Starlight (7 page)

That was another reminder to stem her scant complaints. For the most part, they had been very lucky.

Da chuckled softly. “There’s my lass. Always people first. And the mill?”

Her cheeks heated at her father’s understated compliment. “Any building can be repaired. Why wouldn’t I think of the people who can’t be replaced? The masters may think we’re as interchangeable as belts on a generator’s engine, but I refuse to.”

“Mrs. Gowan, I do believe we’ve raised this girl right.”

“No thanks to you,” Ma teased.

Da’s brief bout of coughing cut their banter in two. Thankfully it didn’t last long. Looking on his withered features and crooked back pinched Polly’s heart. The disease in his lungs was very bad. No one could breathe cotton strands for so long and emerge from the mills unscathed.

Some facts were unavoidable, and more painful for it.

After recovering, his watery green eyes sharpened. His body might be ailing, but his mind remained as clever as a fox. “Now, the mill.”

“Liam Ferguson says there’s hope, but I haven’t seen for myself. Once I finished in Mr. Christie’s office, I waited for him to question the others. That’s
why I was late. I wanted to know what they’d learned and what he’d asked.”

“And?”

And . . .

That was the puzzling part. The strange, dangerous man had barely questioned Agnes and the others. Instead he had taken down their employment histories, current residences, and the names of their kin. He’d tried to pry union information from their stubborn Scots lips, but they’d held the line. “Not a word,” Les had said, his bony chest puffed up. He was proud and deserved to be. Not every worker could stand up to a master, let alone one as changeable and compelling as Mr. Christie.

Compelling
was too gentle a word. Throughout her long, chilly walk back to Calton, with stops to gather news from other factory families, she had returned to him in her mind. His surprising blend of roughness and elegance continued to surprise her. Yet his sturdy, stubborn jaw with a shading of blond stubble looked at home on an otherwise aristocratic face.

And his clothing! A workingman in Mr. Christie’s state of undress was something to take for granted. They abided the dictates of toil, not fashion. To see a man of means so disheveled was nearly the same as seeing him naked. He possessed the same hard lines, dense muscles, and limitless power of any laborer. Darkness lurked in him, caged and wary.

Polly took a deep breath to regain control of her addled mind. He was just a man. She set the last tin dishes on the shelf. After she dried her hands and removed her apron, she turned to sit with her father.

“Mr. Christie only asked what one might suppose,” she said. “Details about who’s in charge of what. But you should’ve seen him, Da. Constables, Livingstone, me and Hamish and the others, all piled into his office like chickens in a coop. He looked like he was trying to read another language!”

Except when he’d looked at her. Then he had been so intensely focused, watching her with a piercing interest. It remained to be seen whether his intelligence would be a threat or an asset.

She was determined to turn him toward her cause. His brief moment of hesitation . . .
I’m not like every master.
She had almost believed him. It was the earnestness in his voice, and the way his hazel eyes had softened. As if he genuinely cared.

At the very least, it suggested an opening—if she proved brave enough to barge through. The stakes were too high for her to turn coward.

“Livingstone was there? What did he want?”

“He said Winchester sent him with the constables.” Polly shrugged. “Maybe they couldn’t trust that Mr. Christie yet knows his up from his down. And you know Livingstone uses any excuse to smack heads and grab girls.”

“I should’ve killed that bastard years ago.”

“Da! Don’t talk that way. I appreciate the sentiment, but what would we have done with you rotting in a jail? Or worse?”

Her father’s slack features took on the determined sternness of a man half his age. “He’d have got what he deserved for touching you.”

“I came to no harm. And he won’t hold rich
men’s favor forever. Brutes like him never do. They get greedy.”

“So who did it, Polly, girl? The mill fire? You must have some idea.”

She looked away. “No one we trust is talking. Makes me nervous.”

“Don’t hide from me, lass.”

With a shaky breath, she wrapped her hand around the tin cup that held the last of the day’s coffee. Already the stove cooled. The room was losing its warmth. At such a late hour, Ma wouldn’t put another hunk of coal in the fire. Da’s hands curled around a mug of his own, where his knuckles stood out as swollen lumps. Polly briefly closed her eyes.

“Tommy wasn’t at work today,” she said quietly.

“Tommy Larnach? That doesn’t prove anything.”

“Worse than that, Da. He was so angry last week down at Idle Michael’s. He’d tipped back a few too many whiskeys and started going off about burning down the whole mill. How it would serve the masters right if they lost everything.”

She shuddered at the memory of his cruelly twisting lips. He was so different from the young man he’d once been. Whip-thin and roughly handsome, he used to grin at her with carefree abandon. They shared the same neighborhood, the same friends, the same past. But they would never share the same future. Shortly after their one and only encounter as lovers, when she’d refused his request that they marry, he’d beaten a man half to death in the taproom of Idle Michael’s pub. No explanation. No apologies.

A year in jail had changed him.

Nothing had been easy between them since. Yet Polly refused to take the blame on herself for refusing him. Two years had passed since his proposal. She had been too young, too full of ambition, and their brief flirtation hadn’t warranted such a commitment.

Tommy’s bitterness was his own to swallow, not to foist on everyone else.

And if he had sabotaged the mill . . .

“I can’t believe it of Tommy,” Da said. “Hamish, maybe. He has that much backbone. Tommy might be full of piss and wind, but he doesn’t have it in him to take so much responsibility on himself.”

“I hope that’s true, Da. But as soon as Mr. Christie finds out who he is, what he said, and how he wasn’t at work today, what else will he think?”

“We need to find out first. No matter if Tommy did it, we’ll all suffer if the saboteur isn’t found. The law will step in and crack random heads.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. “I rest easier here, even trapped as I am, knowing you’ll be my eyes and ears and voice in this.”

Hot pride swept through her. She nodded once. She was her father’s right hand for a reason. Yet that had always been her trouble. She enjoyed guiding the union. Those men and women accepted her, perhaps more easily because female laborers dominated weaving. That also meant her expectations were very different from those of other Calton girls. Had she been anyone else, she might already be married, with a family of her own. Tommy’s proposal would have been the start of her life as a young missus.

Another strong cough overtook her da. He clutched his chest and high up on his throat. Air wheezed as he finally dragged in a steadying breath. “Well, give it to me, then, child. What’s the new man like?”

“I haven’t made him out yet, Da. He’s different. That’s all I can say.”

“Different how?”

“He . . .”

She let her voice trail off rather than say anything too hastily. Da needed concrete impressions of Mr. Christie, not her wispy, dizzied feelings. The tone of his voice—the strange, clipped American accent that still held a touch of English grace—would not leave her be.

“He’s very smart,” she said, staying with the facts. “Our boys tell us he teaches astronomy in America.”

“Astronomy, eh? So he has his head up there with the stars?”

“At times, it seemed that way. He lurches between thinking things through and appearing ready to come out swinging—as hard as any blustering master. He threatened us if I refused to help in his investigation.”

“Threats you take seriously?”

“I don’t know.”

“He got an eye for you, girl?”

Ma spoke up. “Graham. Enough of that.”

He turned in his chair. The rickety wood creaked beneath his slight weight. “It’s a question that needs asked. Polly’s a pretty lass, and he’d be a blind man not to take an interest.”

“Da, stop now.” Polly sipped her cool coffee, wishing briefly for a spot of sugar. It was a nicer thought to remember how Mr. Christie had touched her hair. That had been the most surprising moment of their encounter. Surprising and . . . electrifying.

She cleared her throat. “I think he sees me as someone he can prod for information.”

“Well, then that’s what you do. If he’s as smart as you suspect, maybe the facts will get to him. He’ll see the sense in working with us rather than against us.”

“How would I do that?”

“You’re a woman. You’ll think of something. Or he will.” He winked.

“Graham Gowan,” Ma said. “You’ll turn your only girl into a trollop for the union.”

“I’ll do no such thing, woman.”

“Bad enough you have her mixed up in the whole circus.” The pace of Ma’s stitches never slowed.

“I do it because I want to,” Polly said to them both.

“So he’s a handsome devil, then?”

“Da!”

He squeezed her hand. “I’ll watch my tongue, girl. You know I wouldn’t have you walking this line if it wasn’t important. Just . . . be careful.”

“I know, Da.” She swallowed. “I’ll do my best.”

Her mother scowled. “None of this will be fitting for much longer. You’ll be one-and-twenty soon and in need of a husband. You can bet your wages no man in his place will want a wife from Calton.”

That hard, true assessment stung under Polly’s
skin. So dismayed, she was almost thankful for her father’s next fit of coughing, if only as a distraction. But not really. This time his face shaded toward purple and his rough hands gripped the edge of the table. Ma rushed over from the fireplace to rub his back, while Polly drew water from a pitcher.

Agonizing minutes later, Da finally regained his breath. Ma helped him to their pallet, both of their backs slightly bowed.

Fifteen-year-old Wallace turned over on his mattress. Hair a shade brighter than Polly’s deeper red stood out from his scalp in disheveled spikes. His pale, freckled skin fairly glowed in the dark. “What happened?”

“Go back to sleep,” Ma said softly.

Polly watched the scene as if outside of herself. A single room for five people. Kitchen and living space and a bedroom, all smashed into one space. The familiar, age-old sense of indignation fizzed under her breastbone. No one on the planet worked harder than her family, unless you counted the neighbors next door and the neighbors beyond them. They were happy together, content and full of easy laughter.

But they deserved more. Justice, at the very least.

“Polly,” called her father.

She met him at the wide pallet he shared with Ma. The gasping purple had faded, leaving him nearly as wan as the gray-tinged sheets. Wisps of silver hair stuck out from his head, which was otherwise bald. “Yes, Da?”

“Do what you can to bring Christie round to our
ways. If that means letting him take a closer look at our lives, that’s what you do. Keep him occupied while you learn who did this. You need to find out before he does, or there’ll be no holding the police at bay.”

“Wouldn’t that be like letting a spy into our midst?”

“It’s either that or let a grand chance slip away. If he feels we’re being accommodating, maybe he’ll keep from getting the constables involved, and work to change the other masters’ minds.” He coughed again but repelled Ma’s attempt to keep him still and quiet. “I’ll sleep once I’ve said my piece, woman. You listening, girl?”

He wore that quirky expression that always made her lighter inside. He teased her while putting all his faith in her. Polly smiled. “Can’t help it with you shouting so.”

The merriment in his eyes was brighter than she’d seen in weeks. “That’s my Polly. It’s been four years since the last change in management. We have a chance with a new master. Do what you can.”

“I will, Da. I promise.”

Julian
Bennett was a very large, very uncouth man with more money than sense. In the modest library in Alex’s leased home, Bennett sat on the other side of the desk and sipped his second Scotch. He cleared his throat after each swallow. Perhaps a nervous condition? But he hardly seemed nervous. Born to a disgraced baron and a Welsh whore, he was proposing to buy out Christie Textiles.

“Yours is a small operation, Christie, and suddenly caught in dire circumstances. With so few looms to start with, you’ll have no means of keeping up with the output of larger competitors.”

“Such as yourself,” Alex said evenly. He was quite proud of that evenness, to be honest, because what Bennett proposed absolutely could not occur—at least not until the two-year contract was concluded. Selling the business was strictly prohibited by Sir William’s will. Not that Alex had the power to do so. He merely served as a manager in the employ of a board of directors.