Chapter Seventeen #2
Another pamphlet was shoved in his face, this one larger, with smudged print that was bound to leave a mark on his sharp white collar. He had no choice but to snatch it away in order to move forward, and then flushed as he did so. His ears rang.
The portrait of him, which just weeks ago had been used on The Times’ most eligible bachelor list, now sat beneath the headline: HIS GRACE HAS NO GRACE—JUST HOT LEAD AND A COLD HEART.
Damnation. Curse Winnie and her insistence on that bloody carte de visite.
He put a hand to his forehead to further shield his face and picked up his pace. Every person out here might recognize him now, should they pay attention, and then he’d find himself in an unseemly war of words.
“Print needs people! We set the lines; you’ve crossed them!
” The chant grated like nails down a chalkboard.
He was only a few steps away from the bobbies, who had spotted him in the crowd.
He shook his head when two broke from formation to escort him.
They stepped back and shrugged at him with a look that said Can you believe these nutters?
Damn, he looked forward to a brandy. Setting prudence aside for a quick moment, he scanned the crowd.
All he could see was his face replicated over and over in an ocean of mockery and derision.
The protesters were having a jolly time.
One man was dressed in the type of short coat Mr. Bell regularly wore, with a fake beard smeared across his face and down his shirt.
He swung a rope and sucked on an imaginary cigar as the other protesters jeered and threw balled-up flyers.
Twenty feet. That was all that was left before he was past this ridiculousness.
The crowd had made space for a new performer.
The picture of Peter had been tied to the man’s face, with garish holes poked through the eyes.
The performer walked with an imaginary simper; he held a filthy handkerchief to his nose with one hand while the other kept the crowd at bay.
“Gentlemen, mark me, for I have had the greatest idea! A machine that prints without pay, never takes tea breaks, and doesn’t bark for bread.” The crowd jeered and Peter’s heart pounded.
Damn them for making this personal when it was anything but.
It was progress. It was inevitable. If it hadn’t been now, it would have been soon.
If it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else.
He had simply harnessed it first. He’d had to.
For his sisters’ sakes, he would make the hard choices.
A tomato went spinning past the face of the satirical duke, missing the man by inches, and the crowd hooted.
Ten more feet. All he could hope was that the lords who came after him didn’t pay attention to the placards. His peers would only echo the teasing.
He was intercepted. He didn’t even need to look up to know it was Eleanor.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up and his already racing heart thumped so hard it would probably bruise.
The sensation flooding him was a shambolic mess of anger and guilt and a damnable, unwarrantable lust. His cock had no sense.
“Your Grace.”
He sucked in a breath. “Miss Wright. What a thoroughly predictable displeasure to see you here.” He’d thought he’d made things clear the other night.
He’d thought she’d seen reason. He’d thought that the fight with her might have come to an end and he’d have no reason to speak to her, or think about her, or have her in his life at all.
He should have known he’d not be that lucky.
“If it is predictable, Your Grace, it is because you know that you’re in the wrong and you had the common sense to anticipate today’s action.”
He grunted as he was jostled by the crowd and instinctively stepped close to shield her.
The push had not seemed deliberate. The crowd had yet to work out who he was, but she shouldn’t be standing next to him when it did.
He gripped her shoulders. “You are the only one who has strayed from sense here. You should leave now so that you have space to examine how wrongheaded it is to oppose progress for your own gain.”
Her cheeks turned a fiery shade of red and her hands fisted at her sides. “I am not here to halt progress. As much as it pains me, I have accepted that the Linotype is here.”
“It doesn’t look that way to me.” He gestured to the surrounding crowd, whose message was clear.
She raised a fist and for a moment he wondered if she could throw as good a punch as Jac could. “They are scared and they’re angry. They have a week’s wages coming and then no way to buy food for their families.”
He hated the way his stomach turned. He hated the conflict that was pulling apart his insides. He hated the fact that others would pay a price for his decision, for however short a time.
“What would you have me do?” he asked. “I cannot turn back time, nor would I. I cannot dictate how the publishers run their businesses. They could—they should—have kept all of their staff and used the opportunity to do more rather than deliver the same for less. But their choices cannot be laid at my feet.” He was not the villain here. Her rage was misdirected.
She looked at him with such scorn. “Did you truly think they would put ethics over profit?”
He had hoped that they would. They were shortsighted not to. He shook his head. “There are some that will, and in a year or two, when the ethical thing proves to be the profitable one also, the others will follow.”
The look he received was sad and uncomfortably pitying. If he could read her mind, he knew it would ask him how he could be so naive.
“You should address your concerns with your unions,” he said, before she could voice her disappointment. “If they haven’t done the job they’re supposed to, that is on them, not on me. You are not my responsibility.”
Eleanor scrubbed at her face before pointing to the man wearing Peter’s face who was still swanning around in costume. “That is our local union representative. A more foolish man could not be found. By the time he fully appreciates the situation, it will be too late.”
Blast, these people had gotten themselves into a right mess. “Then this predicament is of your own making. If you hire someone so unserious to represent you, then you cannot be shocked when the outcome is not what you wish.”
She could not be reasoned with. He would no longer try. He waved to an officer, pointing at her and then to the outer edge of the crowd to demand she be forced away from the danger. “Go home, Miss Wright.”
She struggled as the officer took hold of her arms.
“You cannot just walk away.”
He hated the tremor in her voice. It triggered more grief than anything going on around them. “What do you want of me, Miss Wright?”
“There must be some safety net. The government must legislate support for this kind of situation.”
She expected him to be the one to make it happen, when he was already treading the edge of his influence convincing his peers to vote for Irish home rule, women’s suffrage, and the expansion of sanitation services.
It would take months of preparation and debate, and it would help none of those protesting now. She was asking the impossible.
“The sitting calendar is full. Good day, Miss Wright.”