Chapter 1
“Mr. Farris is back again,” Faith whispered as she reshelved biographies. “He’s lurking among Mrs. Radcliffe’s offerings.”
“Leave the man in peace, sister,” Chloe replied, adding four more volumes to the stack in Faith’s arms. “Many a man enjoys Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels, all the while protesting that his purchase is for a wife, mother, or sister.”
“But Mr. Farris already owns everything Mrs. Radcliffe has ever written.”
“True enough.” Mr. Aidan Farris was a loyal customer, though lately he must have been spending all of his free time reading.
Chloe crossed to the bookshop’s front counter rather than indulge in idle speculation. “Mr. Nelson, have you made your selection?”
Faith sidled away, for Mr. Nelson was a prodigious ditherer. He spent good coin for his books, though, so Chloe came around the counter, patience at the ready.
From the corner of her eye, she watched as Mr. Farris paged through a bound version of The Romance of the Forest. He’d taken Mrs. Radcliffe’s tale to the shop’s front window, where the light was best. Reading glasses sat on a fine blade of a nose, and winter sunlight found red highlights in sable hair. He was gray-eyed, tallish without approaching awkward height, and more sober in his demeanor than Vicar Waites’s holding forth on the topic of irresponsible wagering.
Mr. Farris maintained that serious demeanor while he read a rollicking tale of thwarted passion, undeserved penury, and misplaced heroism. What sort of story would provoke a man like that to smiling?
“I’ll take this one for my missus,” Mr. Nelson said, using the counter to assemble a stack of loose chapters into a neat pile. “She does love when I read to her of a long, dark evening.”
“We have bound copies,” Chloe replied. “Mrs. Nelson might like one of those. Some of them are very handsome, Mr. Nelson.” And a bound copy would be a more profitable sale for the shop, at a time when every ha’penny was desperately needed.
“Bound copies come dear,” he said, looking uncertain. “Perhaps I’d best buy the first few chapters, and if Missus enjoys them…. But then I’ll have to either buy the rest, or pay for the whole book and the first few chapters.”
Chloe mentally kicked herself. This equivocation could go on for an hour, during which she’d not be assisting other patrons as the day drew to a close and buying on impulse became more likely. The result might be no sale at all, which was exactly what she deserved for trying to inspire Mr. Nelson to make the larger purchase when he’d already come to a decision.
“Or I could buy just the one chapter,” Mr. Nelson went on, “and see what she thinks of that. Missus is particular, not like me, and woe to the man who offers her a tale she doesn’t care for. Hard to tell much from one chapter though. Perhaps the lending library—”
“The lending library is three streets over, and might not have such a popular tale,” Chloe said. “I’d hate to see you travel that far in the cold for nothing.”
Chloe frequently patronized the lending library, reading their inventory to judge what she ought to stock in the shop. Soon, she wouldn’t be able to afford the membership there, but what would that matter if she and Faith lost their home and their livelihood?
“Activity is good for us,” Mr. Nelson countered, sending the chapters in his hand a dubious look. “One should not pay for milk without first making sure it’s fresh.”
Mrs. Draper was standing at the opposite end of the counter, a pamphlet on flower arranging in her hand. A small purchase, but she was an impatient woman. She’d happily leave the pamphlet, the better to get to the cookshop just as the day’s roast was carved.
The light changed and a man came up on Chloe’s right. “Ah, but a rousing tale is not a pitcher of milk, is it?” Mr. Farris peered at the chapters Mr. Nelson held. “Excellent choice. I have the bound version of all six of her novels, and read them frequently. Alas we shall have no more stories from Miss Austen’s pen.”
Mr. Nelson peered up at Mr. Farris. “Did she get married?”
Mrs. Radcliffe had written all of her novels while married. Chloe kept that observation behind her teeth while she caught a whiff of Mr. Farris’s fragrance. Either he’d recently loitered in a bakeshop, or he liked the scent of cinnamon.
“Miss Austen went to her reward before her last novel was published,” Chloe said. “She never married.”
“The poor creature,” Mr. Nelson murmured. “You say you’ve read all six of her novels, young man?”
“I have a handsome set of bound volumes, which I expect will become collector’s items. When an author is no longer extant, one never knows how much longer her works will be available, and her books are some of my favorite stories.”
Mr. Nelson’s bushy white brows drew down. “But one should not buy from the dairymaid without first sampling…”
“Come,” Mr. Farris said, “I’ll show you where the bound volumes are. Milk is for cooling our tea. Stories are for lightening the heart and enriching the mind. The thrill of discovering a tale page by page is more important than saving a few pence, don’t you think? And heaven help a fellow if his lady becomes enthralled with a story and he can’t get his hands on the next installments. Do you prefer red leather or brown?”
Bless you, Mr. Farris. Chloe got back to the counter just as Mrs. Draper had set the pamphlet down.
“Flowers are so cheering this time of year, aren’t they?” Chloe asked. “The illustrations in that pamphlet are worth framing according to Mrs. Dash.”
“Myra Dash said that?”
Mrs. Dash’s son was an aspiring painter, while Mrs. Draper’s daughter was fast approaching spinsterhood. The two held rousing arguments in the print shop across the street, but neither one was of a literary bent.
“I did hear something to that effect,” Chloe replied as Mrs. Draper passed over two small coins. “And Mrs. Dash has such good taste where the visual arts are concerned. I wonder if she’s solicited her son’s opinion of the illustrations?”
Mrs. Draper tucked the pamphlet into a voluminous beaded reticule. “Lord knows the boy has opinions on everything else.”
“Perhaps if he were invited over for a cup of holiday punch and some fresh biscuits, he might share those opinions with you and Miss Draper. Have a pleasant day, ma’am, and enjoy your pamphlet.”
Chloe dropped the pennies into the drawer beneath the counter, where they joined a precious small collection of coins and a few worn notes.
“I was so sorry to hear about Mr. Thatcher,” Mrs. Draper said, leaning nearer as she drew her reticule closed. “I hope you young ladies can manage.”
So do I. “Thank you for your condolences, ma’am. Grandfather is at peace, and we are doing all we can to protect his legacy.” Chloe said those words at least a dozen times a day, but like the coins in the drawer, they weren’t enough.
A few platitudes did not convey the grief she and Faith endured, or the sheer terror they’d faced as the extent of Grandfather’s indebtedness had become plain. They kept the shop heated, they didn’t dare burn so much as a lump of coal in the upstairs rooms where they lived.
For their customers, they wore smiles and made cheerful small talk. Upstairs, they wore three shawls and dropped exhausted into bed without saying much of anything except prayers that by some miracle they’d be able to prevent Mr. Barnstable from foreclosing on Grandfather’s shop.
“Where has our Mr. Farris go off to?” Joshua Penrose asked.
Joshua Penrose paced when he was thinking, a singularly bothersome habit in Quinn Wentworth’s opinion, because Joshua was so very prone to cogitation. Worse, he did much of his thinking in the partner’s conference room, the largest private space at the Wentworth and Penrose bank.
Quinn finished tallying the column of figures before him, which balanced to the penny with the sum he’d totaled across the page. No matter how wealthy he became—and he was very wealthy—he’d always take pleasure in figures that behaved as they ought.
“I sent Farris to inspect the premises at the corner of Willoughby and St. Jean’s,” Quinn said.
“We’ve had this discussion,” Joshua replied, taking the high-backed, cushioned chair on the other side of the polished mahogany table. “A second location for the bank to do business makes no sense.”
“Smart bankers have been establishing operations at locations convenient to their customers for centuries. The Italian banks did business in France 500 years ago, and earned a tidy profit from their neighbor’s trade. Consider a branch location an experiment.”
Quinn should not have used that word. Joshua was suspicious all of things speculative, which is why he and Quinn made a strong, if contentious, partnership. They were opposites in appearance too, with Quinn being dark-haired, blue-eyed, and quick to foreclose on a delinquent account. Joshua insisted the bank’s contractual terms always include a thirty-day grace period, and relied on charm while Quinn cited contract wording.
“You simply want Farris to have a project so he won’t leave us,” Joshua said. “He’s been with us since you found him picking pockets in Covent Garden, and we’ve promoted him from messenger to teller to supervisor to bank solicitor. If he’s smart, he’ll take a post with a rival institution because we have nowhere to promote him.”
Quinn capped the ink and laid his pen in the tray, for once Joshua embarked on a difference of opinion, he was like a rat with an apple core. Then too, Joshua’s arguments tended to have an annoying grain of truth about them.
“Farris was not picking pockets. He was trying to pick pockets and failing.” A signal distinction. “He will never willingly leave Wentworth and Penrose and you know it.”
Joshua propped his boots on the corner of the table and tipped the chair back. “Instead of sending Farris to spy on Barnstable’s property, why don’t you for once leave the ledgers and do some Christmas shopping for your siblings? Stephen loves all books, Constance would enjoy a volume on French portraiture, and Althea….”
Quinn took off his spectacles and gave them an unneeded polishing. “Althea can buy whatever silly stories she pleases to read,” he said. “I have no use for books, and don’t see a need to bring any more into my home.”
He had a library full of books—his siblings did enjoy them—but hadn’t read a single novel. Contracts, mortgages, deeds of trust, bills of lading, memoranda of agreement—those were the tales that had fascinated him enough to inspire him to sit through Cousin Duncan’s reading lessons.
“If you aren’t looking for a means to keep Farris in our employ,” Joshua said, “and you know Barnstable is eager to foreclose on that bookshop property, then why involve yourself in that situation at all? Shop owners die, their estates are liquidated, and the family either establishes a business elsewhere or goes into service.”
Simon Thatcher’s demise was more complicated than Joshua knew, or let on that he knew.
“Smart banks hold with tradition while looking to the future,” Quinn said, sprinkling sand over the initials he’d written at the bottom of the page. “If we don’t establish a branch closer to the better shopping areas, then Barnstable will. Once he’s taken that step—and increased his profit as a result—other banks will flock to do the same and commercial rents will rise as a result of increased demand. Wentworth and Penrose will be behind the trend instead of leading it. I don’t care to fall behind, Joshua. Do you?”
Joshua tipped his head back, as if consulting the cherubs cavorting amid the clouds painted onto the ceiling. “Not fair, Quinn.”
Joshua was competitive, Quinn was calculating. The two qualities were often complementary, though in this case, they would not be, not if all went according to Quinn’s plan.
“I will continue to send Farris around to monitor the situation at Thatcher’s Bookshop,” Quinn said. “He thinks I’m simply keeping an eye on Barnstable’s activities.”
“Because you also send him around to monitor everything else our competitors get up to. What are you really up to?”
Not even Joshua could be trusted with that information. “Farris alerted me to Thatcher’s failing health several months ago. Farris knows we’re looking for a branch location.”
Joshua laced his hand behind his head. “You are looking for a branch location.”
“That I am.” The plain truth, but not the entire truth. “It makes sense for Farris to follow up on acquisition of the bookshop. If Barnstable’s greed renders that prospect unprofitable, I will simply look elsewhere. Barnstable is merely the mortgagor, though. He must make the building available at a public sale, and when he does, I intend to buy it.”
“You are forgetting one thing, Quinn.”
“So please enlighten me before the New Year. I’m expected home for dinner.”
“Every cit and merchant in the London will likely bid against our man Farris at a public sale. The corner of St. Jean’s and Willoughby sees more foot traffic than probably any other location in London, and that building is both handsome and well constructed.”
Quinn rose and rolled down his shirt sleeves. “Dear me, you mean there might be—one shudders to say the very word—competition? A few obstacles between me and my objective? Never say I shall have to work at establishing our first branch at the ideal location for that venture. Work is so common.”
He slipped gold sleeve buttons into his cuffs and maneuvered into a jacket that wrapped his frame like long-lost lover.
“You are up to something,” Joshua said. “I don’t know what, I don’t know why, but you are up to something.”
Quinn fastened the onyx buttons closing his jacket. “Haven’t you heard? I dine on the bones of orphans, and entertain myself by sending widows to the poor house. Christmas approaches, when my cold heart delights in tossing beggars into the Thames, though I usually call upon Lucifer first to use a little hellfire to melt the river ice for me.”
These and other stories were gleefully circulated by Quinn’s competitors, and—to his consternation—even repeated in gentlemen’s clubs.
“When will you remember to despoil a few virgins?” Joshua drawled. “You’re growing soft in your dotage.”
The virgins were safe around Quinn, as were the orphans, widows, and beggars. Thatcher’s bookshop was another matter entirely.
“Farris should have returned by now,” Quinn said. “I expect he’ll have news to relate in the morning. We can discuss this project in more detail then, if you’re so inclined.”
Quinn checked his appearance in the pier glass that hung between the bay windows. A tall, sober, dark-haired man stared back at him, one with cold blue eyes, wearing morning attire as stitch-perfect as Bond Street’s best could make it. Appearances mattered, and he’d never allow the employees or customers see in him any hint of the shivering, starving boy he’d once been.
“What is the point of argument?” Joshua said, coming to his feet. “You’ve made up your mind, and that bookshop is as good as ours. Happy Christmas, one and all.”