Betina Krahn (27 page)

“Do you see that?” he crowed when one cherub reached open arms to him. “Babies adore me, you know. We have something of an affinity, a
simpatico
 … grounded in a rare mutuality of nature. We share an instinctive recognition of the splendor of simplicity and a deep appreciation of the value of being ourselves. Don’t we, my sweet little cherub?” He pulled the little one into his arms and the child nestled contentedly against him. “Babies are so magical,” he crooned, patting the toddler’s back and glowing with genuine affection. “As far back as I can recall, I’ve had a magic touch with them.”

Madeline stared, openmouthed, as the toddler remaining in her arms leaned and stretched and babbled, trying desperately to get to Endicott too. When the designer extended a lanky arm to accept the child, Madeline willingly handed her over.

“Endicott,” she said, breaking into a beaming smile. “Come with me.”

In her office sometime later, Madeline sat staring ahead of her blankly, trying to remember just what it was she had intended to do that day. Her reverie was interrupted minutes later by the sound of someone clearing his throat. She looked up to find Cole in the doorway with his hands on the shoulders of two young boys who looked remarkably like Emily’s sons … except for—

“Their hair!” She hurried over to inspect. “What did you do?”

“I had Cravits cut it,” Cole said with aplomb. “He’s a
genius with the shears, as these young gentlemen will attest.” He addressed them. “You may wait outside for me.” They nodded with widened eyes, called him “sir,” and hurried—without running—into the outer office.

“Who are those creatures, and what have you done with Emily’s children?” Madeline demanded, peering out the door, watching them walk upright like real human beings.

“I did what should have been done long ago. I got them a haircut, gave them a decent breakfast, and threatened to tan their hides for boot leather if I ever saw such behavior out of them again.” While she was absorbing that, he sauntered into the office and planted himself in a chair. “What the little wretches need is a dose of sound discipline and plenty of work to keep them busy.”

“Well, I’ve engaged a schoolmaster, but it will be at least three weeks before he arrives,” Madeline said, more than a little perturbed.

“Three weeks?” His eyes glinted. “Well, I’m certain they can find something to deface, dismantle, or incinerate to keep them busy for a few weeks. Failing that, they can always find some
one
to vandalize, terrify, or dismember.”

Even knowing he was taunting her, she suffered a horrifying vision of a rampaging herd of Jonathans and Theodores bursting through the factory and village, trampling everything in their path. With so many parents at work, the number of children at loose ends was alarming. All too often “loose ends” came to “bad ends.”

“I suppose … we may need an interim schoolmaster,” she admitted.

“What you need is someone with the eyes of an eagle, the heart of a lion, and the constitution of a bull elephant,” he put in helpfully. “In short, a zoological wonder who will take these little hooligans in hand, glue their bottoms on seats, and cram sums, letters, and recitations into their heads until they give in and grow up.”

“Well, you certainly make the job sound like every tutor’s
dream,” she declared irritably. “Do you also have a candidate in mind for the post?”

“Actually, one name does spring to mind.” He smiled annoyingly. “But I believe Moses has been dead for a few millennia.”

“I have a candidate,” came a voice from the doorway. They looked up to see Tattersall standing with his hands gripping the edges of his vest. He reddened a bit under their scrutiny. “Myself.”

“B-but, Tattersall,” Madeline said, staring at him in bewilderment, “you don’t know the first thing about children … do you?”

“I have impeccable credentials,” he said with a sniff. “I used to be one myself.”

“Now, here’s a possibility.” Cole sat back and stroked his chin. “But I must say, Tattersall, I never would have taken you for a man with a death wish.”

Madeline heatedly ignored Cole. “But what about your other work, Beaumont?”

“I have the books and ledgers established, and they won’t require much time until we’re in full production. I can do the books of an afternoon for a few weeks.” He fidgeted and lowered his gaze. “I’ve always fancied having a go at school-mastering.”

“The books and slates arrived some time ago. And I suppose we could use the classroom in the factory while Harley and his sons ready the parish house.” She agonized for a moment, then nodded without enthusiasm. “We’ll try it, then.”

“Excellent,” Tattersall said, beaming as he headed out the door.

“They’ll send him to rack and ruin,” she said, staring wanly after him.

Cole chuckled and headed for the outer office. “Don’t be so certain.”

Madeline hurried out after him, and they reached the outer office just in time to see the mild-mannered clerk taking
Emily’s mischievous boys by the scruff of their necks. A determined fire appeared in his eyes as he looked them over.

“I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you young gentlemen for some time now.” His smile both broadened and tightened. “Come with me.”

Madeline watched Tattersall trundling the children out the door and sent Cole a narrow look. “If you’ve cost me my best employee, I’ll never forgive you.”

“That’s awfully human of you, Archangel Madeline. I might have expected something more in the way of … oh, I don’t know … a host of gratitude, perhaps.”

She started. “Gratitude? For what? Annoying and interfering and prodding and meddling and—” She stopped, and her expression evolved into an insightful glare. “And helping.”

“
Helping
?” He jerked back as if slapped, blinked as the sense of it hit, then reddened from the collar up. “There is no cause to be insulting, Miss Duncan!”

As he strode out, she watched the rigidity of his shoulders and the set of his jaw and realized that she had genuinely unsettled him. She had accused him—and justly so—of helping. True, he had done it in a backhanded sort of a way, through nudging and needling with that insufferable wit of his. Just like this morning at breakfast with that business about her trousers …

She wobbled over to Emily’s desk and sat down hard in the secretary’s chair. Twice in one day he had taken it upon himself to bring up changes that he thought needed to be made at Ideal. First he taunted her into setting a more accessible example for her women workers, then he proposed she do something right away about the problem of the older children. Two suggestions in one day.

Helping
.

She began to smile, and soon she was positively glowing.
He wasn’t half the cynic he professed to be. Recalling the horror in his face as he realized it too, she hugged herself and laughed. It was a hard thing, she supposed, for a proud cynic to realize he bore a shameful streak of hope. Well, she would just have to help him see that such a flaw needn’t be fatal. And where better to resurrect defeated dreams than at the Ideal factory?

“
Another
report?” Foglethorpe said, eagerly perching on a stool beside Sir William’s chair and craning his neck for a glimpse of the letter the old justice held. “He must have a good bit of time on his hands.”

Sir William chuckled and resettled his spectacles on his nose. “From the sound of things, that’s not all he has on his hands. Listen. ‘The place is a bottomless pit, into which St. Madeline nobly unburdens herself of her wealth. Each day there seems to be another crisis requiring a sizable outlay of coin … the most recent involving the hiring of baby-minders to see to the women workers’ children so that she may have the privilege of paying them to work on clothing for the little wretches to wear. She’s an incurable soft touch, and I’ve grown tired of the incessant naysaying required to keep her solvent. I’ve given her the strings of her own purse. If you don’t approve, replace me.
Quickly
. Your reluctant servant, Mandeville.’ ”

Sir William lowered the letter and laid his
head back against the chair. “He’s coming right along, Fogles. She’s gone from ‘Mad Madeline’ to ‘St. Madeline’ and he’s given up trying to ‘cash-starve’ the philanthropy out of her.” He gave a wistful smile. “I’d give six months off my life to know just how much of her incurable ‘soft touch’ he’s experienced.”

Later that same morning, across London in a comfortable house on the edge of Mayfair, Gilbert Duncan was receiving a visitor. He breezed into his parlor, tidying his tie, but stopped instantly at the sight of the scruffy Rupert Fitch parked upon the silk upholstery of his expensive new second empire settee.

“
You
. What are you doing here?”

Rupert smiled with oily self-assurance. “Now, is that any way to talk to a man who’s just brought you the keys to a fortune?”

Madeline hurried up the stairs from the storage room three mornings later, a scowl on her face. As she reached the second flight of stairs, the front doors banged open and she was swept up in a tide of children of varying ages rumbling up the steps to their makeshift classroom just off the cutting floor.

She greeted them absently, her mind on what she had discovered in the storage room. Then one little fellow popped up on the step in front of her, demanding her full attention.

“Look wot I can do, Miz Duncan!” he declared, and executed a wobbly handstand right there on the steps.

She gasped.

“Don’t do that—not here! You’ll hurt yourself!”

“No, I won’t! I do it all th’ time!” he crowed, standing upside down, red-faced and grinning at her horror.

While the other children clamored past, he proceeded on his hands up the few remaining steps. At the top he righted
himself, waved mischievously, and darted off. Belatedly, she recognized little Robbie Steadman—in a spanking new pair of trousers, a middy blouse trimmed with a bit of white piping, and a white cotton tie.

She suddenly realized that many of the children were dressed in the same handsome blue wool jersey. Warmth spread through her. So the children were indeed wearing her design! And Robbie’s antic clearly bore out the greater freedom of movement afforded by the garments. She allowed herself a moment of triumph, but then returned to the problem of the nearly empty storeroom shelves.

The time had come to send samples of her Ideal bodices and knickers to the various ladies and mercantile establishments on her list of “influentials.” So she had gone downstairs first thing that morning to begin packing—only to discover a mere handful of garments on the shelves, several of which were mysteriously sewn with dark blue thread. Even allowing for plenty of mistakes, there should have been several dozen of each garment by then. Where were the others? And what on earth could they be thinking, stitching white bodices with blue thread?

For the past three days, with only occasional interruptions—like when the Ketchum boys sauntered through and stopped to flirt with Charlotte and a couple of the younger women—her dozen seamstresses had worked steadily on the garments.

Madeline trudged up the rest of the stairs and walked slowly through the sewing room as the women were settling in at their machines and beginning to work.

In her office, she called Maple in and asked her about the shortage of finished garments. Maple seemed a bit uncomfortable as she disclaimed any knowledge of the matter, but promised to give it some attention.

When the head seamstress left, Madeline turned to find Cole standing in the doorway of her office with his hands in his pockets.

“Trouble in paradise, Archangel Madeline?” He strolled in. She busied herself with the letters on Emily’s desk. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”

“I suppose not … not with your ear to the door,” she said tartly.

“It seems you’re having a productivity problem.”

“Nothing we can’t solve.”

“Ummm.” He smiled and ambled toward the door. “If you keep an eye out, I suppose.”

It was his prickly way of warning her, she knew. She couldn’t help wondering what else he knew and wasn’t saying. She worked on signing the second round of solicitation letters she and Tattersall had penned the previous afternoon. When she finished, his words were still lingering in her mind.
Keep an eye out …

She headed abruptly into the sewing room, walking with her head up, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. Instantly there was a small flurry at one of the machines along the far side of the room. She couldn’t quite locate the source until the sound of someone clearing his throat drew her attention to Cole, who was leaning his arm with determined nonchalance on top of a sewing table. As she changed course and walked toward him, heads lifted and eyes followed her every move. When she neared, Cole turned and sat down on the edge of the table, trapping something beneath him. The woman sitting rigidly at the machine, her face reddening, was none other than Bess Clark.

“Interesting thing, stitchery. I’ve just been watching Mrs. Clark, here, as she works on”—he rose from his seat on the fabric Bess Clark had been stitching and gave it a puzzled look—“whatever it is she is working on.”