Betina Krahn (26 page)

He recoiled into pure turmoil inside.

“Well, that was a mistake,” he said roughly, bounding off the table and retucking his shirt, leaving her to tidy herself.

Madeline watched him withdraw, a terrible sinking sensation in her chest. “Did I do something wrong? I did warn you. I’m not … perfect.”

He stared at her, emotion rising fast and furious in him. She couldn’t have been more wrong. She was perfect in every way, and he would rather be drawn and quartered than tell her so. For if she knew how much pleasure she had given him, he had the dismal feeling that she would go right on being perfectly loving, giving freely of her virtue, her passion, and her affection until he or some miserable hedonistic wretch like him shattered her heart.

“Well, it won’t be me,” he said aloud, leaving her to interpret it however she would. “I won’t have that on my conscience.”

In fact, she interpreted that comment and his chaotic emotions, with uncanny accuracy. He didn’t want the burden of her virtue on his conscience. With trembling hands she began to rebutton her bodice and then her tunic. Stopping was probably the most sensible thing they could do, but it was disappointing all the same. To be so close to something so breathtaking, and then to have it snatched from your very hands …

The real question was
why
he stopped. Did he stop because he was afraid she would be hurt by it, or simply because he didn’t want to bother with any sort of entanglement? Did he truly care about her as a person, about her feelings? If so, then there was definitely hope for him.

She didn’t know what to think when he took her gruffly by the elbow and steered her out the door into the hallway. In the darkness his grip on her arm gentled, and by the time they reached her door, he released her.

“Let me give you a bit of advice, St. Madeline.” His voice was husky with irritation. “If you want to continue in your saintly occupation, you would do well to avoid lovemaking on kitchen tables with jaded noblemen. We’re full of unseen hazards and, believe me, the pleasure
won’t
be worth the pain.”

“Your concern for my welfare seems to know no bounds,” she said thickly, swallowing her disappointment.

He took three steps away, then turned back.

“One other bit of advice.”

Her eyes glistened in the dim light. “Yes?”

He glanced at the voluptuous outline of her breasts, and his voice sank half an octave. “Get a damned corset. At least they give you a bit of thinking time.”

The next morning Sir William arrived in his chambers early, read briefs and petitions, and opened the morning post. He was surprised to find a letter from Cole in it.

“It’s not been a week yet, has it?” he demanded of Foglethorpe.

“No, Sir William. Five days by my count,” the clerk answered, edging closer to get a discreet glimpse over Sir William’s shoulder.

Sir William settled his pince-nez on his nose and held the letter a helpful distance away. As he read, a smile appeared and slowly broadened. “Ahhh. I believe they’re making
progress. She’s a ‘stubborn, idealistic little fool who lacks sense enough to come in out of the rain.’ She’s giving away food, giving away free clothes, and she’s hired a passel of
ignoramuses.
” He chuckled and removed his spectacles. “Well, at least he hasn’t forgotten his Latin.”

The sun was well up when Davenport bustled into Madeline’s room the next morning and threw back the heavy velvet curtains at the windows. “Rise and shine, Maddy Duncan. You’re sleepin’ the day away.”

“I am?” She groaned as she lifted her head up out of the pillows and squinted at the bright light in disbelief. “Oh, I am!”

She jumped up out of bed, swayed unsteadily, and sat back down on the edge. “I feel as if someone has replaced my bones with rubber.”

“Exhaustion, pure and simple.” Davenport stood nearby with her hands clasped at her waist and a look of disapproval. “You don’t take time to eat and you’re not sleeping well. Will you listen to me this once and have a decent breakfast?” She saw Madeline’s scowl and guessed its cause. “
He’s
been at the table for some time, insisting he’ll wait breakfast for you.”

“He’s waiting for me?” A sudden, intense image flashed before Madeline’s eyes: him sitting at the table with his pocket watch in hand, ticking off the minutes that she slept past sunrise. She was up in a flash and pulling from the wardrobe the scarlet tunic and trousers that had become her uniform of late.

As she entered the dining room and took her seat, she could feel his gaze and, without looking, could sense his disapproval.

“You’re wearing that again, are you?” he asked, beckoning for a refill of his cup.

“Good morning to you too,” she said flatly, refusing to
look at him as she settled her napkin and drank the orange juice by her plate.

“It’s just that … 
I’ve
seen you in other things, but no one else has.”

It was a reference to their midnight rendezvous in the kitchen, she realized, resisting the urge to look up from the boiled egg, toast, and ham on her plate. The heat in her cheeks would only encourage him.

“You know, as I pass through the sewing room, I sometimes catch a bit of the women’s talk. Your trousers are something of a topic.”

“They are?” She raised her head and saw just what she expected: a sardonic smile.

“They think it odd that you’re so dead set on looking like a man, when with a bit of help you could be such a fetching woman.”

“I do
not
look like a man.”

“That would be my assessment. But then, I’ve always had an eye for these things. Not everyone is quite so perceptive.” He took a bite of toast and washed it down with coffee. “One of the more astute observers did point out the fact that you have a small waist, but the doubters insisted you must secretly wear a corset of some sort.” His smile broadened annoyingly. “I thought about providing them a testimonial to your curves, but quickly realized that it might be … misinterpreted.” He gave a sigh. “Well, what can you expect from the great unwashed?”

“They are
not
‘the unwashed,’ ” she said, bashing her boiled egg with excessive force.

“Oh, that’s right. They have running water now.” He was patronizing her. “Personally, I say one would have to be a ninny to think that just because you always wear trousers, you’re expecting your women workers to do the same … to dress like their men. Why, you’ve never said the first thing about trousers.” He scowled and pursed his lips. “Except perhaps yesterday, at your workers’ meeting.

“No, no. Stick to your guns, St. Madeline. No half measures. I admire that about you. Why should you compromise your personal integrity and comfort just to cater to their medieval prejudices? Sooner or later,
someone
will put on one of your bodices and prove to the lot of them that the garments work just as well under conventional clothing.”

That said, he attacked his own boiled egg with gusto.

Madeline, however, had lost her appetite completely.

Was that what her workers thought? That she dressed like a man? She contemplated that for a moment. She did love her trousers. But women—whether her workers or her final customers—would need to know that they could wear Ideal garments beneath the clothes they already owned. Even if they thought Ideal undergarments were a splendid notion, few would be able to afford a whole new wardrobe to wear on top of them. And fewer still would consider purchasing and wearing them if they thought their sole use was under
trousers
.

She dropped her knife and headed for the stairs.

Cole gave a pained smile and stuffed a piece of slathered toast into his mouth.
Mandeville,
he told himself,
you are indeed your father’s son
. Sometimes a well-placed bit of arrogance and condescension were exactly what a situation called for.

When Madeline climbed the stairs to the cutting room floor later that morning, she was clad in a soft printed cotton dress with a fitted waist, shirred sleeves, and a gently flared skirt. Heads turned and a murmur raced along the tables. She held her chin up and tried to behave as if nothing were different. But when she paused to talk to Ben Murtry, he snatched his hat off his head before answering. And when she spoke with Daniel Steadman about how the pattern templates were holding up, she noticed he stood with his hands behind his back and seemed especially attentive to what she said. By the time she spoke with Fritz about the occasional fluctuations in
power levels to the machines, and the engineer—at least fifteen years her senior—called her “ma’am,” she was roundly confused. She would never have guessed that the simple act of putting on a dress could make such a difference in their response to her. And she hadn’t a clue whether these changes were for good or ill.

By the time she reached the offices, she was beginning to wonder if she was in the right factory. But the instant she set foot in the outer office, she realized she was indeed in her own Ideal Garment Company. The place was positively overrun with small children climbing, crawling, and bawling. It was chaos.

Emily stood in the middle of the outer office with one toddler on each hip and their hands clamped around her neck. When she saw Madeline, she waded across the room and tried to explain.

“Priscilla Steadman’s little Michael was so difficult and out of sorts, she couldn’t work. I offered to hold him for a while and he seemed to take to me straightaway. Then Alva Murtry’s daughter, Polly, started crying, and so I held her too. I’ve always had a way with babies. It’s only when they get a bit older that I have difficulty.” She glanced at her two sons, climbing all over her desk, squealing and pulling at each other, and she winced.

“That explains
two
of them,” Madeline said as one young creeper pulled himself up, using her skirt for balance, and another fastened himself to her ankle. She peeled them from her and found herself holding one in her arms. “What about the others? There must be a dozen—”

“Nine,” Emily demurred. “It only seems like a dozen. Well, the other mothers were having troubles too, and I could scarcely help one and not another. I know how much producing the garments means to you, and I thought if I kept the children busy …”

Madeline took a breath and counted to five. Then five more. A glance back through the open door revealed an unprecedented
calm in the sewing room. She had to hope it meant unprecedented productivity as well.

“Very well, then care, for them today, if you—” She glanced up and noticed Tattersall’s empty desk. “Where is Tattersall?”

Emily looked aggrieved to have to report: “He couldn’t work in here. He took his books into your office.”

Madeline found poor Tattersall seated at her desk, his mouth drawn tight and his brow knit with irritation. With a wave she ordered him to keep his seat and continue working. But she turned back to Emily with a dark look.

“We cannot keep them here. We won’t get anything done ourselves.” She jiggled the restless toddler in her arms and tried to think. One of Emily’s boys suddenly lunged at the other, upsetting an inkwell all over the stacks of correspondence on the secretary’s desk.

“Oh, nooo!” Emily cried, trying to empty her arms of children to rescue what she could of the letters. The tots she abandoned sent up a wail, which started a reaction among the others, and soon the room was filled with caterwauling.

It was the worst possible moment for Cole to arrive. He stepped into the office, looked around in disbelief, and would have ducked right back out the door if he hadn’t seen a look of equal horror on Madeline’s face. She tried desperately to quiet some of the children while Emily cornered her sons and, between tears, tried to scold them. The moment Emily began searching her pockets for a handkerchief, the pair bolted.

Cole saw two small bodies hurtling toward him and simply reacted, snatching both up in his arms and holding their feet well above the floor until they stopped struggling.

“You two,” he growled as he recognized Jonathan and Theodore Farrow. “I’m going to put you down and you’re going to stand perfectly still. Is that understood?” His deadly tone made the hair on the backs of their necks prickle, so when he set them on their feet they were as still as mice.
Then he seized each boy by an ear and dragged the pair out the door on tiptoe.

Emily gasped and would have gone after them, but Madeline called her back and insisted that she tend her other charges. After a harrowing few minutes, the fright subsided and they were able to quiet the children. They then discovered Tattersall standing by his desk, hobbled by two young children clamped around his knees and whining. His knuckles were white and his face ashen.

“What do I do?” he choked out, peering down at them as if afraid they were about to gnaw on his kneecaps. Madeline rescued him by peeling them away.

“If you’ll permit me to suggest …” he said after he was more composed. “There are two rooms on the ground level that aren’t being used. If we took a table or two and some chairs … Mrs. Farrow could see to the children there today. And perhaps we could find a girl or two from the next village to come and take her place tomorrow.”

Madeline heaved a huge sigh of relief. Thank heaven for Tattersall.

In short order she had inspected the rooms, drafted a few workers to help move some furnishings, and begun the process of moving the children. But it became increasingly clear that Emily could never cope with all of them at once. As Madeline stood in the office, her arms full of squirming toddlers, waiting for the workers to ferry the last two downstairs to Emily’s makeshift nursery, she was feeling quite disheartened.

This was not how she had pictured running a clothing factory. Wrong shipments … slippery contractors … lackadaisical and outright reluctant workers … unforeseen obstacles … brawling boys and squalling babies underfoot—it was just one impossible problem after another. The work she intended to do always seemed to be shoved aside in favor of somebody else’s crisis. Now she was finding herself thrust into the role of a reluctant baby-minder.…

In strolled Jessup Endicott, fresh from a walk in the nearby woods. He took in the sight of her with her arms full of children and broke into a wistful smile. “My dear Madeline! You were just
made
to cradle babies in your arms.” He swooped across the office and held out an artistic hand to the children.