“There are likely others who feel that way about Mr. Deverill.”
The words had left her mouth before she could contain them. That they were the truth mattered not.
Not every truth needed to be spoken aloud.
Mr. Shaw nodded, pensively. “I hail from a family of landed gentry who have done well for themselves over the generations.”
Beatrix understood he had something specific to say to her and he would come around to it in his own time. She waited and listened.
“I was a younger son and wouldn’t be inheriting. I understood that from the moment of my birth,” he continued. “Because my father was good man, he saw me educated, and upon my graduation, he gave me my inheritance all at once, rather than as an annual allowance.‘This way you’ll have both the blunt and the incentive to make something of yourself in the world.’There would be no more where that came from, was what he was saying.”
“Sounds like a fair man.”
A nostalgic smile crossed Mr. Shaw’s features. “The best man I ever knew.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, I took the money and invested in a few factories. Textiles, for one. Then shoes. They kept me in a comfortable living and able to have a household and family. But they were nothing with vision.” A dry laugh escaped through his nose. “Then came the night of Baron Whitsby’s supper party.”
Beatrix’s head tilted slightly to the side.Whitsby…“Lady Bridgewater’s father, correct?”
“The very same,” said Mr. Shaw. “Whitsby wanted to show off the brilliant local lad he’d put through school and who would be his future estate manager. Except I saw right from the moment Deverill opened his mouth to describe his inventions that he was no future servant. He was that rare visionary with the skill to put his ideas into practice.”
“You saw all that over the course of a single supper?” Beatrix wasn’t surprised, in truth. Dev was a force.
“I pulled him aside and told him I had the experience to help him realize those plans of his. I proposed we immediately go intobusiness together and never once looked back. So, in answer to your question, aye, a lucky star was shining its light on me that night.”
That Beatrix felt the same was yet another realization for her.
One it was better not to think about presently.
Another of Lady Bridgewater’s gales of laughter caught Mr. Shaw’s attention. “They grew up together, you know.”
Beatrix nodded.
“I think he thought he would marry her.”
Beatrix swallowed against a suddenly tight throat. “I think you’re correct.”
How very straightforward was Mr. Shaw. While Beatrix appreciated his candor on one hand, she very much didnoton the other.
“But it’s for the best he didn’t.”
“No?” Beatrix’s heart became a sudden hammer in her chest.
Mr. Shaw met her question with a smile. “He wouldn’t have had the chance to marryyou.”
“Oh…right.” She couldn’t quite believe she was having this conversation. “Of course.”
Arms crossed over his chest, Mr. Shaw rocked back and forth from heel to toe. “I’ve found the stars align in configurations of their own reasoning and in their own time. We mustn’t question their logic.”
“How very mystical of you, Mr. Shaw.”
He smiled. “Only what life has shown me thus far on the journey.”
Somehow, Mr. Shaw made stars aligning and shining down their good fortune sound pragmatic. But then, a person who took lofty ideas about how engines could work and translated them into functioning machines would. Daily, he and Dev made stardust tangible.
“Is he telling you how all our workers have started calling me Mr. Devil?” came a familiar voice behind her.
Dev.
She’d been so engrossed in her conversation with Mr. Shaw, she hadn’t noticed him approach.
