Chapter Sixteen

“Not the pink-and-green today, Edward,” Henry said sharply. “I’m trying to be a businessman.”

That was the wrong way of saying it. Henry was not trying to be a businessman. He was a businessman, he only needed to act like it, and look like it. Easy enough.

Edward’s face fell, and he silently put away the silk pink-and-green waistcoat he’d taken out of the wardrobe so hopefully. It was doubtless a gift from William, whose tastes ran to exotic things like colourful waistcoats and unnecessarily jeweled cravat pins.

Henry inspected his reflection in the mirror. Good, good, he looked neat and put-together. He’d chosen a deep green velvet suit, a little showy but not too much, and intended to pair it with a dark yellow-brown waistcoat.

Today was his first full day in the office. He would tour the business with Mr. Fairfax once again, this time with the aim of suggesting and implementing more radical changes. He would go through paperwork and ledgers with Eleanor afterwards.

Miss Fairfax, he corrected himself sternly. It was important to be polite and formal in these matters.

He was sure that, with time, Eleanor would get used to his presence as a partner in the business. He’d show her that he had no intention of forcing her out. He’d make it clear that they were partners , not rivals.

He could manage it, he was sure. She’d grow to like him. Henry had won over uncertain and suspicious business partners in the past, and he was sure he could do it again.

He might not be as open-hearted and charming as Alexander, but he could make people like him. If he applied himself, of course.

I can manage it, Henry told himself firmly, smoothing down his waistcoat and tweaking the folds of his knotted cravat. I’ll prove to her that I can be trusted. It’ll just take a little time. Together, we can revive the business, I’m sure of it .

“You look very handsome, your lordship,” Edward announced, breaking into Henry’s thoughts. “Ladies will turn their heads as you walk down the street, I’m sure.”

Henry smiled wryly. “I don’t need all the ladies to turn their heads at me, Edward.”

Just the one lady.

It was a fine, clear morning, and Henry was glad he’d chosen to walk. Apparently, many other people thought the same – he passed several acquaintances on the road to the Fairfax offices, and a number of empty hackney cabs trundled unhappily past, looking for customers.

The sky was clear and blue – rare for this part of London – and the sun shone down on the cobbles. For once, there were no awful smells drifting around. Henry almost felt inclined to loiter on his walk.

His road led him through a large courtyard, which generally served as a marketplace once or twice a week, although of course he never attended himself. A few sellers milled around – flower-sellers with baskets of colourful blooms, pie-sellers with trays of savory-smelling goodies, ribbon-sellers, match-sellers, and so on. They offered their wares to Henry as he passed by, and he smiled, shaking his head.

One of the flower-sellers came creeping up to him, smiling hopefully. She was a teenage girl, greasy dark hair looped behind her ears and braided down her back, laden with baskets of flowers, loose blooms and made-up posies.

“Buy some flowers, good sir?” she asked expectantly. “Present for your lady-love?”

Henry paused despite himself, laughing. “I haven’t got a lady-love.”

The girl pursed her lips, tilting her head to one side like a bird.

“Ah, sir, that’s because you don’t have any of my flowers to give her.”

Henry gave a bark of laughter at that. “Goodness, you’re sharp. Well, perhaps I will buy some. What flowers have you got? ”

The girl eagerly held out her baskets. She had all kinds of seasonal flowers – not that Henry recognized most of them. Roses in all colours, of course. He wondered if Eleanor liked roses.

“Or there’s these posies, sir,” the girl suggested, holding out a tray. “I make them up myself.”

The posies were neat little things, stems wrapped in paper and tied with a thin strip of twine. The bunches of blooms were fist-sized, and there were a few collections of wildflowers in there, amongst the roses and fluffy daisies. Henry picked up one posy of wildflowers. It was beautiful, multicoloured, rough and natural and filled in with a few sprigs of lavender, giving it a fresh, savory scent.

“Not the roses, then, sir?” the girl asked, a twinge of disappointment in her voice. “Ladies like roses. Pink, white, or red are popular colours.”

“They’re certainly beautiful, my dear, but I think the lady I have in mind will like this one. How much?”

“Tuppence, sir.”

Henry gave her three pence, and she beamed at him. He was in the process of tucking his wallet away again when he felt an odd sort of itch at the back of his neck. The hairs there prickled, as if eyes were burning into his back.

Frowning, he turned around, looking for the source of the glare.

The marketplace wasn’t crowded in the slightest, and he noticed somebody out of place almost at once.

Only one man wasn’t walking around purposefully. He was a tall, lanky fellow, his clothes ill-fitting and greasy, his face grimy. He carried no tray or baskets, so clearly wasn’t a seller, and only lounged in the entrance to an alleyway, scowling out over the marketplace.

Scowling at Henry.

When their eyes met, the man scowled harder, and abruptly turned on his heel, disappearing into the darkness of the alley behind him. Henry only had time to notice a few aspects of his appearance – dark hair, an unkempt black beard, and a few lopsided patchwork pieces on his greasy tailcoat, which had certainly seen better days.

Then the man was gone, and Henry was left with nothing but a faint sense of unease .

And the flowers, of course.

He glanced back down at the flower-seller, who still hovered nearby, doubtless hoping for another sale.

“Do you know that man?”

She blinked. “What man?”

“The one standing there in the alley. He had patches on his tailcoat.”

The girl shot him a pitying look. “We’ve all got patched and darned clothes, sir. I think I know who you mean, though. That is to say, I’ve seen him around once or twice. I don’t know his name. He just seems to stand there and watch. I thought perhaps he worked for the Fairfax factory, over yonder.”

Henry shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. Well, it hardly matters. Thank you for the flowers, and I wish you a full day of business.”

The girl beamed at that, dipping him a lopsided curtsey, and Henry walked away. He was already a few minutes late for his first official day of work, but then he was a partner, so surely he could be forgiven a little bit.

The Fairfax offices were only a short walk away – in fact, the factory could be seen from the courtyard – so Henry hurried towards it. He couldn’t quite shake the feeling of being watched . The itch between his shoulder blades didn’t quite fade. He kept turning around, half-expecting to see that grimy man with the patched tailcoat behind him, but there was nothing there except the usual sellers and pedestrians passing through the marketplace.

It was an unsettling feeling, and quite took the shine out of the day. Perhaps it was Henry’s imagination, but he could have sworn that the sun lost some of its warmth. He paused, poised to cross the road to the factory itself, and glanced over his shoulder one last time.

There was something of a crowd milling through the marketplace now, a moving sea of people who made it impossible to pick out any one face in particular.

A chill ran down Henry’s spine when he saw the man with the patched coattails once again, lounging where he’d been before in the alleyway, scowling out across the crowd.

Henry shivered.

It’s nothing, he told himself firmly. You’re just on edge .

Adjusting his grip on the posy of flowers, he crossed the road and disappeared into the office.

Eleanor blinked at the flowers he held out.

“Flowers?” she repeated tentatively, as if not sure what she was seeing. “For me? Why?”

He winced, cursing himself for not thinking of a reason. Proffering flowers like that was really a little much, wasn’t it?

“Well, I thought we could celebrate. My first official day.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Surely I should be buying you flowers, then.”

He gave an awkward laugh at that.

I am definitely poorly prepared.

“Tuppence for these.” Was all he could manage in the end.

Eleanor chuckled. “You were robbed, then. The savvier of the flower-sellers generally walk outside the city early in the morning, and gather flowers from the banks for free.”

“Ah. I probably shouldn’t mention that I gave the girl an extra penny for her trouble, then.”

Eleanor laughed properly at that, reaching out to take the posy.

“Well, people must make a living, after all. Thank you, Lord Henry. These are very pretty.”

It sounded as though she meant it. Perhaps if Henry hadn’t been feeling quite so awkward, like a nervous boy asking a girl to dance for the first time, he might have had some witty retort lined up and ready to go. As it was, he contented himself with a smile and an awkward laugh.

“Mind if I go through to speak to Mr. Fairfax? You can join us at your convenience – we won’t speak of anything important until you arrive.”

She blinked at that, almost seeming a little taken aback.

“I see. Thank you, Lord Henry. I’ll be in directly.”

Henry retreated to the landing, hovering before the door to Mr. Fairfax’s office.

Try as he might, there was no rational explanation for his pounding, fluttering heart. No explanation for buying flowers , for heaven’s sake. Who ever heard of buying one’s business partners flowers on one’s first day ?

She must think I’m an absolute fool, he thought, smiling mirthlessly at himself.

Or didn’t she? She’d accepted the flowers with a smile, after all. She might think he was a trifle silly, but Henry knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that he could do some good here. He could improve the Fairfax business. And if Eleanor finally decided to trust him, they could do three times as much good together, he was sure of that.

Sighing, he tapped on the door to Mr. Fairfax’s office.

No response came, although the door was ajar. Frowning, Henry pushed open the door.

Charles Fairfax was slumped over his desk, elbows on the table, face in his hands. His skin was grey, and from what Henry could see of his expression, it was twisted in discomfort.

“Mr. Fairfax?”

The man nearly leapt a mile, head shooting up, eyes wide. He swallowed hard when he saw Henry.

“Ah, Lord Henry! You are in early today, I think.”

“Late, as a matter of fact,” Henry murmured, deliberately not looking at the clock facing towards Mr. Fairfax’s desk. “Sir, I think you are unwell.”

Charles Fairfax paled a little. “Unwell? Me? Nonsense! I’m hale and hearty, I can assure you.”

“I can clearly see that you are not, sir,” Henry said firmly, striding over to the desk and taking Mr. Fairfax’s hand in his. His pulse was weak and erratic, his skin clammy to the touch. “Might I suggest summoning a doctor?”

“No, thank you,” Charles said firmly. “I have a doctor – my son-in-law, Doctor Jonathan Ashby.”

Henry bit his lip. Even he, with all of his frequent goings-away, knew about Doctor Ashby. He was renowned for his charitable works, for his new-fangled ways of doing things that proved annoyingly effective, and his all-round likeability. The man was popular with the poor and rich alike and had even been said to consort with alienists and nerve-doctors.

In short, the man was a good doctor.

“Well, at the very least, we should… ”

“I’d be obliged if you didn’t mention this to Eleanor,” Charles said, a twinge of desperation creeping into his voice. “It will only worry her.”

Henry bit his lip. “Sir, I don’t believe that keeping this from your daughter will do any good. She might even be hurt.”

Charles shook his head firmly. “I know my daughter well, thank you, Lord Henry. This will only make her more anxious. I intend for my daughter to marry and settle down, and I don’t wish to distract her. I never wanted to raise selfless little idiots, and I don’t want my daughter to sacrifice her life to wait on me in my dotage. No parent should ever want that.”

“Mr. Fairfax, I…”

“I want my daughter to live,” Charles said, more loudly than before. “I want her to live and be happy, not spend her life worrying about me and my health, turning potential suitors down and waste her youth on me and this business. If that requires keeping things a secret from her, that is what I will do. No, sir. I have higher plans for my Eleanor than life as a nurse..”

Henry swallowed hard, clenching his jaw. “That’s admirable, but the fact remains that your daughter has a right to know about your health. What’s more, I don’t intend to keep a secret from her. I’m trying to cultivate trust here, not take sides.”

Charles reddened, and opened his mouth, no doubt to argue more. The prospective argument was postponed by Eleanor’s arrival.

The subject was rendered moot at once – she took one look at her father and gasped, hurrying over to his side.

“Oh, Papa ! You look so ill. Shall we send for a doctor?”

“No, no, dear! Lord Henry and I have just been through this. I’m only a little tired, that’s all.”

Henry tactfully backed away, giving the father and daughter a little space. At least he didn’t have to worry about keeping a secret from Eleanor – which he’d had no intention of doing anyway – but something else was worrying him now.

What was it Charles Fairfax had said?

If that requires keeping things a secret from her, that is what I will do.

What secrets was the man keeping, then? And why was it so important they be kept from Eleanor?