The Husband Season. Mary Nichols

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ before, the arrival of Adam Trent, Viscount Kimberley, in town would have caused a stir among the young single ladies of society and some married ones, too. He had been reputed to be the most handsome, the most well set-up young man to grace the clubs and drawing rooms of the capital for many a year. His arrival had sent all the debutantes’ mamas into a twitter of anxiety and rivalry and their daughters sighing after him and dreaming of being the one finally to catch him.

      ‘Twenty-eight and still single. How have you managed to resist wedlock so long?’ his cousin Mark had asked him.

      ‘Easily. I have never met the woman I would want to spend the rest of my days with and, besides, I’m too busy.’ At that time he had recently inherited his father’s title and estate at Saddleworth in Yorkshire, which had undoubtedly enhanced his attraction.

      Then he had done the unpardonable thing in the eyes of the ton and married Anne Bamford, the daughter of a Saddleworth mill owner. Whether it was a love match or done to enhance his own wealth no one could be sure, but after that no one had much to say for him, thinking of him only as the one that got away.

      His father-in-law had died soon after the wedding, leaving him in possession of Bamford Mill, and in the following year tragically his wife had died in childbirth along with his baby son, and he was once again single. To try to overcome his loss, he had thrown himself into his work, both at the mill and on his estate, which was considerable. He was rarely seen in London.

      On this evening, he was striding down South Audley Street towards Piccadilly when he encountered his cousin. ‘Mark, by all that’s wonderful! Fancy meeting you.’

      Mark, who had been negotiating a muddy puddle, looked up at the sound of his name. ‘Adam, good heavens! What are you doing in town?’

      ‘Urgent business or I would not have bothered.’

      ‘I was sorry to hear of your wife’s passing.’

      ‘Yes, a very sad time. The only way I could go on was to throw myself into work.’ This was a gross understatement of how he had felt, but he was not one to display emotion. It was easier to pretend he did not feel at all.

      ‘All work and no play is not good, you know. And you are no longer in mourning.’

      ‘Mourning is not something you can put a time limit on, Mark.’

      ‘No, of course not, clumsy of me. I beg your pardon.’

      ‘Granted. I was on my way to White’s. Do you care to join me?’

      Mark agreed and they were soon seated over supper in that well-known establishment. ‘How is married life?’ Adam asked his cousin. ‘I am sorry I could not attend your wedding, but at the time I had only recently taken over the running of Bamford Mill and there was a great deal of resentment that had to be overcome. There was, and is, much unrest and I needed to persuade my people not to join the Blanketeers’ march.’

      The march to London from the industrial north, which had been organised by the Lancashire weavers two years before, had been for the purpose of petitioning the Prince Regent over the desperate state of the textile industry and to protest over the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, which meant any so-called troublemakers could be imprisoned without charge. They had carried blankets, not only as a sign of their trade, but because they expected to be several days on the march. It had been broken up by the militia and its leaders imprisoned. None of the marchers had reached his goal and the petition was never presented.

      ‘Did you succeed?’

      ‘Unfortunately, no. I am afraid nothing will really satisfy them but having a say in their own destiny. I fear some dreadful calamity if they are not listened to.’

      ‘Surely not your people? You have the reputation of being a benign employer.’

      ‘I do my best, but that will not stop some of the hotheads persuading the rest that to stand apart will bring down retribution on their heads.’

      ‘What can you do to prevent it?’

      ‘I don’t know. I pay them more than the usual wage for the work they do and provide them with a good dinner, but that has brought censure from my peers that I am setting a bad example and will ruin all our businesses. I am in a cleft stick, but hoping to avert trouble by other means.’

      ‘Militia?’

      ‘No, that is a last resort. Innocent people are apt to get hurt when soldiers are let loose. I intend to speak in the Lords in the hope that the government will listen to reason and grant at least some of their demands.’

      ‘Do you think they will?’

      ‘I doubt it, but I must try. If I can rally enough men of good sense on my side, I might achieve something. Times are changing, Mark, and we must change, too, or go under. Ever since I inherited the mill, I have tried to put myself in the shoes of my workers. I have cut the hours of work of the children by half and have set aside a room as a schoolroom and employed a teacher, so the other half of their day is gainfully employed getting an education. Even that does not always go down well—some parents accuse me of giving their children ideas above their station. I answered that by trying to educate the adults, too. It incensed the other mill owners who fear giving the workers an education will make them even more rebellious.’

      ‘I would have thought that a man who can read and write would be a better and more efficient worker because of it.’

      ‘My argument exactly. Everyone should be able to better themselves.’ He paused. ‘But I believe you have been doing something similar.’

      ‘Ours is a home for orphans, but we have a schoolroom, too, and good teachers. It is my wife’s project more than mine, but I help out when I can. We started with only a handful of children, but there are so many of them now and more in need, we have to expand. I am in town to hire an architect for the project and to try to drum up more funds. Everything has become so dear, it is hard work to keep it all afloat.’

      ‘You are not wanting in the necessary, surely? I understood Broadacres to be a thriving estate.’

      ‘So it is, but Jane is determined to make the Hadlea Home stand on its own, and I indulge her wishes and help out in a roundabout way. Besides, it is incumbent on me to keep the estate prosperous for my son’s sake and laying out blunt for the orphans, which seems never-ending, will not help to achieve that.’

      ‘You are a father now, I collect.’

      ‘Yes, Harry is ten months old and the darling of his mother’s eye.’

      ‘And yours, too, I’ve no doubt. I lost my child, you know.’

      ‘Yes, I did know and I am sorry for you, but you will marry again and there will be other children.’

      ‘I doubt it. There can only be one Anne.’

      ‘That is true. We are all unique in our own way, loving and loved for different reasons. It doesn’t preclude a second wife.’

      ‘When she died, so painfully and so cruelly, I swore not to let it happen again.’ He paused, unwilling to dwell on his loss, which no one who had not experienced it could possibly understand, and wondering how to change the subject. ‘Shall we have a hand or two of whist?’

      ‘Not СКАЧАТЬ