The little man looked smug. “Each chandelier takes forty candles, a total of two hundred. Plus, of course, the smaller ones in the tearoom and Octagon, and the Collet chandelier in the card room. We order them in lots of four.”
Doug almost swallowed his tongue. They could double their revenue.Of course, we’ll have to take on more workers. Esther Linder’s face came to mind, and he shook it away. The woman’s entire being spoke of class and refinement. She had no more business laboring in a candle works than she did taking in mending. “Do you hire women?” he asked Fowler just as they reached the door.
“Maids come half days to clean. The caterer employs scullery maids, not I.”
Can Mrs. Linder cook?Doug doubted it.
“I do employ a woman to oversee the subscriptions. It requires, of course, a woman of refinement and sufficient discernment to determine eligibility. We have rules you know.” Fowler’s pinched nose and pursed mouth gave him the aspect of a man who had too little sugar in his lemonade.
Doug froze.It might work. Fowler might also look down his pointed beak at any friend of a tradesman. God knew they didn’t let tradespeople into their precious assemblies, at least not local people. He might jeopardize their tenuous negotiations if he pushed her forward, especially since Fowler and the others would no doubt find her circumstances scandalous, regardless of her manners and refinement. He bit back his question and went on his way.
That evening, Aunt Edna grilled him on the matter of the sale as thoroughly as he expected.
“Fowler is a toad. Wants the sample candles for himself, of course, but that plays into our hands. He’ll not stint at recommending them if he thinks the savings will make him look good.”
Doug nodded, unfocused eyes staring at the hearth.
“Are you paying attention to me Douglas Marsh?”
“Of course. You’re my favorite Aunt.” He looked up.
Aunt Edna’s eyes narrowed. “Winny Potter looked in on your Mrs. Linder again after work.”
Doug knew that. He also knew Winny took fresh bread over twice in the week since the wee one was born. He gave in to a sudden impulse to study his boots propped near the hearth.
“Winny declares her fit enough.” When he didn’t reply, his aunt went on. “She’ll be needing work to care for that babe.”
He couldn’t bring himself to answer. Winny and Aunt Edna would have her on the line at the works. He couldn’t bear it—the realization stung. Esther Linder, even if the husband proved to be a fantasy, lay far above Doug Marsh’s touch. She had begun to haunt his thoughts as it was; seeing her out there every day would be more temptation than he could bear.
“She has to work, Dougie. We both know what starvation—or worse, a hungry child—may drive a woman to do.”
That got his full attention. No woman would take to the streets if Sergeant Douglas Marsh could do something about it. “She deserves better,” he insisted.
“Perhaps, dear, but what do you propose? Honest work is no shame. Winny says she takes in sad bits of mending now but so little it won’t feed a bird, much less a growing boy. The lad can stay with Winny’s brood, she says. The oldest girl can manage the lot.”
Doug let out a breath. “There may be work at the Assembly Rooms.” He repeated what Fowler told him.
Aunt Edna looked pained. “He’ll want references and not from the likes of us.”
Doug didn’t argue; those boots took his full attention again.
“You can’t play God, Doug. You might at least ask the woman.”
* * *
Esther hesitated over the missive in her hand, a message from Sergeant Marsh. The boy who brought milk had also brought the note. In strong no-nonsense script the sergeant had written:Meet me at the King’s Swan at four of the clock. We must talk. Just that. More of a command than a request.
Her mother, Countess of Malebranche, dragon of the ton, would destroy the reputation of a young woman who agreed to meet a man in a public house. She would do it without compunction even to her own daughter, but she couldn’t harm Esther any more than she already had.
She swaddled little Douglas and adjusted the cap she made him from scraps of linen that had been her landlady’s gift. She smiled at the three tiny flowers she had managed to embroider on the edge using wool she unraveled from the leftover bits of jacket after she finished repairing it. The frivolous gesture gave her a modicum of pleasure. Whatever disasters had befallen her, she had this one treasure, her little son.
“Time to pay the piper, Dougie,” she said with a heavy heart; she had begun to hope Sergeant Marsh was different, a man who wouldn’t make indecent demands in exchange for favors.Toughen up. It could be worse, she told herself. Sergeant Marsh is clean, respectful, and, she reluctantly admitted, a bit attractive—gruff, but kind. She didn’t believe he would be cruel. A year ago, in the world that was no longer hers, he would have been beneath her notice, one of the masses of people who made England prosperous for the benefit of the few. She had been an idiot. His generosity saved her; who could fault him for wanting something in return?
She saw him as soon as she entered the King’s Swan, a respectable establishment on a respectable street with a dining room discretely separate from the tap. He sat at a small table near a window and rose when she entered. His furrowed brow and sober expression gave her pause, but when he inclined his head and pulled out a chair for her, it was with more consideration than she’d received since her father put her on the stage for Bath seven months before, with nothing but Wilfred’s pittance and a hastily-packed valise.
The sergeant hesitated before sitting back down. He put a calloused finger to her son’s cheek, and a beatific smile transformed his harsh features. Had she thought him a bit attractive? When he smiled like that, any warm-blooded woman would be tempted to throw her virtue over the back fence. The lines around his eyes revealed a vein of gentleness, and his harsh features softened into something solid and dependable. For an insane moment, she wished that gentle finger caressed her cheek too, and yearned to feel the blue eyes look at her as they did her son.
“The little one seems to be thriving,” he said, taking the seat across from her.
