aggravation, she swept out of the room.
Grinning broadly, Tate closed the door behind her. “Well! Seems a promising beginning, aye?”
All yesterday the man had alternated between fretting, apologizing, and fulminating about his daughter’s temper and obstinate will. Max wasn’t sure if Tate regretted his actions at the church, or merely wanted Max’s assurance that all was well. It had not escaped him that his wife had not spoken one word to her father either yesterday, at the wedding breakfast, or just now, when she’d kept her back to him the entire time she was in his office.
But she’d come into the office, and apparently that was enough reconciliation for Tate. Today the storm had passed, in his mind, and he was ready to resume course.
Max had a feeling Bianca took after her father in that. The first time he’d been invited to Perusia, for that dinner a few months ago, he’d noticed that Catherine Tate would listen politely to anyone prattle on for as long as they could talk. Not Bianca; she’d whittled a long-winded philosophical argument down to its essence, and left the two philosophers blinking at her in bewilderment. She had a sharp, quick wit, with no patience for idle chatter. She walked briskly, spoke boldly, and was delightfully easy to rouse to a passion.
Max admired her confidence—and envied it. He, however, had learned that there was a time for that boldness, and a time to hold his tongue and listen. Time to erupt in fury and time to swallow his pride, even to grovel. Time to act, and time to watch, and wait, and learn, until precisely the right moment arrived to seize what he wanted.
So he smiled at Tate’s hopeful query. “It was all very sudden for both of us. Of course it will take time to become acquainted, as husband and wife.” He paused. “But I do believe it is a most auspicious beginning.”
When the bell rang at six o’clock that evening, Max was waiting at the main gate. He had spent the day in the offices, as Bianca had told him to do, but now was time to devote some attention to his wife.
After several minutes she emerged from the far workshop. Her head was bent, the flat straw hat hiding her face as she tugged on her gloves. Her head came up. He saw the flash of her wide smile as she lifted one hand in greeting to the woman who had called to her.
Max’s gaze lingered on that smile. He’d only seen it a few times, true and carefree instead of tight and grim. But it transformed Bianca’s face, brightening her eyes to blue and accentuating her lush mouth.
All day long he had kept his ears open, keen for any new glimmers of insight into this intriguing, infuriating woman who was his wife. Max thought they were more alike than not; she’d taunted him about how quickly he agreed to the bride switch, but had no reply when he turned the query back on her. He suspected they had both acted on impulse, even if her impulse sprang from passion and fury while his came from an iron-willed determination not to let this opportunity slide through his grasp.
Perhaps, he thought idly, watching the sway of her skirt as she crossed the courtyard toward him, she had felt the same. These pottery works are mine, she’d said in the church. Tate had assigned him a quarter share of the business upon his marriage—the business being of course Tate’s and not his daughter’s, not yet. Max had probed a little, and Tate admitted he had always hoped to leave Perusia to his children.
Tate had hastened to add that he’d been reserving ultimate judgment on that score until his daughters were married, for he did not intend to leave his life’s work to be frittered away by an indolent son-in-law. That last had come with an appraising look, to which Max somberly agreed that it was a wise precaution to take. It seemed to have satisfied Tate, who had quickly moved on to doubting the sensibility of the erstwhile curate, who was presumably his other son-in-law by now.
Bianca looked up and caught sight of him, watching her, thinking about her, and her smile dropped away. She walked right by him, but Max fell in beside her without missing a step. “Good evening,” he said.
“Good evening, sir,” she replied coolly.
“It is now,” he said with a smile.
“Is it?” She widened her eyes innocently. “I felt a sudden chill.”
“Allow me to lend you my coat.”
Her lips parted and she stared at him in astonishment, until Max began removing his coat. “Please, no,” she said hastily. “Don’t do that!”
Max paused mid-shrug. “I don’t mind,” he said in a low voice, gazing at her. “I grew rather warm and flustered as you approached.”
Her color deepened. She snatched back the hand she’d put out to stop him. “It must be a fever. Pray, keep your coat on so you don’t develop an ague.”
“I’ve never felt fitter,” he assured her, tugging his coat back into place. With a huff, she strode off, the ribbons on her hat fluttering.
“Did you make good progress on the scarlet glaze?”
She gave him a sideways glance. “Some.”
Max nodded once. “I am delighted to hear it.”
If Bianca was so dedicated to her work, he would encourage her to pursue it. It did not escape Max’s mind that here was an easy way to please them both: she could continue in her glazing experiments unchecked, while he was free to improve the rest of the business.
After several silent paces, she said, with the air of one forcing herself to make conversation, “I trust you spent a pleasant day reading contracts.”
“Oh yes,” he agreed.
She eyed him warily, but he said nothing else. Let her wonder. Let her come to him, wanting more.
“You needn’t come to the factory again,” she said, facing forward.
“Why are you so keen to keep me from the factory?” he asked. “A factory which is one-quarter mine.”
“I believe Papa meant for you to be a silent partner.”
“That’s not what he told me.”
“I said,” she replied sweetly, “that’s what he meant.”
Max smiled grimly. He knew she was wrong—he knew it was what she preferred, and nothing to do with her father’s wishes—but her insistence on it did drive the knife deep into his pride. “Did he? Sadly, it’s not what I meant when I accepted it.”
“No doubt you’ll learn how to interpret his words,” she said with mock sincerity, “in time.”
“Do his remarks require a great deal of interpretation?” Max pretended to think. “Odd. It didn’t strike me as though they did. An honest, open fellow, I thought him.”
“Of course Papa is honest,” she said, casting aspersions without hesitation. “I suppose that is unusual in your world.”
Max laughed. “My world is Perusia.” And because he couldn’t resist the devil inside him, he added in a quieter tone, “And you, my dearest wife.”
Bianca gave him a jaundiced look. “Does that sort of folderol seduce ladies in London? Because I think it makes you sound an idiot.”
He grinned to hide his flash of pique. “I’ve never tried to seduce a London lady by marrying her! Who knew that’s what it took? Too late now, I suppose.”
“Yes, much too late.” Her smile was dangerous. “And it didn’t work anyway. You ought to have thought of that before wasting your chance, making a chaste marriage of business.”
“You keep saying that word, chaste,” he remarked. “I’m not entirely sure what you mean.”
She opened her mouth, blushed, and closed her mouth. “It’s when a husband and wife live separate lives. Very separate. Very widely separated, in fact.” She raised her hands and held them out, two feet apart. She eyed the span, and increased it to a generous three feet. “Preferably by a league or more.”
“Well, that’s not what we’ve got,” said Max smoothly. “Barely two hundred yards apart all day!”
“Yes, barely,” she muttered. “Tomorrow we must strive to do better.”
<
br /> They had been following the path back to Poplar House, skirting the hill of Perusia Hall and winding through the trees. By now they were out of sight of the factory and all the workers leaving it, as well as hidden from view of Perusia Hall—and Poplar House. Max slowed his pace.
“You spend a great deal of time thinking about the state of our marriage,” he said.
His wife rolled her eyes, but he noted that her steps also slowed. “Far too much. Would that I could stop thinking of it entirely, or better yet, forget it ever happened.”
He laughed. “Perhaps you ought not to stop thinking about it, but change how you think about it.”
She raised her brows. “And become a simpering, silly bride who never puts up a word of protest to anything you say? Tsk, Mr. St. James.” She shook her head. “Wouldn’t you find that perishingly dull?”
“I would,” he agreed. “I like a woman of passion and spirit.”
“But not to marry, obviously,” she said, with a sly glance at him.
“Perhaps not originally, but Fate seems to have guided me in that direction.” He gave her another smile. “Just as it did to you.”
He’d wondered if she had another suitor, or someone she fancied for a suitor. It had been one of the questions in the back of his mind as he kept his ear open for any intelligence about his new wife. If she harbored feelings for someone else, it would wipe away any suspicion that she’d schemed to cause their marriage.
Of course, it would also affect his strategy. He didn’t like to think of his wife pining for another man.
“I never thought to marry at all,” she said.
“Never?” Max had not expected that answer, and wasn’t sure she meant it.
“Of course not,” she said firmly, her lips turning up. “Certainly not to anyone like you.”
“I understand,” he said with mock gravity. “Most women never dare even dream of that.”
She stopped. “You—you conceited rake!”
About a Rogue EPB Page 10
