For Love's Sake (2 page)

His brother shrugged, thinking that he was utterly hopeless. “Then go back to Wiltshire. It’s all over and done with here.”

Christopher nodded down at Jonathan, who, even though he was five years older, was at least six inches shorter. “I want to know the moment those assets are disposed of, and I don’t care how much money I get for them. I just want them
gone
.”

Another visit from his uncle’s solicitor brought news that infuriated Christopher beyond belief. While the house sold immediately, and for almost the price they asked for it, the mill was a different story.

“I thought you said there were other bidders,” Christopher said, scowling.

 
“There were, but none expressed any desire to reenter into negotiations for a second time. It seems your mill is not faring well in the absence of any hands-on management, and it will take a great deal of work to bring it back. I estimate at least six months – assuming, of course, that you are willing to go.”

“I am not willing to go.”

He slammed the lid of his leather briefcase closed. “Then I am sorry, Your Lordship. I can no longer be of any assistance to you in this matter.”

Few men ever dared to test Christopher Brayles’ temper, but there sat a little bald man staring at him insolently and doing exactly that. Christopher sighed. “What needs to be done, exactly?”

The solicitor nodded and reopened his briefcase. “Minor repairs, perhaps some aesthetic improvements to the building, and I would suggest an entire overhaul of the management. A good look over the books would not be an altogether bad idea, if you understand my meaning.”

“You say if I do those things, you could find me a buyer?”

“Most assuredly.”

Christopher leaned his head back against his leather desk chair. The prospect of spending the next six months in America did not seem a very pleasant one, but no one else could be trusted to see to his business there – and the sooner this was all over, the better.

“Fine,” he said. “See that arrangements are made, and I will book a passage by the end of the week.”

“You’ll miss all the good shooting this year,” Jonathan said over dinner.

Across the table, Lady Amesbury, Jonathan’s spoiled wife, bared her exposed
décolletage
, spattered with diamonds, to Christopher’s gaze. He curled his lip at her in disgust. If she realized his revulsion, she took no actions to change her behavior. Instead, she stared at him over the lip of her champagne glass.

She knew Christopher Brayles was the coldest, most self-centered man alive. He was also the most seductive, intriguing, and utterly titillating man she ever met. No one could make such thick auburn hair look as good, and beneath his scowling russet brows, his blue eyes could freeze a woman cold – but for a rare few, they could also flash with an appreciative smile. And London ladies would turn themselves inside out for one of those smiles.

“You’re
really
going to America?” Lady Amesbury asked.

Christopher nodded.

“That’s too bad. Jonathan and I were going to invite you to the Riviera with us this Christmas.”

“How kind,” Christopher said.

Jonathan smiled. He knew his brother would never leave the country willingly. “It won’t be the same without you.”

Christopher took a long swallow from his glass. “Christ. Talking about going to America is almost as bad as actually going to America.”

Refusing to let his brother off so easily, Jonathan sat his fork and knife down, and studied him from across the table. “And where is it you are going exactly, should I want to write you and tell you everything you’re missing?”

“Piney Shoals, North Carolina.”

Theresa Amesbury laughed so hard she almost spit out her wine. “What sort of place calls itself Piney Shoals?”

CHAPTER THREE

“The new boss man is coming tomorrow,” the supervisor informed everyone. “Be sure to look your best and be ready to work. We never know what’s going to happen in a situation like this, and we’d sure hate to have to let anybody go.”

“What do you think?” Deirdre asked Laurel as they shuffled out the doors of the mill. “All the way from England!”

“I don’t know any more about Englishmen than anyone else around here. He’ll have a strange accent, no doubt, and probably one of those little eye-things on a long chain so that he can hold it up to your face and find you wanting.”

“Well, I don’t
want
anything from him…except my job.”

From the mill yard, the two girls went their separate ways. Deirdre took the road that led to Mill Hill, where the millworkers and their families lived, while Laurel wheeled her bicycle towards town. It was August, so the sun was still out. The ride home each night of the summer was her favorite time of the year. It wasn’t too hot, and everything seemed so alive. She reveled in the quiet tranquility of nature after a long day in the deafening, choking spinning rooms of the mill.

As usual, she pedaled past the fine houses on Marlwood Avenue, but when it was time to take her shortcut, Laurel decided to keep going. She rode all the way to Main Street, and pulled her bicycle up to a stop by a lamppost. She left it and she walked down the sidewalk, enjoying the sights of town on a Friday night.

A group of couples walked arm in arm past her, and a few men spoke and tipped their caps. None of the shops were still open, but Laurel browsed the window displays for the latest fashions. A beautiful yellow walking dress caught her eye. It had a narrow skirt that flared at the bottom, with lovely blue embroidery at the hem. The top fit tightly on the mannequin and had matching blue stripes embroidered on the lapel. A soft, high-collared white lawn shirt peeped from beneath the bodice, and a blue ribbon cinched the waistline in tight as a tick.

“Boy, if I could only have a dress like that!” she said to herself.

Since Laurel could never hope to have such fine things, she treated herself to one thing she
could
have by walking across the street and buying a Coke. Sipping straight from the bottle as she strolled down the sidewalk, she stopped by the hotel.

The white structure, with its crisp red and white striped awnings, was by far the nicest building in town. Guests pulled up to the covered portico, and stepped up onto the large wrap-around porch. Trellises of bright red climbing roses shaded them at breakfast or luncheon, and a breeze always billowed the soft white curtains through the opened French doors that led to the dining room.

Even then, Laurel could see finely dressed men and women seated at tables, having dinner by the glow of electric lamps. The dining room was open to anyone who was properly attired and could afford the menu.

Laurel’s eyes roved up to the second floor, and found the only window with a light on. If her new boss stayed in town, he would certainly have a room at the hotel. For her sake, and the sake of her friends, she hoped that he didn’t plan to lay anyone off. At least her grandmother taught her to sew before she died, and Laurel was probably just good enough to find a job as a seamstress, but she thought of all the others who never learned anything other than what they needed to get by at the mill. Some of the boys and girls never even learned to read or write, since school took up precious time that could be spent earning wages.

Everyone was curious to see the man in whose hands their futures rested, but he had not made an appearance on the mill floor. Even Laurel wore her least tattered skirt, which happened to be an unfortunate dull brown, and a freshly ironed white blouse. Her light brown hair was secured in a loose bun since long braids or ribbon could easily get caught in the fast moving machinery.

Thee oppressive heat in the building caused perspiration to dampen her forehead and gather on her upper lip. Laurel was certain that she looked more like a poor, unfortunate girl rather than a woman skilled at her occupation and deserving of her job.

Across the spinning machine, Deirdre wasn’t faring much better, and could be seen wiping her shirtsleeves across her forehead every few seconds. With the machines running at full speed, it was easily one hundred degrees.

“I can’t breathe!” Deirdre mouthed in between the rolls of thread that separated them. She fanned herself for emphasis.

Laurel started to agree, when out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door to the supervisor’s office open up. Two men stepped out onto the catwalk – one of whom she knew all too well as the supervisor, and another whom she had never seen before. He was dressed much too nice to work in the mill, so she deduced him as her new employer.

“Look!” she said to Deirdre.

The men came down the creaking metal steps into the Spinning Room to observe the girls and young boys whose job it was to see that the cotton fibers were twisted into thread and then delivered to the weaving room. As the stranger drew closer, Laurel realized that he was quite a tall man, with auburn hair, and a tan that turned his skin almost the same color.

Poor Deirdre could not see him coming behind her, and she was bursting to turn around and get a look. He paused at the end of their row of machines as the supervisor explained the spinning process. Laurel stared down intently at her bobbins of thread, watching for any breaks or imperfections as the fibers came through the machine. Her slender fingers could catch a break and repair it in a split-second, and her new employer watched as she did just that.

She could feel him looking at her, but she refused to take her eyes off her spinning machine. Never had her heart hammered so hard in her chest, and she breathed a sigh of relief when he continued down the rows.

Later, the supervisor came back to tell her that ‘His Lordship’ had been very impressed with her work.

“His Lordship?” Laurel asked, confused by the term.

“That’s what I was told to call him, and that’s what he answers to.”

“If that’s what an English Lord looks like in real-life, I’ve sure been fooled!”

Laurel thought about the images of fat bald men in tweeds, or diminutive chaps who stared down at you through their quizzing glasses. ‘His Lordship’ was certainly none of those things.

“I’ve never seen a more handsome man in all my life!” one of the girls exclaimed as they waited in line to punch their time cards that evening.

Another eager girl further back in line spoke up. “I heard he actually
spoke
to your brother, Deirdre.”

Deirdre groaned, convinced that her brother had sealed the fate of her family’s future at the mill. He could do his job well enough, and was the star player on the baseball team, but when it came to intelligent conversation, he was sorely lacking.

They clocked out and headed out into the mill yard along with the hundred other employees of Hathcock-Holbrooks. There, they spotted Deirdre’s brother, and rushed over to him.

“Did he talk to you?”

“Yep,” the boy said, shoving his thumbs in his suspenders.

“What did he say?”

 
“Nothin’ much.”

“Tell us what he said to you!”

“If he’d wanted
you
to know, maybe he woulda told you hisself.”

“He’s lying.” Laurel turned and told the girls. “He didn’t talk to him at all.”

“Did too!” Deirdre’s brother said, grabbing her by the shoulder and spinning her back around. “He wanted to know what I was doing, and how long I had worked there. I just answered his questions and went on ‘bout my business.”

Someone in the crowd asked, “Does he have an accent?”

“Sure does! And deep voice to go with it, too.”

All the young ladies sighed in unison. All except Laurel, who rolled her eyes.

“I’m going home,” she said. “I’ll see ya’ll Monday.”

She pushed off on her bicycle and started her nightly journey into town. Sundays were just as long for her as a workday, so she was looking forward to curling up in her bed with her cat. No doubt all the other girls her age would be seeing their sweethearts that night, but Laurel had no use for that. She was content to spend her evenings far away from anyone else.

Every Sunday, Laurel visited her grandmother’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Stroup. All of the woman’s friends were long dead, and she considered it her duty to keep the sweet old lady company for at least an hour every week. Plus, it reminded Laurel of the days when she had a family, before she was forced to go to work.

On the way back,
she could ride her bicycle for miles down the dusty red dirt road that led to town without ever seeing another soul. There were cotton fields on either side for as far as the eye could see, dotted here and there by farmhouses and barns. She knew the sights on that road by heart. Nothing had changed since she was a little girl. Her grandparents used to drive her to church every Sunday in the wagon. Even now she could remember looking down and thinking how far she was from the ground perched on the springy seat between them. Everything looked enormous to her back then – even their old plow mule that terrified her with its big ears and loud
hee-aw!

Laurel zipped past the Baptist Church, which was just letting out. The steeple bell rang as everyone filed out the door in their Sunday best, shaking hands with the preacher, and inviting him over for lunch. Further into town, she caught the smell of fried chicken from the hotel kitchen. It had been a long time since she ate that southern delicacy, and her mouth watered just at the thought.

She stopped by the curb, listening to the polite conversation going on at the tables laid out on the porch. The rattle of ice in glasses, the clinking of silverware against bone china, and the scraping of chair legs on the wooden boards. If Laurel closed her eyes tightly enough, she could almost imagine herself seated in a wicker chair, the white linen tablecloth billowing in the afternoon breeze, and a plateful of fresh fried chicken set in front of her just begging to be ate.

But fantasizing about it wasn’t anywhere near as satisfying as the real thing.
 
With a sigh, Laurel opened her eyes. When she did so, she immediately saw ‘His Lordship’ seated alone in a corner table, his elbow propped on the arm of his chair, and one thick eyebrow raised at her.