One Snowy Night (10 page)

‘Good to see
you, Joshua,’ said Charles. ‘We were worried you might not get through.’

‘It’s getting
worse,’ acknowledged Joshua, glancing out of the window as he took a seat.

‘I hope it won’t
delay you going north?’ asked Charles, offering Joshua a drink.

‘I hope it
will,’ countered Hetty, turning to Joshua warmly. ‘Then we will be able to keep
you in
London
for a few more weeks.’

Joshua
laughed. ‘You may have your wish. I certainly can’t go at the moment. I’ve just
heard that the roads out of
London
are impassable. Even the mail has had to be suspended, and
if the mail can’t get through then nothing else can. But I mean to set out as
soon as there is any chance of success. The manager has been left in charge of
the mill for some time now, ever since I went abroad, and although I have every
faith in him for the short term, I would rather not leave him in charge for too
long.’

Charles
nodded. ‘You must be eager to see the mill again, and take the reins into your
own hands. There are some sharp practices going on in some of the mills these
days, and it’s as well to make sure your manager hasn’t fallen prey to
temptation.’

‘I’m concerned
about that myself,’ said Rebecca. ‘If there are any unreasonable fines being
levied, I hope you will make sure they are removed.’

Joshua’s
eyebrows raised, as though he had not expected her to be so well informed, and
she had the satisfaction of having surprised him.

‘I have had
the good fortune to meet and talk to Mr Cobbett,’ she explained.

Joshua put
down his glass. ‘Have you indeed. William Cobbett’s opinions need treating
carefully. He has been imprisoned for libel before now, as I am sure you know
—’

‘His crime was
nothing more than speaking the truth,’ said Rebecca.

‘As he sees
it. But he lives in the past. He wants
England
to return to the days when labourers
worked merrily in the fields. Unfortunately, he forgets that labourers did not
always work merrily, and that they were often plagued by poor harvests . . . as
well as bad backs. Scratching a living from the land can be hazardous. Farmers,
as well as mill hands, have been known to starve.’

Rebecca
sighed. ‘I know he tends to idealize the countryside and I know that he has a
dislike, if not to say a hatred, of the mills, but some of his reasons for that
hatred are sound. The way spinners are fined a shilling for leaving their
window open, for example, or sixpence for leaving their oil can out of place.’

‘I agree.’

‘And that is
not all,’ said Rebecca, who had been so convinced that she would have to argue
her case that she did not immediately take in what he had said. ‘In some mills,
men are fined a shilling for whistling. I warn you, I will not countenance . . .
’
Her voice tailed away as his
words sank in. ‘You . . . agree?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘Yes. I do. Is
that so surprising?’

‘Yes. No. I
don’t know.’

‘Just like a
woman!’ laughed Charles. ‘Three answers in one!’

Joshua smiled,
but nevertheless he turned to Rebecca curiously. ‘Which one is it?’

She frowned. ‘Grandfather
told me you were ruthless . . .’ she began.

‘And so I am,
in commerce. But not in my dealings with people who depend upon me for their
livelihoods. I know what it is to be poor. Your grandfather began life in very
difficult circumstances and he told me many stories of those days.’

Rebecca nodded
thoughtfully. Her grandfather had told her about the hardships of poverty. ‘I
knew Grandfather would never have allowed such fines, but as I knew he had not
taken an active role in the mill for some time I wondered . . .
’

‘Whether I
would be a slave-driver?’ asked Joshua with a lift of his eyebrows.

‘Not a
slave-driver,’ said Rebecca. ‘I know that Grandfather would not have left you
in charge if you had been that. But a hard taskmaster, perhaps.’

‘I am a hard
man,’ he acknowledged, ‘but I am not a monster, as I hope you will soon
discover.’

His eyes
washed over her disturbingly, and she was pleased when Charles spoke.

‘It looks like
you two have more in common than you thought,’ he remarked.

Rebecca
nodded. She had wondered, when she had become aware of Joshua’s ruthless
streak, just how far this would carry him in his running of the mill, and she
had been prepared to stand up to him. But she was pleased to learn that,
although he undoubtedly had a ruthless streak - and, in business, she knew, a
ruthless streak was necessary - it was tempered by fairness.

Joshua, she
was learning, was a man she could respect.

‘Still, the
mill needs to be profitable,’ remarked Charles.

‘And I mean it
to be.’ Joshua took his eyes reluctantly away from Rebecca and gave his
attention to Charles. ‘But not at the expense of other people’s misery. There
is no reason why the mill can’t be run in a civilised manner and still show a
healthy profit.’

‘It’s a good
thing you two see eye to eye,’ said Charles, blissfully unaware of the fact
that on everything else they were at daggers drawn. ‘It doesn’t do for partners
to be always falling out. It’s bad for business. But it seems that my father
knew what he was doing when he left you each half of the mill.’

‘You don’t
mind him having left the mill to us?’ asked Joshua, looking at Charles.

‘Not a bit of
it,’ said Charles, holding out his hands to warm them in front of the fire. ‘In
fact, I’m glad he did. I’ve no head for business.’

‘Nonsense,
Charles,’ said Hetty loyally.

Charles
smiled. ‘I’m good enough at managing the property my father left me, but I
wouldn’t have liked to learn about something new. And besides, the mill is so
far north it would have been impossible for me to keep an eye on it. An absent
owner is never a good idea. As you say, it provides an opportunity for a
corrupt manager to operate undetected. No, I didn’t want the mill. It would
have been a burden to me.’

The door
opened and dinner was announced.

Charles gave
Rebecca his arm, and Joshua offered his arm to Hetty.

Rebecca
breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness! The custom that did not allow wives
and husbands to go in to dinner together had served her well tonight.

They went
through into the dining-room, an elegant high-ceilinged apartment decorated in
duck-egg blue. White mouldings adorned the walls, and their brightness was
echoed by an Adam fireplace, which was decorated by a line of dancing nymphs. In
the grate burned a roaring fire.

Hetty indicated
their places, and they took their seats at the long mahogany table. A group of
candles were lit in the centre, casting their sparkling light over the glass
and silverware. It was a most attractive sight.

Hetty looked a
little anxious as the soup was brought in, but the first mouthful showed it to
be good and hot and Rebecca saw her relax.

Good!
thought Rebecca.
At
least Hetty will be able to enjoy the evening!

‘Do you know,’
began Charles, once he had taken the edge off his appetite, ‘I think
—’

But whatever
Charles had been about to say was lost for ever as there was a sudden crash and
something came hurtling through the window, narrowly missing Joshua’s head. It
passed over his left shoulder and landed with a splash in his soup.

‘What . . . ?’
asked Rebecca, aghast.

She looked at
Joshua, relieved to see he had not been hurt. If the stone - for a stone she
could now see it to be - had been an inch to the right it would have struck him
forcibly on the back of the head.

Joshua,
throwing down his napkin, was already striding over to the window and looking
out onto the lamplit street.

‘Do you see
anything?’ asked Rebecca, joining him.

But as she
looked out of the window she could see as well as he could that the street was
empty.

‘No. Nothing.’
Joshua’s voice was grim.

‘Oh! How
dreadful!’ said Hetty. ‘Lady Cranston was telling me only last night that her
own house had been burgled just before Christmas, and now our house has been
attacked. I don’t know what is happening to the world these days. It was never
like this when I was a girl.’

Behind her,
Rebecca heard Charles calling for the footmen as he gathered a party together
and went outside in order to search for the miscreants.

And then she
felt Joshua put his arm round her shoulder and steer her away from the window.
As he did so his arm grazed her skin where, above her long white evening gloves
and beneath the short, puffed sleeves of her gown, it was bare. She felt a
shiver run up her arm and spread throughout her body. Instinctively she turned
to look at him, lips parted, and he, feeling her reaction to his touch, turned
towards her, eyes smouldering. There was a look of desire on his face that set
her pulses racing. A desire that, alarmingly, was matched by an equally fierce
desire of her own.

How had it
happened? How had she found herself desiring the most stubborn man she had ever
met? The most ruthless and the most perverse? A man who would relegate her to
the fireside if she gave him a chance? Who would deny her the right to take an
interest in her inheritance? And who, as the final straw, expected her to enter
into a loveless marriage for the sake of her reputation? It was of all things
the most contrary.

‘
London
grows more dangerous by
the day,’ sighed Hetty.

Rebecca heard
the words through a haze. She could barely hear, let alone think, with Joshua
so close by. His presence seemed to be robbing her of an awareness of
everything but him: his strongly-moulded features, his mane of hair, his full
lips and his penetrating eyes.

With an effort
she brought her wandering thoughts back under control.

She could tell
that Joshua was making a similar effort. Although his eyes remained locked on
hers, he replied to Hetty’s remark.

‘These things
happen,’ he said.

He had
obviously made an effort to speak lightly, but even so his voice came out
huskily. The sound of it made Rebecca feel weak.

Making an
effort to control her powerful reactions to Joshua, she wrenched her eyes away
from his and fastened them once more on the street outside.

‘Do . . .
’
She stopped. Her voice was weak and
trembling. She tried once more. ‘Do you think it will happen again?’ This time,
her voice came out almost normally, with only the slightest hint of a quaver.

‘I hope not,’
said Hetty anxiously.

Fortunately,
although she had looked at Rebecca sympathetically when Rebecca’s voice had
trembled, she seemed to think it was nervousness on Rebecca’s part because of
the stone flying through the window and nothing more.

‘But it might,’
said Joshua, who was once more in control of himself. Taking care not to touch
Rebecca, he guided her back to the table. ‘I suggest we stay away from the
windows,’ he said.

Rebecca
nodded. It was a wise precaution, under the circumstances.

Joshua turned
his attention to the table. Reaching out his hand he took the stone from his
half-eaten bowl of soup. The bowl had been cracked by the force of the stone,
and soup was seeping out onto the damask cloth.

‘Oh, no!’
exclaimed Hetty, suddenly noticing what a mess it was making.

She rang the
bell, and a minute or two later she began directing the servants, instructing
them to sweep up the broken china and glass, for the table was covered in
fragments from the broken window.

‘The table
will have to be completely cleared,’ she told the servants as she superintended
their activities.

Joshua turned
the stone in his hand, feeling the jagged edges.

Rebecca looked
at the stone, then took it out of his hand. She shuddered. It was large and
heavy, and the edges were extremely sharp.

Joshua
reclaimed it. ‘Better not to dwell on it,’ he said. ‘Come and sit by the fire.
You’ve had a shock.’

‘No,’ said
Rebecca, pulling her shawl more closely around her. ‘I must see if Hetty needs
any help.’

‘No, thank
you, my dear, the servants have everything well in hand,’ said Hetty. ‘Lay the
table in the parlour, if you please,’ she instructed the servants. ‘We will
finish our meal in the back of the house. And serve the soup again, if you
will. We have hardly had a chance to touch it.’

At that moment
Charles walked back into the room.

‘Anything?’ asked
Joshua.

‘Nothing,’
said Charles, shaking his head. ‘Whoever it was has long gone. There was no
sign of them.’

‘I have
ordered the table laid in the parlour,’ said Hetty, in an effort to restore an
atmosphere of normality. She glanced anxiously at the window. ‘I don’t feel
comfortable eating here any longer.’