A Lady Unrivaled by Roseanna M. White

Author:Roseanna M. White
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC042030;FIC042040;FIC027200
ISBN: 9781441230539
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2016-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

Fifteen

Cayton signed his name to the last of the correspondence needing his attention and handed it with a cursory smile back to the steward. “I believe this is the right move, Mr. Thomas.”

The older man received the paper with a nod. “I at once hope you’re right, my lord, and pray you’re wrong. Thus far, stretching ourselves has paid off, but if war should not come . . . And yet I cannot pray for war.”

“Nor I. But even if it holds off, the increase in the navy will not disappear, not now.” And he had worked—actually worked—to get those military contracts for Adelaide’s mills. It was now Rosten cloth outfitting all those new sailors on the dreadnoughts.

Germany may have given up racing them on the naval front, but they wouldn’t just back off. Not entirely. “Everything my cousin tells me, everything my friends mention in their letters, says that war is imminent. I don’t want such things to occur simply for my profit, but . . .” But someone would have to provide the cloth for all those uniforms if war was declared—and it might as well be him.

“Quite so, my lord. And if I may say so . . .” Thomas straightened and gave him a small smile. “Mr. Rosten tried for years to get such contracts. He would be glad and proud to know you have succeeded.”

It shouldn’t have made Cayton’s chest go tight. He’d scarcely known the late Mr. Rosten, and it wasn’t his wife’s grandfather’s approval he’d always craved—it was his grandfather’s, in place of the father he scarcely remembered. Still, the thought of anyone being proud of him . . . of perhaps his mother looking at him, when she returned from the Continent, with respect along with the never-faltering affection . . . He cleared his throat and nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Thomas. I appreciate that.”

Mr. Thomas, apparently no more comfortable with the words than Cayton, edged toward the door. “I’ll stop on my way out to pay my respects. Terrible shame about Stew.”

“Indeed—thank you. Felicity and Mrs. Higgins will be in the kitchen.” Cayton rubbed at his eyes. Locals had been dropping in all morning. Mrs. Higgins had made her a comfortable seat in the kitchen, which was where all the traffic directed itself.

He hadn’t felt so much the outsider at Anlic in over a year. But he was quite clearly the newcomer today. The only one who didn’t know how everyone in town was related and how long they’d known Stew and Felicity and what their opinions had been on his disappearance. Cayton had spent most of his childhood in this neighborhood, but not among the crowd now coming through the servants’ entrances.

Adelaide would have known them all. Adelaide would have stationed herself right beside her oldest friend, their hands knit together, and made things better. Or at least sufferable. Adelaide had been so ill through most of her life that this village had been her whole world—she’d never had the strength to wander from it.

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