How to Woo a Wallflower Page 5

“Fifty more pounds per annum?” There was uncertainty in Ruthven’s tone, as if he was testing the waters. The man would have made a rotten gambler. “And an additional sum too, if you’re amenable to the project I have in mind.”

  This project made the man’s voice rise an octave, and the sound was as clear an alarm bell as Gabe had ever heard. Lengthening his spine, he crossed his hands atop his blotter. “How much more?”

  “Shall we say sixty pounds more per annum and an additional twenty pounds for the special project?”

  More than Gabe expected. “Tell me of your project, Mr. Ruthven.”

  Gabe braced himself. If Ruthven meant to prattle on about the costly literary periodical he and his sister wished to start, he’d have difficulty refraining from rolling his eyes.

  “My sister Clary . . . ” Ruthven rose from his chair and began pacing.

  Gabe’s eye twitched.

  “I would like you to mentor her, Adamson.” Ruthven stopped to stare at him, awaiting a response.

  “Mentor her?” Gabe shook his head. “I don’t think—” His mind stopped dealing in words. Images arose instead. Clarissa Ruthven wielding her croquet mallet. Glaring at him in the close confines of a hansom cab as his body shifted against hers. Her scent, floral and innocent, sweetening the air of the workroom. The way her garish blouse cast a sunny glow over her pale skin.

  He’d never played croquet, he loathed flowers, and yellow was his least favorite color.

  “She’s impetuous,” her brother declared, turning up the palm of one hand to tick fingers on the other. “Reckless, impulsive, but good-hearted. Well-intentioned, even.”

  “Naïve,” Gabe put in.

  Ruthven frowned. “Yes, precisely. Since returning from college, Phee and I rarely see her at home. She pursues a thousand causes and busies herself with political meetings, charities, ladies’ organizations.” Real fear came into the man’s eyes. “I worry for her safety and her reputation.”

  “I understand.” Gabe worried about his sister too. “But where do I come in?”

  Kit resumed his seat but only settled his bulk on the edge. “Clary wishes to learn more about the workings of Ruthven’s. Employment is her true goal, though she has no experience whatsoever. Teach her. Show her how you manage the accounts and the employees. Hell, let her learn to operate one of the printing presses. She could sit in on meetings with vendors, review submissions. Assist you with your work.”

  For the first time since meeting the man, Gabriel realized how successful Ruthven must have been on the stage. How convincing his performances. He might have a terrible poker face, but he was managing to make a horrific idea sound utterly logical. Even beneficial, when Gabe knew with absolutely certainty that having Clarissa Ruthven underfoot would lead to nothing but trouble.

  “I really don’t think—”

  “Seventy-five pounds more per year.” Ruthven flashed a smile. “I should warn you that I’m tempted to keep upping the offer until you agree.”

  Gabe was glad he never let Ruthven near negotiations with vendors. And what he said wasn’t entirely true. He couldn’t keep upping his salary. Gabe knew better than anyone that the company’s ledgers couldn’t bear an overpaid office manager.

  Still, the amount was tempting. Almost double his current income and far more than Wellbeck’s offer.

  “Clary can be a handful. I admit that.”

  Gabe didn’t want to think of his hands anywhere near her. If he touched her, he’d no doubt come away smelling like violets or roses or whatever floral scent she wore. But at least he’d be warm. That energy of hers was like an ever-burning fire.

  “An additional one-time payment of twenty-five for taking on what I know may be time-consuming.” Ruthven crossed his arms, hardening his features. All the mirth was gone, replaced with steely determination. “I’m asking for your help, Adamson. I don’t want her wandering into some unsavory situation. As you said, she’s naïve. Too trusting. Too idealistic. She’s going to make mistakes, as we all do, but I’d prefer she make them here.”

  “Where you can protect her from the consequences?”

  “Where I can protect her, full stop.”

  If his own sister was as unpredictable and carefree as Miss Ruthven, Gabe would wish to protect her too. But he still didn’t like the prospect of having Clarissa Ruthven here, in his space, garishly dressed and glaring at him with those odd amethyst eyes. Yet . . . he wasn’t a man without strategies. Surely there were tasks he could find to occupy her time. She claimed she wished to master the typewriter. He could assign Daughtry to offer her instruction. If she wished to learn the workings of the presses, he could ship her down the road to the machines they leased, rather than observing those they kept on-site.

  With a little effort, he could outwit a hellion.

  “Perhaps—”

  “Yes!” Ruthven whooped, nearly dancing a jig across the bare wood floor of Gabe’s office. “I knew you’d see reason. Clary will come around too. Trust me.”

  Gabe rarely trusted anyone, but what disturbed him most was the man’s reference to persuading his sister. “Mr. Ruthven, your sister is aware of this plan, isn’t she?”

  “Not every detail.” Ruthven ducked his head to stare at the toes of his boots. When he looked up, his actor’s mask faltered. Worry etched lines across his forehead. “She will agree. We’ll convince her.”

  “We?”

  “I’m willing to up your salary by as much as a hundred pounds. Surely, that will encourage you to take her on.”

  Gabe wanted the money, no doubts on that score. But he wasn’t at all certain he was the man to convince Miss Ruthven to agree to her brother’s scheme. He suspected she’d be more amenable if Ruthven promised she could avoid Gabe for the duration.

  “How long do you intend this”—Gabe couldn’t bring himself to refer to the man’s sister as a project—“mentorship will last?”

  Ruthven shrugged. “As long as it takes.”

  “Until?”

  He sketched vaguely in the air. “Until she’s matured and has learned a few skills. Until she’s more sensible and less impulsive. Until I’m not worried every time she walks out the door.”

  While Ruthven fretted, Gabe surreptitiously pulled his resignation letter from the desk and crumpled it in his fist. One hundred pounds for a brief period of misery. No, that wasn’t quite true. If Ruthven’s stated goals were true, this project might last a very, very long time.

  “So we’ve settled the matter?” Ruthven coaxed.

  Gabe stood and offered his hand. “We have, sir.”

  “Excellent.” Leaning in and lowering his voice, Ruthven added, “Best not to mention every detail to Clary. Especially the matter of the pay rise and additional bonus.”

  “Of course not, sir.” Bribery might taste excellent when one’s desired ends were achieved, but it never settled well in the belly. Gabe knew that better than most.

  Just as they broke off their handshake, Daughtry burst into the office. “Pardon me, gentlemen. Mr. Adamson, you’re wanted in the workroom, sir. Your sister is here and says she must speak with you urgently.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  “This way.” Gabe led Sara through the rain, lifting his overcoat over her head to provide shelter as they headed to a nearby coffeehouse. She’d refused to enter his office and carry on a conversation in front of the clerks in the workroom.

  “I don’t wish to disturb your workday.” Breathless and shaking, she settled into the straight-back chair he pulled out for her. With a hand to her chest, she wheezed out her words. “I thought you should know straightaway.”

  “Tell me what’s wrong.” Gabe lifted two fingers in the air, and a waiter nodded. As a devotee of the shop’s dark, smoky brew, most of the staff knew him well. A moment later, the young man deposited mugs that puffed like the stacks of a steam train.

  “I ventured out for a bit of a wander,” Sara started on a whisper. “Just around the square. They were cuttin’ the grass. You k
now I can’t resist that smell. Heavenly, it is.”

  There hadn’t been much fresh-cut grass in Whitechapel, and they’d both come to treasure such a simple luxury.

  She took a quick sip of coffee, wincing at the stinging heat. After another wheezing breath, she inclined toward him, leaning on the table. “I stopped to take in the spring flowers, and that’s when I saw him. I swear it was him, Gabe.”

  Dizziness came like a wave, and he grasped the ceramic mug in front of him, letting its scalding heat ground him. Worry gnawed at his belly, a familiar chewing he hadn’t experienced in years. He shook his head, trying to deny it, but he knew. He could see the proof in his sister’s eyes. For so many years, they’d been safe. They’d forgotten the most important lesson of the East End: always watch your back.

  “Did he speak to you?”

  “Not a word. Soon as I seen ’im, ’e scarpered like the rotter ’e is.” She always fell into pure Cockney when something got her back up. With a hand still pressed to her chest, she worked to steady her breathing.

  “You’re sure you saw him?” He had to ask. He wanted her to waver.

  “Tried to convince myself I was mistaken. That I’d dredged up some nightmare.” She tapped a finger against the table. “It was him, Gabe. The devil himself.”

  So this was the reckoning. The devil had vowed to come knocking. As soon as Gabe got his first taste of success. He’d promised to make whatever Gabe touched turned to dust. Swore to haunt him for the rest of his days.

  Unfortunately, Malcolm Rigg wasn’t a ghost.

  “Go back home.” Gabe removed a few coins from his pocket. “No more wandering today. Get a cab, and bolt the doors once you’re inside. Answer to no one.”

  “I don’t fear for myself. That old goat can’t keep me trapped inside.” Sara swept back a strand of dark hair, as black as his own, and gazed at him with sadness in her eyes. “Truth is, he never cared a farthing about me. Just wish I could keep him from causing you more misery.”

  Misery was just the start of what Rigg could bring. Pain, blood, death—they all followed in the old bastard’s wake.

  Gabe wouldn’t let him destroy what he had. He’d escaped the cage of his past and made a new life. He’d be damned if he’d let Rigg snuff that out.

  The man had already taken enough blood from him. He couldn’t have any more.

  Clothes wet, hair disheveled, the high cut of his cheeks flush with color, Gabriel Adamson stormed into the meeting room at Ruthven Publishing as if striding into battle.

  Clary tipped her head and studied him.

  The one constant every other time she’d seen Adamson was that he took care with his appearance, adding to his nature-given beauty by dressing in fine suits, tailored to fit as if the cloth had been stitched straight onto his bulk.

  Today, he looked wild.

  Clary couldn’t take her eyes off him.

  “Adamson,” her brother called, “glad you could join us.” Kit lifted his gaze to a wall clock.

  Clary thought Kit’s gesture unnecessary. Anyone watching could see that Adamson’s tardiness horrified him more than it inconvenienced anyone else. He’d already extracted his pocket watch and shoved the timepiece back in his pocket, as if the sight made him ill.

  “I was delayed,” he explained.

  “But you’re here now,” Sophia put in, always one to restore order and put others at ease. “Shall we begin?”

  Adamson took the empty chair next to Clary and busied himself extracting a fountain pen from his pocket. Drops of the rain fell from his clothes and hair onto the stretch of table between them.

  “Pardon me, Miss Ruthven,” he muttered through clenched teeth, brushing the water from the table.

  “You needn’t worry.” Clary leaned in and caught the scents of damp linen and sandalwood shaving soap. “I have a dreadful habit of being late.”

  “I don’t,” he snapped, casting her a fearsome glare, his clear blue gaze boring into hers. “I was unavoidably delayed.”

  “I hope you didn’t intervene in another altercation,” Clary whispered, unable to resist a bit of levity to ease the thundercloud he’d brought into the room with him.

  “Next time I see a reckless young woman battling an intoxicated bully,” he mumbled under his breath, “I’ll be sure to walk the other way.”

  “Thank you all for being here. Today we have a new addition to the administrative board. Clary, as pleased as I am to see you take your place as co-owner of Ruthven’s, the fact that you’re old enough to do so makes me feel ancient.” Kit shot her a toothy smile before gesturing toward their manager. “Adamson, please begin by reporting on the business’s financial health in the last quarter.”

  Next to her, Adamson opened a folder full of papers and ran a broad finger across rows and columns of numbers written in ruler-straight lines.

  Clary drummed her fingers on top of her own folder, stopping when her sister shot her a disapproving look.

  “The accounts have taken a positive turn,” Adamson began, his voice so deep the reverberation rumbled through her. “The updated volumes of Ruthven Rules have increased overall sales, and the new lines in popular fiction have, individually, outsold our main etiquette book lines. The collection of detective stories we’ve published is selling best, which includes Lady Stanhope’s tales, of course.”

  He lifted his gaze briefly to acknowledge Sophia, whose lips parted before lighting in a smile, as if she was both pleased and shocked by the news of her books’ success.

  “For the coming year, we will proceed with plans to expand our fiction offerings and have invested in a chromolithograph machine, housed upstairs, for the publication of the literary journal. The chromo allows for a color printing process, and four of our clerks have been trained in its operation.”

  “What journal?” Clary leaned forward. The prospect sounded intriguing, but no one had mentioned a word to her.

  Kit and Sophia exchanged a look, and Kit scooted his chair closer to the table, bracing his elbows on the edge. “We’ve been discussing the notion for some time. Since we’re a family of writers and have come to know many more while living in London, we thought of creating a showcase for excellent writing.”

  “Perhaps you could submit one of your stories,” Sophia suggested. “Or some of your art. We intend to include color illustrations.”

  Both of Clary’s siblings knew she’d been writing and drawing for years, though as a child she’d been reluctant to show her work to anyone. The urge to publish had arisen off and on, but more than any acclaim for her creative endeavors, she wished to help the girls at the charity school.

  She had a notion of how to do so and hoped others would see the merit in her plan.

  “Actually, I have another idea.” Her voice wobbled a bit, and she hated the quiver of uncertainty chasing through her body. Stiffening her back, she started again. “May I present a proposal?”

  Sophia began to answer, but Kit cut in. “Is there anything more, Adamson?”

  “Only to distribute these.” He’d made duplicates of the quarterly report and passed copies down the table. After closing his folio and folding his massive hands on top, he cast Clary an expectant look. “Please proceed, Miss Ruthven.”

  His insistence that she take her turn to speak felt strangely like encouragement, though she doubted he meant it as such.

  Unable to contain the nervousness buzzing through her body, Clary stood and pushed back her chair. She carefully extracted the sheaves of paper where she’d detailed her plan. “I volunteer at a girls’ charity school in the East End.”

  Gabriel Adamson shifted his chair to watch her.

  At the other end of the room, her brother braced his arms across his chest. “Where you disappear to all hours of the day and night.”

  “Kit,” Sophia whispered, “this isn’t the time.”

  “I would like to start a ladies’ magazine, one that is organized, managed, and produced by women.”

  “Excludi
ng men entirely? That seems unfair.” The small, bespectacled Mr. Daughtry, assistant to Mr. Adamson, was a man of few words, but his burst of indignation echoed off the office walls.

  Clary turned to face the older man. “Can you see through that window into the main office, sir?”

  “I work there every day, Miss Ruthven.”

  “Yes, but do take a look now and indulge me.”

  With a huff of frustration, the diminutive man got to his feet, leaned over the table, and peered through the magnifying lenses of his pince-nez spectacles. “I can attest that it is indeed the workroom, Miss Ruthven.”

  “Would you kindly count the number of females you see in the workroom, Mr. Daughtry?”

  Like an accordion folding slowly in on itself, his brow furrowed into deep lines. “There are no young ladies at work in the Ruthven Publishing office.”

  “So you see, sir, excluding gentlemen from my project won’t create an inequality as much as rectify one.” She winked at him, and he blushed a furious pink. “Even the score, so to speak.”

  A feminine chuckle emerged from Sophia at the opposite end of the table. When Clary glanced down, a slow grin tipped the edge of Kit’s mouth.

  Beside her, Adamson cleared his throat. “While the concept of employing numerous young women to right society’s wrongs may appeal to you, I am charged with seeing to the financial health of Ruthven Publishing.”

  “And you’ve done a fine job, Adamson.” Kit’s declaration caught Clary off guard. The two were overdoing the mutual masculine respect a bit.

  “Thank you, Mr. Ruthven.” Even as he thanked her brother, Adamson continued to stare at her, as if he’d posed a question and waited on her to answer.

  Clary crossed her arms. She hadn’t yet revealed the best part of her proposal.

  “Your idea must be financially viable, Miss Ruthven,” Adamson added. “Who will buy copies of your ladies’ magazine?”

  Clary leaned toward him, though not close enough for him to turn her into an overheated ninny as he had in the carriage. “The answer you seek is in the name. Ladies’ magazine.”

  “So, a publication written by women to be purchased by women,” Sophia explained helpfully.