A Scandalous Arrangement Read Free Page B

tallying up invoices and receipts. He was a much younger man then of course, but he had infinite patience with the small girl who dogged his progress around the mill.
    In contrast, her brother spent his time adventuring with his friends, and as he grew older, cavorting with girls from the town. He spent less and less time at home, and none at all in the mill. Her father saw no real problem with this; the lad was merely sowing his wild oats as all young men must. He would do his duty perfectly well when the time came to settle down. The elder Mr. Wynne harboured no doubts that his son would have a head for the business—it was in the blood after all. You only had to look at little Victoria to know that.
    Victoria didn’t cavort, and had no adventures. She grew up among weavers and engineers, and revelled in everything connected with the textile trade. She knew how the machinery operated, she understood exactly how the finest cloth was woven, how much it was worth down to the last half penny, and who would likely buy it. She had assumed throughout her childhood and adolescence that she would have a role in the mill when she grew up. She was quick with figures, could calculate cash flows and projections in her head, and knew all the most reliable suppliers of the finest wool. She expected to run Wynne’s with her father, and eventually her brother, so she was devastated when Mr. Wynne explained to her, gently but firmly, that the proper place for a gentle young lady of means was in the drawing rooms of their friends and acquaintances, or aiding those less fortunate through charitable works. She should not aspire to a life of managing a workforce and arguing with other mill owners about the price of cloth.
    Victoria endured almost a year of that existence while her father continued to run the mill without her aid, and considered herself to be in her own personal purgatory. Her ordeal ended with his death but even so, she grieved deeply over the loss of her beloved papa, and not a day had passed in the ten years since that she did not miss him. When Edward junior announced his imminent departure, she silently rejoiced, always knowing she would step in. Her mother offered no objections to Victoria’s new status, and the pair of them slipped into an easy alliance that served them well on the whole.
    Their only source of disagreement was Edward. Hester fretted over her son’s antics and his frequent demands for cash. She worried about him. Victoria was simply glad he had gone. She paid up when she saw no alternative, and life continued well enough. Until now.
Chapter Two
     
     
    “Damned traffic.” Adam Luke scowled at the spatters of mud speckling his fine shoes, deposited there in the wake of a brewery dray that had splashed though a muddy puddle right alongside him. His housekeeper would see to the matter, but even so, it added to his general irritation at the way his affairs were proceeding today.
    Adam valued good timekeeping in others, but today he was late himself. He was scheduled to meet with Mr. Catchpole at noon sharp, and it was already after one. His earlier business had overrun, his fellow directors of the London Electrical Company quite unable to arrive at a decision. Sometimes he wondered if any one of them would be able to discern the time in a roomful of clocks. That alone was enough to aggravate his temper, but their obstinacy in the face of what appeared to him to be a sound and exciting business venture confounded him entirely. At last, unable to convince them of the wisdom of investing in the proposal before the board, he accepted defeat with his usual imperturbable expression whilst inwardly seething. He made his excuses, prior engagement and all that, and took his leave.
    Now, his collar turned up against the drizzling rain that persisted after the main deluge had passed, he strode purposefully along Gresham Street in the direction of his solicitor’s chambers, his cane rapping on the wet pavement as