The Wedding Escape (6 page)

Somehow Jack refrained from cursing. “Then fire them,” he instructed tautly.

Lionel knotted his brow in confusion. “The crew?”

“No, not the crew,” Jack snapped, although in his current dark mood he wasn't sure that firing the crew was a bad idea. “Fire Quinn and his men. I'm not paying them to watch my ships only to have the vessels vandalized while they are supposedly under their guard. The
Viking
has already left for Karachi, has she not?”

“She set sail yesterday,” Lionel confirmed.

“Which means only the
Charlotte
and the
Liberty
remain docked here.”

“The
Liberty
is due to sail for Jamaica in two days, and the
Charlotte
is not booked for sail at the moment.” Lionel was silent a moment, gauging Jack's mood before hesitantly adding, “The steamships can travel faster, through almost any kind of weather, therefore they generate more business for us. The
Charlotte
being a clipper ship, businesses are less apt to use her for transporting goods, unless it is a relatively short run. At the moment we are paying just to keep her maintained and keep a small crew aboard.”

Jack gazed out the window and said nothing. He knew it made no business sense for him to keep the
Charlotte
. She was slowly bleeding his company of money that she wasn't earning back. Given the current trend toward steamship use, she wasn't likely to ever earn it back.

Even so, he could not bear the thought of parting with her.

The
Charlotte
had been his first ship; he had named her in honor of his gentlest, quietest sister, with whom he shared a special bond. The ship was not large and her reliance on the wind rendered her hopelessly quaint in this new age of the steamship, but Jack refused to sell her all the same. After he had graduated from university he had worked and sailed for years on other vessels before he finally had enough money to make the
Charlotte
his own. Once he stood with his hands on her wheel and her deck shifting comfortably beneath his legs he had done what Genevieve had always told him he would do, from the time he was fourteen and she had first shown him pictures from a magnificent old volume about ships. He had broken free from the boundaries of Scotland and set out to see the world of which he had only dreamed.

“Mr. Kent?” Lionel's voice was timorous, as if he were reluctant to interrupt his employer's reverie yet again.

“I'm keeping the
Charlotte
.” Jack's tone was final. “As for Quinn and his men—keep them only until you have managed to secure the services of someone else. Then fire them. Tell the shipyard we need the
Shooting Star
's repairs to be completed in seven days, not ten. Have them hire extra men to labor throughout the night, if necessary. If they can have her ready in a week, we will pay them an additional twenty percent. That should give them the incentive they need to get things moving.

“Contact Thomas Reynolds and tell him we apologize for the delay in moving their goods, but if they will just bear with us for a few more days, we will give them a discount of ten percent. If he rejects that, you may go as high as twenty percent. Just be sure to make him feel as if he is the one who has driven a hard bargain. Can you do that, Hobson?”

Lionel looked up from his ink-smudged paper and nodded. “How do you want me to deal with our reduced income versus our expenditures for this month and last?”

Jack picked the ledger up from the desk and studied it, swiftly adding, subtracting and forecasting the lengthy columns of numbers in his head. Learning to read had been a challenge, but mathematics had come quite naturally.

“The sailors have to be paid or they will quit, so see that they are compensated first,” Jack began. “Secondly, tell our suppliers that if they extend our terms another sixty days, we will pay them an additional eight percent. Then contact all our clients and propose that if they are willing to pay fifty percent up front instead of the normal thirty, we will grant them a discount of five percent. If we can defer our expenses and recover our costs on our shipments sooner, this will immediately improve our cash position.”

Lionel nodded as his hand scratched feverishly across a yellowed sheet of paper. “What about our bank payment?”

Jack frowned at the ledger, considering. “When I am back in Inverness I will meet with the bank and let them know our payment is forthcoming, but that it will be in two installments. Once the
Viking
has returned and we collect the balance of her fee for this delivery, we can pay the bank the first installment. By then the
Shooting Star
will be seaworthy again and we will have her deposit in hand. In the meantime, I shall be leaving for Ceylon in a few days to finalize our contracts there, which will also mean a substantial infusion of funds within the next month or so.” He mentally ran through his calculations one last time, then laid the ledger back on Lionel's desk, satisfied that he had addressed everything for the moment. “Is there anything else?”

Lionel scribbled away at his notes, anxious to record every detail accurately. “No, sir, Mr. Kent.”

“If you need to reach me, I shall be staying in London at my father's house tonight. Tomorrow I am returning to Inverness, and then I'm off to Ceylon. Should anything urgent come up this afternoon, you can reach me at the Marbury Club.”

Lionel's pen froze in mid-scrawl. “The Marbury Club?” He knew his employer detested that particular bastion of elitism.

“I'm going there because I'm trying to find a Lord Philmore.” Jack was not sure why he felt he needed to justify his actions to his employee. Maybe because Lionel, like himself, had come from inauspicious beginnings. While his employee had never lived on the streets, or been thrown in jail for stealing, or been subject to vicious beatings, Lionel Hobson had lived a life utterly void of luxury or privilege. It had only been through considerable discipline and struggle that the young man had managed to secure for himself a respectable job as an office manager, for which he earned the sum of one hundred and forty pounds per year. If he continued to work for Jack without the business going bankrupt, he might eventually be able to lease a small house and take on the burden of a wife and children.

The idea of dining at a place like the Marbury Club was as inconceivable to Lionel Hobson as going for tea at Buckingham Palace.

“Do you mean Viscount Philmore?” Lionel wondered.

“Do you know him?”

“I've read about him in the newspaper—he attends almost every important ball and social event in London.”

Because he is a fatuous fool with nothing more important to do,
Jack reflected acidly.

“He was mentioned in the
Morning Post
just this morning,” Lionel continued, clearly excited by the prospect that Jack was going to see someone of such recent notoriety. “I've got it here.” He struggled to pull open a warped drawer in his desk.

“And just what glorious thing did the viscount do to merit being in the
Morning Post
today?” Jack enquired sarcastically.

“He is going to marry one of the richest American heiresses in London,” Lionel reported, finally freeing the recalcitrant drawer. He cleared a space on his desk and spread out the wrinkled sheets of his newspaper. “Here it is.” He pointed a blackened finger at the headline.

 

 

Jack frowned, confused. Although it was possible the papers were aware that Miss Belford had deserted Whitcliffe at the altar the previous afternoon, how in the name of God could they have known that she had returned to London with the intention of marrying Lord Philmore? He quickly scanned the paragraph below.

And realized the newspaper was not referring to the American beauty he had left curled in bed but a few hours earlier, her tearstained cheeks luminous in the leaden morning light.

 

T
HE MARBURY CLUB WAS SITUATED IN THE HEART
of the supremely fashionable district of London known as Mayfair. Its entrance was evocative of a Greek temple, boasting a stately row of Corinthian columns capped by an enormous pediment, which housed a violent frieze of the Roman army conquering some helpless enemy. Once one summoned the self-assurance needed to walk through the building's heavily carved oak doors, one was overwhelmed by the oppressive sumptuousness of the Grand Hall. Beyond this were the elegantly appointed rooms in which the club's members cocooned themselves each day. The windows were shrouded in plum velvet curtains, which custom dictated must never be opened more than a handsbreadth; the walls were paneled in somber English oak; and the floors were buried beneath acres of worn, musty carpets. It was here that the feckless gentlemen of London society gathered, closeting themselves from the rest of humanity so they could smoke, drink, eat, read their newspapers and gossip amongst themselves in the drearily oppressive and rarefied atmosphere of the privileged few.

Jack had not been inside more than a minute before he felt as if he were suffocating.

“Good God, Jack Kent, is that really you?”

A barrel-shaped man with a cigar in one hand and a brandy in the other reeled out of a leather chair and lumbered toward him, obliviously dropping a gray chunk of ash onto the carpet as he went. A thick swath of coarse white hair covered his head, and he sported a massive mustache that looked like two curling rodent tails pinned beneath his spider-veined nose.

“Good afternoon, Lord Sullivan,” said Jack. The man was a friend of Haydon's and amiable enough, when taken in small doses. “How are you?”

“Still alive and still bloody thirsty.” He took a swig from his crystal glass, then smacked his liver-colored lips with satisfaction. “Damn doctor has told me I have to cut back. The man's a perfect half-wit, I say. Drinking and smoking are the only things keeping me here. If he had any bloody sense, he'd tell me to drink more. Here, everyone, look who has decided to grace us with his presence,” he blared drunkenly, seizing the attention of every man in the room. “Redmond's ward—the one who likes ships. Just come back from India, if I'm not mistaken.”

It was a fascinating aspect of Jack's notoriety that despite the fact that he so rarely frequented the club, once he was there most of the members took great pains to speak to him and feign their welcome. The bitter furor that had erupted when Haydon first fought to have his wards made members of the club had been a dark chapter in the Marbury Club's otherwise deadly staid two-hundred-year history. On the exceptional occasion of Jack's attendance, there was a perverse curiosity to find out just what Lord Redmond's wild and reckless eldest ward had been up to. The news of the sabotage and financial difficulties his shipping business was encountering would have provided much fodder for the Marbury Club's otherwise stultifyingly vapid afternoon discussions.

“Good to see you, Kent.” A dried-up little husk of a man with a fringe of straw-colored hair skirting his otherwise shiny pink head approached and extended a scaly hand. “How was India? Damned hot, I would imagine.” He looked about the room and guffawed.

“It was, Lord Chesley.” Jack accepted the glass of brandy a footman offered him on a silver tray and took a deep swallow. He would need ample fortification if he was to play this game of strained civility for long. “But I enjoy the heat.”

“Of course you do.” Lord Farnham, the Earl of Palgrave, studied him with supercilious amusement as he fingered the ends of his short, dark beard into a perfect point. “And I'd wager you enjoyed the special charms of the native women there as well, did you not?”

The entire room broke into a chorus of raucous male laughter, much of it half drunk, although it was barely midday.

“I enjoy the charms of women wherever they are offered—as I'm sure every man in this room does, including you, Lord Chesley.” Jack raised his glass at the hunched little bird of a man and winked, causing the assemblage to roar with laughter once again.

“So, Kent, what brings you to London?” asked Lord Farnham. “I hear you've been having some trouble with ruffians vandalizing your ships.” His expression was mild. “That's all been straightened out, I hope?”

“The matter is under investigation,” Jack replied impassively. “Fortunately, the damage has been minimal and has not affected my shipping schedules.”

It was vital to maintain the impression that his business was thoroughly sound. Any rumors suggesting otherwise would make his investors and clients uneasy, which could result in loans being called and contracts being canceled, either of which would be disastrous for him.

“Really? I had heard otherwise.” Lord Spalding regarded him intently over the rim of his glass, his bloated face drawn into a mask of barely veiled disdain. “One never can be sure of the accuracy of information these days,” he added, absently twirling the gold crest ring on his left hand.

His inference that Jack was lying was unmistakable. Aware that everyone was waiting for his reaction, Jack forced an amused smile to his lips. “You're absolutely right, Spalding,” he agreed amiably. “That's why I have always preferred to rely on facts and figures. They bring a remarkable clarity to matters of business—as no doubt you have also found. One day I'll take you through my plans for the expansion of North Star Shipping over the next five years. I'm sure you'll find it most intriguing.”

His expression dubious, Lord Spalding took a swallow of his drink. “Indeed.”

“Actually, I came to England to visit my family, who were attending the Duke of Whitcliffe's wedding yesterday,” Jack continued, casually steering the conversation toward the subject of Miss Belford and, by association, Viscount Philmore. “I'm only here to check on my London office before heading back to Scotland.”