For a moment he debated burning it without reading. Never had one of these letters brought good news; at best they taunted and mocked him, at worst they made him contemplate murder. The world would certainly be better without the man who sent them, and Max had entertained many a fantasy about showing him out of it.
Still, after a moment, hating himself, Max broke the seal. There was always a slim chance . . .
But no.
Money, he thought grimly as he read the short message. It always came down to money. For the last year penury had been Max’s shield, but now it seemed news of his marriage had found its way into the ear of this poisonous viper, who never missed a chance to feed off anyone who came near him. Max had hoped Staffordshire would be far enough away to avoid notice, but the viper had found him, and decided he was ripe enough to attack again.
Another noise made Max start. The muffled sound of Bianca’s voice drifted through the door. She would be changing for dinner.
He stared at that door for a long while. By now he could tell her mood from the timbre of her voice, and tonight she was happy. The letter from her sister must have contained very comforting news. Jennie’s voice answered, and then the two of them laughed. Bianca had such a warm, vibrant laugh.
Max inhaled. He’d forgotten to breathe, listening to her voice, light and lilting with carefree delight. She still held him at arm’s length, but her manner was thawing, slowly but steadily. He had encouraged that warmth at every turn, keeping his calm even when she provoked him and making good-humored replies to any smart comments from her. Today, just minutes ago in the parlor, she had looked at him with wondering, almost dazed eyes, her mouth gone soft, and he’d felt a surge of elation. Things were turning his way.
And he wasn’t about to let anything interfere.
His gaze dropped to the letter. The viper preferred to bleed his victims from afar; not once had he approached Max directly. Perhaps he sensed it was better for his health that way. Max had promised to kill him the next time they met, after all.
With steady hands he struck the flint and lit the lamp, then touched the corner of the paper to the flame, and watched it burn until the heat singed his hands and he let it crumble into ash in the grate.
Chapter Twelve
Max was learning far more about pottery and ceramics than he had ever expected to know. Even though he had vowed to apply himself and learn it all, it interested him more than he had anticipated.
Tate had created an impressive system in his factories, where he trained workmen in a limited number of skills until they excelled at them. Not only did it speed production, it led to a uniformity in the quality of the wares they produced.
Tate was inordinately proud of this. “Each one as fine as the last!” he told Max, gesturing to long shelves filled with vases on one visit to the workshop. “A man does better when he’s allowed to develop one skill to the best of his ability, rather than having to learn the entire process.”
Max surveyed the line of double-handled vases. It was indeed remarkable that each one had been crafted individually. He couldn’t have told any one of them from the other. “That must have required an immense amount of training.”
Tate waved one hand. “Some didn’t take to it in the beginning, but I can pay higher wages to a man with more skill, can’t I? Everyone likes to be paid more.” His mouth twitched in irritation. “And I’ve got to, or bloody Mannox across the river will poach them from me. Ten men last year alone, Mr. St. James, he stole from under my nose! Well, I won back eight of them, and that will teach Henry Mannox to think he can hire my men away and pick their brains for my designs and formulae. His wares are inferior quality in every aspect, and everyone knows it.”
Max raised his brows. “How did you win the workmen back?” If the answer was higher wages again, he foresaw a problem; every workman in here would go work for Mannox for a few months, then allow himself to be “won” back by Tate, for an increase in his wages. A man might change factories twice a year, playing the owners against each other.
His father-in-law harrumphed. “Mannox treats his men like dogs. Most of them recognized it and came back. And . . .” He hesitated. “Six of them wanted the school.”
“What school?”
“For the children.” He paused, his mouth puckered up. “Bianca set it up in the old workshop after we built these new premises.” With that, Tate stalked out of the room, arms folded. Max had divined by now that indicated some displeasure or reluctance on Tate’s part—most likely due to the mention of Bianca. He followed his father-in-law.
“I take it Mannox has no schools.”
Tate snorted. “Mannox has filthy factories and poor methods. Ah well—everyone learns that once they’ve worked for him for a few months.”
“Yes,” said Max smoothly, “but those months of their labor are then lost to Perusia. I wonder how we might persuade workers to want to stay.”
“That would be ideal,” acknowledged Tate. “I’ve done my best, sir. When I built Perusia, we had to relocate a good way away from the old works, and there weren’t enough rooms available. A man won’t work for me if he can’t house his family, so we built the village.” He waved one hand at the neat rows of cottages and houses visible beyond the copse. “Mannox ain’t got that,” he added with a smug air.
“Bianca, though, insisted it wasn’t enough and she made a school for the little ones.” Tate shrugged. “I suppose it helps.”
“Aren’t the workers’ children set to become apprentices?” Max was surprised. Not only would it ensure the child a good job when he was older, it was good for the pottery works to have a new generation of workmen being trained at all times.
“Aye, many of them do.” Tate beamed again. “Men are proud to work for Perusia, sir—proud! I pay good wages, have a doctor in once a month, and charge only a pittance rate for the cottages. But Bianca—” He stopped and looked away. “She’s got rarefied ideas,” was all he said, a moment later.
“I see,” murmured Max, wondering what they were. He already knew his wife had a romantic streak, from the way she had conspired to help her sister elope. Did she have an egalitarian one as well?
Tate waved it aside. “It’s her project, none of mine. And if it persuades a few fellows to come back, all the better! What’s the harm in letting her have her little passions, eh?” He winked at Max. “Good advice for any husband, if you ask me! Keeps a wife happy, and out of your way to boot.”
It was so at odds with Bianca, this vision of her as an idle woman needing something harmless and feminine to keep her occupied, that Max couldn’t repress an amazed glance at his companion. Tate nodded, eyebrows raised encouragingly as he waited for Max to agree with him.
Ah. Tate wanted his daughter to be more idle and more feminine, caring for the children even if she took too enlightened a view of that endeavor. Bianca, however, wanted to be useful. How had she described her work? A close study of mineral properties, some chemistry intuition, and extensive trials, she’d said. She cared about her glazes, and that made him think she also cared about this school.
So in reply to Tate’s comment, he merely smiled and dipped his head, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. “One thing I’ve not seen. Where are the smaller items produced?” he asked instead, remembering Bianca’s little plum pot. “My wife has some charming pieces on her dressing table.”
Tate flicked one hand. “Those bits of paste,” he scoffed. “Frippery.”
“Oh?” Max had seen many an elegant lady’s dressing table, with little silver pots full of pomade and powders. Fripperies they might be, but they were in demand. “More than that, I think.”
Tate rolled his eyes. “Bianca wanted to experiment with the porcelain. There’s no harm in it, but earthenware is more lasting. Stronger, too.” He strode back into the workshop, pausing now and then to examine a piece. At one bench he paused, taking down a vase and turning it from side to side. Having kept pace, Max scrutinized the piece, too, searching for the f
law that had put a frown on Tate’s face. He couldn’t find it, but expected it would be pointed out soon.
Then, to his astonishment, the older man flung down the vase with a violent crash. “Who made that?” he roared. “Craddock!” A stout fellow with ginger hair rushed over. “Who is responsible for this?” Tate demanded, waving one hand at the remnants of the vase, lying in shards on the floor.
“Martin, Mr. Tate,” said Craddock uneasily.
Tate threw up his hands. “It’s not good enough for Perusia! Does he need to be sent back to making plates? Don’t let that happen again.”
“Right, sir. Never.” Craddock ducked his head and gestured for a boy with a broom to come sweep up the mess.
Tate stepped over the broken vase and strode onward.
Max regarded the shattered vase. Its faults had been small, imperceptible to any casual observer, but Tate had spotted them, and destroyed the vase in consequence.
It seemed a waste of clay, of labor, of potential income. The smooth handle of the jug was intact, a sinuous curve of biscuit. It had been fired once, but was still devoid of Bianca’s glossy glazes. It looked as perfect as the rest of them to him. Tate had higher standards, and that was entirely admirable. But smashing a vase that looked perfectly fine to the unskilled eye—that is, to the vast majority of the population—rankled. Max, who had long had too little of everything, despised waste.
With a lingering glance at the boy crouching over his broom, the rows of bowed heads in the silent workshop, and the shelves of otherwise indistinguishable vases, Max went after Tate.
Chapter Thirteen
Bianca would never have admitted it to herself, let alone to anyone else, but she was coming to like her husband.
She didn’t understand him, and she still thought there must be more to his decision to marry her than she knew. But every day that went by seemed to bring evidence of some endearing thing about him, and it was becoming harder and harder to keep him at a distance.
His response to Cathy’s letter was the most surprising, but far from the only sign that she might have been slightly wrong about him. There was the way he waited for her at the factory gate every day, and seemed to sense from her mood whether he should speak to her or be silent. The faultless manners he always displayed, to everyone from Bianca herself down to the lowest scullery maid. That he never lost his temper with her, not once, since that stern warning in the sacristy. Since Bianca had been guilty, at times, of trying to provoke him into an argument, this last impressed her immensely.
It was obvious that Max was not merely the shallow, fortune-seeking rogue she had labeled him, and trying to divine his true intentions was driving her mad.
In an effort to relieve some of the strain, she reconciled with her father. She marched into his office, held up Cathy’s letter, and announced, “My sister wishes you to know that she is well, and very happily married to Mr. Mayne.” She curtsied to her parent, and almost walked back out the door before he recovered from his astonishment.
“Bianca, wait!” Papa caught her arm. “You have heard from her?”
Her jaw worked. “Surely you already knew?” She meant St. James, who spent a portion of every day in the offices with Papa. He must have told her father that she’d heard from Cathy. Even if he hadn’t, there was a very large chance Mary or another servant had told someone at Perusia Hall that a letter had arrived. The housekeeper there, Mrs. Hickson, was mother to her maid Jennie, and there wasn’t much news that didn’t eventually travel from house to house.
“By my soul, I did not!” Her father couldn’t keep the yearning from his voice. “Tell me how she is.”
Bianca turned toward him. Papa released her, giving her arm a small pat. He cleared his throat and nodded at the letter in her hand. “She’s happy, then?”
Bianca nodded. “Very happy.”
Papa’s lips pressed together. “I suppose I should be relieved that curate did the proper thing.”
“He always meant to,” she said in withering tones. “It was obvious to everyone in Marslip that he wanted to marry Cathy.”
“And it would have cost him nothing to ask my permission and my blessing,” her father fired back. He threw up his hands as she drew an irate breath. “Never mind! ’Tis done, and there’s nothing to gain by quarreling over it now.”
“No,” said Bianca stiffly.
“And you?” he asked cautiously. “Are you . . . happy?”
Bianca drew a controlled breath. “I am content with the choices I made.”
He didn’t look pleased. “Content.”
“Well, what else can you expect me to be?” She raised her brows. “Condemned for helping my sister pursue her true happiness—”
“Condemned!” he growled indignantly.
“—told that my birthright was to be given to a stranger, and then told I could reclaim it only by marrying the stranger.” Bianca lifted one shoulder. “I did what I must.”
Her father’s face worked. She braced herself for a fiery row; this was the first time she’d spoken to him since the disastrous wedding day, and Papa rarely missed a chance to put in his word.
But instead, with almost visible effort, he swallowed whatever it was, and gruffly said, “I hope you warm to the fellow. He’s a good man.”
The fact that Bianca was coming to agree, however reluctantly, did not make her admit it now. “I have little choice now but to make the best of things,” she said. “And I will.”
“That’s a start,” Papa replied, his face brightening. “Your mother and I did the same.”
Bianca blinked. “What?” She’d always thought her parents had cared deeply for each other.
But before he could respond, Ned tapped on the door. “Beg pardon, Uncle Tate, but Mr. St. James requests you to join him in the drying room.”
“Aye, of course,” said Papa. Ned nodded and left.
Bianca looked at him inquiringly, but Papa shrugged. “I’ve no idea what he’s about. You’re . . . welcome to come along and see.”
She gave a stiff nod. It was a truce, and possibly the first time they had reached one without any shouting at all.
And what could Max want? Bianca had slowly got used to seeing him in every corner of the factory. He’d spent time with every single group of workmen, learning something of their trade. Not only was he there every day, in one office or workshop, he’d taken to speaking to all the workers, from the women painting scenes on custom platters to the gilders applying delicate gold leaf to teacup rims to the men hauling up clay from the barges. Not everyone welcomed his attention, but everyone admitted he was polite and displayed deep interest in each and every skill.
She knew he’d helped unload clay and inspect it. He’d even gone to the firing house, the blistering hot warren of rooms where the kilns were, and tried his hand at unloading the kiln.
Bianca knew all this because Amelia’s brother worked in the firing house and told her Max had dropped a piece. It was only a fruit bowl, but it shattered, and Max had amazed all the workmen by apologizing. Papa would never have done that.
That was all startling enough. But every day when she came down to dinner, he was waiting, no longer humble and ordinary in wool and linen but the elegant, sophisticated rogue again in velvet and lace, smiling at her with unwavering attention and interest.
He was provoking her curiosity to no end.
With her father at her heels, she went down the stairs and through the factory to the drying room. Here were endless shelves of newly sculpted wares, carefully set apart from each other so the clay could dry throughout. After this some pieces would be fired, then glazed and painted and fired again, while others would be fired and left as biscuit ware. The colored clays made very striking pieces unglazed.
Max stood at the far end of the room, examining a teapot. He looked up as they came in, and set it down. A warm smile crossed his face as his gaze flickered between them. “How good of you to come.”
“Well, well, such a mysteriou
s invitation! Who could resist? What are you about, St. James?” Papa folded his arms and waited expectantly.
Max nodded. “As you know, I’ve applied myself to learning how Perusia operates, from the clay pits to the sales warehouses. A few points of interest have struck me. First, Perusia has conceded that a large percentage of all wares may be broken upon arrival at the warehouses. That is lost income.”
“The roads are to blame,” said Tate. “Bloody awful.”
“Yes,” Max replied, “but the canal is not. More wares are going via canal, yet the contract still allows Brimley to declare one fifth breakage. And he does, very nearly.”
“What!” Papa looked thunderstruck.
Max put up his hands. “I would like to see it for myself. I intend to pay a call in Mr. Brimley’s offices and inspect Perusia crates as they arrive.”
Papa frowned. “Brimley’s run our warehouse for years.”
“I only want to see if it’s true that twenty percent of wares arrive damaged. If they do, we must improve our packing, to reduce that much lost dinnerware. Don’t you agree?”
Still scowling, Papa nodded once.
“But if they don’t . . .” said Bianca, letting her voice trail off.
Her husband didn’t smile, but she sensed he was pleased she asked. “Then we should review our contract.”
“Brimley wouldn’t lie,” said Papa, recovering. “By all means inspect the deliveries.”
Max bowed in acknowledgement. Bianca turned away to study one of the vases on the shelf beside her, to conceal her astonishment. He’d been serious when he asked about straw and packing and that contract allowance. She’d thought he was trying to annoy her—and because she’d already been annoyed, she hadn’t paid proper attention to what he actually meant.
“Secondly,” Max went on, “I have a proposal.” He held out the teapot he’d been studying earlier, and Bianca took it. Now that it was in her hands, she noticed the spout was slightly off-kilter, and there was a nick in the handle. “This is from a young potter who’s still learning to attach handles and spouts. Normally it would be cast aside.”
About a Rogue EPB Page 12
