To Dream Again (22 page)

"It is," he agreed. "I think we should do this every morning."

She fixed his tea the way he liked it and handed him a cup and saucer. "We could use this as a sort of morning meeting," she suggested, "to talk about the business."

He hadn't suggested it for that reason. He'd suggested it because he liked the idea of starting his day this way. But he didn't say so. Instead, he took a scone from the basket. "If we're to have tea every morning, I should probably be the one to bring it, since I come in later than you. And," he added, reaching for the tiny pot of cream, "I can make sure that we have enough cream. You never bring enough."

She frowned at the generous dollop of cream he spooned onto his scone as she reached for the jam pot. "Cream's expensive. You shouldn't be so extravagant."

He grinned at her. "Mara, I think everyone is entitled to choose their luxuries. I like plenty of cream on my scones. You like lilac soap, and that's expensive, too."

She gasped. "How do you know that?" she asked, setting down the jam pot. Her cheeks suffused with color.

He loved watching her blush. It did magical things to her face, it allowed him to see beyond her defenses, and it brought out all the softness she tried so hard to hide. "I know the scent of lilacs when I smell it," he said. "And you don't wear cologne. You told me that."

The realization that he knew such an intimate thing about her unnerved her, but if he told her what he was thinking at this moment, it would shock her. He was thinking of how the scent of lilacs clung to her skin and her hair, of how she would look sitting in a tub with her leg drawn up and the way she would rub that soap over her skin. If he kept thinking like this, he'd go insane.

"It...it isn't proper to talk of such things," she said and took a bite of her scone, still blushing.

It wasn't proper to think about them either, but that didn't stop him. He smiled, watching her.

"What are you smiling about?" she demanded.

"You have jam on your chin."

She lifted her hand to wipe it away, but he was already reaching out his own hand. He scooped the tiny strawberry dab onto his thumb. Their eyes met, and he saw hers widen as he slowly pulled his hand back and licked the jam from his thumb.

He could hear her breath coming in small whispers between her parted lips, and he knew he was about to stand up, walk around the table, and kiss her.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Mara made a flustered, almost panicky movement of her hand and tried her best to look casual as Emma Logan paused in the doorway. Nathaniel rose to his feet, taking a deep, steadying breath, glad of the distraction, aware that if Emma had been a moment later, the gossip would have spread like wildfire.

"Emma!" he greeted the woman with a smile. "Good morning."

She bent her knees for a casual curtsy. "Mr. Chase," she answered, and bobbed her blond head in Mara's direction. "Ma'am," she murmured politely before returning her gaze to Nathaniel's. "I 'ope I'm not interruptin'."

"Not at all," he assured her and gestured to the table. "Mrs. Elliot and I were just having our morning meeting over a pot of tea. Would you like to join us?"

Her eyes widened. "Oh, no, sir. Thank ye, but I wouldn't want t'disturb yer meetin'."

"It's quite all right." Nathaniel stepped forward, took her arm, and led her to the table, pulling out a chair for her. She sat down and seemed quite unnerved when he pushed it in for her.

"Would you care for tea?" Nathaniel asked. He took his own cup and went into the laboratory to dump the dregs from it and rinse it out in the sink, then brought it to Emma before returning to his own chair. He reached for the teapot and poured a cup for her.

"Are you quite comfortable?" he asked. "Would you care for a scone?"

He held the basket out to her and she smiled at him. "Thank ye, sir," she said, taking the pastry from the basket and accepting the jam pot he handed to her.

"Sugar?" he asked. "Not that you would need any," he added, "already being as sweet as you are."

Mara choked on her tea, but the other two didn't seem to notice.

"Thank ye, sir," Emma breathed, smiling as if he'd offered her heaven instead of tea. "Three lumps, if you please."

"Of course." Nathaniel dropped three lumps of sugar into the cup. "Would you like lemon or milk?"

"Oh, a bit of milk would be lovely, sir."

After adding milk to her tea, Nathaniel handed her the cup, asked about the health of her children, and made several more polite inquiries as to her comfort. She basked in the glow of his attention like a cat in a sunny window. Mara watched, wondering when the girl would start to purr. Privately, she found his solicitous manner excessive, and more than a bit irritating. But she said nothing.

Finally, when Mara began to wonder if Emma intended to spend the entire morning in their office, Nathaniel asked, "What brings you up here, Emma?"

She set down her teacup and lowered her gaze. "Well, sir, I was thinking about what you said yesterday, about bringin' ye our ideas."

He nodded encouragingly. "And you have an idea that might help us?"

She lifted her gaze to his and took a deep breath. "I was thinkin' we be needin' tin to make these trains of yers. Well, sir, I worked in a foundry, an' I know tin gets pressed into sheets. Mr. Lowenstein said we'd be cutting tin and shapin' it t'fit, but those sheets won't be just the right size, will they, sir? An' there'll be scrap, won't there, sir?"

"Yes. There's always scrap metal."

"Well, sir, me boys—I got three boys, one gel—me boys, they goes 'round the neighborhood collectin' scrap, so's I know scrap tin be worth a penny a pound. The men what cut the tin could toss the scrap into barrels as they's workin', sir, an' we could sell it so's it wouldn't go t'waste."

"That's a very good idea," Nathaniel said. "It wouldn't take any trouble at all. Very clever, Emma!"

She wriggled in her chair, looking flustered and pleased by the praise. Mara thought the whole thing extremely silly, especially since they were already planning to sell the scrap metal.

Nathaniel rose and crossed to Mara's desk. He pulled open the drawer where she kept the petty cash and took out a pound note. Closing the drawer, he returned to the table and placed the note in her hand. "Thank you."

She took the note and rose to her feet, looking up at him with adoration and gratitude. "Thank ye, sir," she breathed, rubbing the note between her fingers. "Oh, thank ye."

He took her arm and walked her to the door. "You're quite welcome, Emma. You've earned it. And may I say, I'm very glad a clever girl like you is working for us."

Mara rolled her eyes, wondering how much more of this she could take.

Emma blushed and tucked the note in her pocket. "I'm glad t'be workin' for ye, sir. Yer a right fine gentleman, an' it's not just me what thinks so. Everybody else does, too. We'll do our best for ye."

With that, she finally departed, much to Mara's relief.

"Charming girl," Nathaniel said as he sat back down.

"Indeed," Mara said dryly. "Very charming."

Something in her tone caught his attention, and he gave her a questioning glance.

"For heaven's sake," Mara said, "why did you do that? I can understand this plan of yours to pay people extra for ideas that save us money, but Emma's idea was one we already had. Did you have to pay her for it?"

"There are times when we all need a bit of help, Mara. Emma needed the money." He lifted the last scone from the basket and held it up inquiringly. She shook her head and he broke it apart for himself. Spooning the last dabs of cream onto the scone, he said, "Her husband's a drunk, and she finally tossed him out. Now, she has four children to support on her own."

"What does that have to do with us?" Mara asked, telling herself not to be taken in by a hard-luck story. "Are we now the local toy factory and charity?"

"When he left, it was payday. He took all her money, and he didn't even leave her enough to pay the rent. She was in desperate straits. If she didn't pay, she would be thrown out in the street and her children right along with her."

Mara sighed and took a sip of tea. "I didn't know that."

"Well, these people work for you, too. Perhaps there are some things you should find out about." He lifted the teapot and smiled at her. "More tea?"

***

Mara did find out. That evening, she asked Michael about Emma's situation, and the engineer confirmed what Nathaniel had said, reassuring her that Emma now had the money to pay her rent, at least for the next few weeks.

Emma's situation bothered her, bringing back painful memories of her own marriage. James had not been a drinking man, but he'd found plenty of other ways to spend their money, and Mara could remember several occasions when she'd been as destitute as Emma, with a daughter of her own and no money to feed her. But, unlike Emma, her husband wouldn't have been found in the local pub. No, James had usually been on a ship bound for some faraway port with creditors dogging his heels. And hers. There had been times when an extra pound could have made all the difference.

She spent several hours with Michael, studying the supplies list. Afterward, she went upstairs and found Nathaniel sitting at the table, a pencil in his hand and a huge diagram spread out before him.

He glanced up as she entered the office, but immediately bent his head again over his work. Mara came up beside him and leaned over the table, studying the diagram he was working on.

"What are you doing?" she asked, watching him scribble notes in the margin.

"I'm working on improving the design of our steam train." He made another notation in the margin. "Children don't care, of course, but I find it very irritating that steam trains leave puddles of water all over the place. It's sloppy. I'm trying to figure out a way to prevent it."

She began to laugh. He paused in the act of jotting down another idea on the diagram and stared at her over the gold rims of his spectacles. He enjoyed the sound of her laughter but wondered at its cause. "What are you laughing about?"

"You," she confessed with a wide smile. Eyes dancing with amusement, she pulled out the opposite chair and sat down. "The man who is always late, the man whose office is a disorganized maze, the man who's always losing his spectacles, is concerned because his steam train has the untidy habit of dribbling water on the floor."

She was teasing him, and he liked it. "I may be disorganized, but I'm never sloppy about my work, I'll have you know," he informed her with mock sternness. "I hate the idea of selling a train that dribbles."

"Why do you have such a passion for toy trains?" she asked, watching him scribble another notation on the paper before him. "Is it just because you grew up around the toy business?"

"That's part of it, but I think it comes mostly from just plain stubbornness." He hesitated, and she thought he didn’t intend to elaborate, but after a moment, he set his pencil down and said in a low voice, "When I was a boy, my father refused to allow me to participate in any facet of Chase Toys. My elder brother was being groomed to take over the reins, but my father refused to consider giving me any similar preparation. He thought it unnecessary, since he never planned to give me any responsibility in the company when I grew up."

"Why not?"

Nathaniel pulled off his spectacles and set them on the table, then leaned back in his chair to gaze thoughtfully up at the ceiling. "My mother died in childbirth when I was born, and although my father never said anything about it to me directly, I always had the feeling he blamed me for that. And I was a disappointment to him when I was growing up. I was small, and often sick. I caught every illness that came along, and I had asthma. I couldn't play games and sports like other boys."

He paused and picked up the pencil, rolling it thoughtfully between his palms. "There was also my stutter. My father really didn't have the patience to listen to me. I did very poorly with my studies because my tutors didn't have any more patience with it than my father did, and I was so ashamed, I didn't even learn to read until I was almost ten. In short, my father thought I was an idiot."

The confession was made with a smile, but Mara didn't miss the slight flash of hurt that the smile was intended to mask. She thought of his terror when he'd stood on that table in front of the men. "The other children teased you," she murmured, feeling compassion for the boy Nathaniel had been.

"Oh, yes." He said the words with a resigned sigh, then shrugged and tossed down the pencil. "I outgrew the asthma and the other childhood ailments. It took years, but I finally conquered my stutter, although it does return to plague me at the most inconvenient times."

"When you're forced to give a speech?"

"It reminds me of days at boarding school, standing up in front of the class reciting compositions, hearing the other children laugh." He shook his head impatiently, as if warding off painful memories. "As for the trains, well, I don't know myself how that really came about. I just found myself one day taking apart one of my trains—it was just a pull train—and studying the parts to see how it worked. I suppose I was about five years old."

He smiled ruefully at her across the table. "My nanny told my father what I was doing, and he was so angry. He thought I was destroying it. I tried to explain, but he became impatient, and he ordered me never to do it again." He paused, then added, "But I couldn't stop. I had this insatiable curiosity. I just had to know how things worked. I think I took apart every toy I ever received after that. I studied them and put them back together. I even figured out ways of improving them. But I had to do it all secretly, or I'd be into trouble. I had these fantasies that someday I'd show my father my ideas, prove to him I wasn't the idiot he thought I was."

Mara made no reply, but she studied Nathaniel's thoughtful expression and realized how hard it would be for someone with his creativity, with his innovative mind, to be forced to hide it as if it were something to be ashamed of. "What was your first invention?"