Regency Collection 2013 Part 1. Louise AllenЧитать онлайн книгу.
self.
Hoddesdon, Ware, Puckeridge. ‘Good afternoon, Fakenham.’ Royston … no, Buntingford, Royston …
‘Miss France is in the library, sir.’ Odd place to take tea … Huntingdon, Norman Cross …
‘Mr Lovell, ma’am.’
… Stamford. ‘Good afternoon.’ Gran … There was no sight of the tea table, nor of Mrs Herrick. Lily was certainly there, seated at the foot of a long stretch of mahogany around which were grouped six men, all soberly suited, all of more than middle age. At the head a vigorous septuagenarian with beetling grey brows glowered at him.
‘You’ll be Lovell.’
What the devil is going on? ‘You have the advantage of me, sir.’
‘I am Frederick Conroy, Miss France is my great-niece and these are my fellow trustees in her affairs.’
Jack shot Lily one hard glance, saw her smile fade, and turned back to her great-uncle. ‘Then I appear to have intruded upon a private meeting. My apologies, Mr Conroy. Good day, gentlemen, Miss France.’
‘Not so fast, young man. We understood you are seeking investors for your coal mine.’
‘Yes, sir, for steam pumps. However, I hardly see how that need concern you.’
‘My niece is interested in investing.’
‘I, however, have not sought Miss France’s involvement.’ The anger was an almost physical presence possessing him. Jack trampled it down. Damn the woman and her passion for paying for things. What was this for? Payment for his injuries, or for his escort the other evening—or for his lovemaking?
‘Well, we have heard all about it now, so you might as well come in, sit down and discuss it.’ The old man was regarding him with shrewd eyes. Jack could almost feel him pricing his clothes, assessing his mood, calculating his worth. ‘Come along, sir! Or do you tell us we have met for nothing?’
Jack took the proffered chair, his temper under a tight rein. He could sense Lily’s eyes on him and kept his own steady on Conroy. ‘Your meeting was not at my instigation, sir. I do not consider my proposition a suitable investment for Miss France.’
The older man gave a sharp bark of laughter. ‘Miss France begs to differ. And if you do not agree with her, Mr Lovell, how is it that you have discussed it in such detail that she is able to recite chapter and verse to us? I had no idea my niece was so well acquainted with the uses of steam power or the mechanics of coal mining.’
‘I—’ Jack did look at Lily then. He knew her well enough now to know when she was hiding something, and behind the expression of calm attention on her face he could read guilt and discomfort. He had not talked in detail to Lily about the mine, but he had left all his papers out in an unlocked room.
‘Nor had I expected to find her with quite such a grasp of the different grades of coal and their uses or so very knowledgeable about optimum depths of mine shafts and the laws of diminishing return as applied to the length of—what is the term?—ah, yes, galleries.’
‘Miss France has indulged me by listening to me thinking out loud about various problems. I should not have bored her with them and I am amazed that Miss France should have troubled to recall any of the details.’ He kept his eyes on her as he spoke and watched the colour rise betrayingly in her cheeks. She could read him too, knew he was furiously angry with her.
‘My niece constantly surprises us all.’ The old man chuckled as he said it, but Jack could hear both indulgence and a strong will behind the words. Mr Conroy would allow his niece her whim this far, but he would not agree to her parting with a penny piece unless he and his fellow trustees were satisfied.
Every instinct was telling him to get up and walk out. But to do so would be to humiliate Lily in front of these men whose respect was important to her. He wanted to shake her, to demand to know what the devil she thought she was about, but that could wait.
‘Let me introduce you to my fellow trustees,’ Mr Conroy began with the air of a man calling the meeting to order, ‘and then, despite my niece’s excellent summation of the facts, we have a great many questions to ask you.’
Half an hour later Jack knew he had lost them. They were intelligent, hard, practical men, all of them, but they were merchants and traders, not engineers or mine owners. If he had been asking them to invest in a canal, or steam pumps in a manufactory, or possibly even in mines in the Midlands, then he might well have convinced them. But Northumberland was too far away, they could see all the problems very clearly and the solutions were outside their experience. And on the subject of steam locomotion, which for some reason Lily appeared to have been lecturing them about, they were frankly sceptical.
Lily had sat silent until then, her guilty blush faded until she was pallid, her hands locked together on the table as her green eyes followed the argument and questions around the table. But when Mr Shillington, the attorney, remarked that steam power for coaches was a fantasy, she intervened, passionately.
‘It is the future, not a fantasy. You only have to read the articles—’
‘Yes, yes, Miss France. It might work very well on some short tramways in Wales, but for long distances? Or even on the roads, as I believe some of these fanatics would have us believe? Madness! Why, the things would be exploding and frightening the horses, and people would go mad with the speed.’
‘But there is a steam engine in Newcastle called the Puffing Billy—’
‘They break the rails—I have heard all about it. And in any case, you are not proposing spending Miss France’s money on these locomotives, are you Mr Lovell?’
‘No sir. I require static engines that can run pumps, provide ventilation and lift coal.’
Mr Conroy looked down at his notes, then round at his fellow trustees. ‘Do we need to ask Mr Lovell to retire while we discuss this, gentlemen? No?’ His faded blue eyes looked round the table. ‘Well?’ One after another the grizzled heads shook; the only words spoken were Lily’s.
‘No! Of course we have to discuss it! You cannot simply dismiss this out of hand.’
Jack got to his feet. ‘You have given me a very patient hearing. I will not impose longer on your time. Good day, gentlemen. Miss France.’
‘Jack!’
He shut the door firmly, realising that his hands were shaking with anger. He nodded curtly at Fakenham, who was waiting in the hall, and strode out through the garden door, carefully refraining from slamming it behind him.
The restraint lasted as long as it took him to reach the studio. The slam of that door rattled the glass in the windows, and the nearest portmanteau, kicked with the full force of his feelings, flew down the length of the room to knock over a chair with a satisfying thud.
Jack counted out money for Mrs Oakman, a tip for Percy, and began to pack his portfolio with the papers from the table. How had she managed to study them without him noticing they had been disturbed? The thought of the deliberate care it must have taken made him angrier still. If she had just asked him, he would have told her he did not wish to meet her trustees, that it was not a suitable investment for her.
He lifted a stack of notes and found one long, reddish brown hair curling over his fingers. Not so very careful after all. He brushed it off, then picked it up again. It was as live and vibrant as Lily herself, curling round his fingers as she had twined herself around his heart. Impatient with himself for his weakness, Jack pulled out his note book, dropped the hair between two pages and thrust it back into his pocket as the door slowly opened behind him.
‘Jack?’
He swung round and saw the misery on her face and a strange mixture of exasperation and love cut through the anger. ‘Jack, I am so sorry they said no. I obviously mishandled it, I did not prepare well enough …’
‘You are