Chapter One #3
John finally broke the silence. “I know when I suggested my investment and my ideas for the fleet all those years ago, I told you I would ask very little in return. Only your connection to your aunt’s business.”
Wolf swirled his whiskey and nodded, unable to meet his friend’s eye. While he knew John did not intend for him to sound like such a useless aristocrat, he still heard it in his words. In the slight hesitance to lay anything that involved responsibility at Wolf’s feet.
“And yet…” John paused and took a large swig of his whiskey as if he needed the liquid courage to finish his thought. Wolf was impressed that the man did not break out into a fit of coughing, but he gave a small grunt before he went on. “I may need to ask more of you in the coming weeks.”
Not willing to admit that he had come today to request that very thing, Wolf motioned for his friend to continue.
“I may be called away,” John noted, eyeing the map before him with fondness. “I have…a commitment to something. Someone. One I cannot break. And it may take me away for a while.”
“Away from London?” Wolf asked.
“Away from England.” John’s eyes did not leave the map as they trailed down the Atlantic Ocean before him.
“And you would like me to…” Wolf began, grateful for the opportunity to take on more responsibility but unsure of where he could be of use.
“You would not need to do what I typically do for the company.” John looked up from the map, though his fingers stayed on the eastern Atlantic.
“Just make sure things run smoothly. I can show you all of the upcoming contracts, dock schedules, and any other matters. And of course, you would work with the board over any disputes or interest in docking rights. I’ll write it all down for you. ”
“Would I…” Wolf began, unsure of how to ask without his friend seeing too much. “Would I need to go to Bristol?”
John took a moment before he responded. “I do not think so, but I cannot make any promises. If everything runs smoothly, then no. I usually go to Bristol to oversee the development or restoration of the fleet. The London facilities are far too constricted for any endeavor beyond routine repair. I do not foresee any need for further vessel construction or significant overhauls in the immediate months to come.”
“Months?” Wolf asked, his air of nonchalance dropping at the cold realization of how long John anticipated to be gone.
“I do not know how long I will be away.” John admitted. “Can you do this? Is it too much to ask?”
Wolf felt like Lucifer again as his idealistic friend searched his face.
All John was asking was some small oversight to an endeavor that greatly benefitted Wolf.
Had he not only just vowed to shoulder a weightier burden of responsibility?
The opportunity he sought lay before him, ripe and undeniable.
Yet, he did not wish to betray a hint of unseemly haste, lest John inquire after his sudden zeal, a question Wolf was quite certain he could not yet answer for himself.
“It is not too much, but I do not quite know where to begin.”
“How much time do you have today?” John glanced at an ormolu clock that sat upon his desk but Wolf could not see the time, so he pulled out the silver and shark skin pocketwatch given to him by his late father the day he took him from Bristol.
Another reminder of how he had spent his time these last fifteen years.
“I have all afternoon.”
“Good.” John raised his glass to Wolf. “Let me gather some documents and I will show you what needs to be done.”
As John went over logs, showed Wolf the warehouse, and guided him to the dock superintendent offices, Wolf found himself mesmerized by the sheer magnitude of the industry before him.
There was a deep satisfaction in witnessing such disciplined enterprise, one that operated with the rhythmic, unerring precision of his silver and shark skin pocket watch.
John showed him his reports of every ship, its trade route and expected cargo manifests.
While others would manage the manifests, Wolf needed to be on hand should they run into any issues.
And yet despite his renewed effort to learn everything he could about the business he had ignored these last five years, the one thought at the forefront of his mind had nothing to do with business.
The one thought at the forefront of his mind was the constant reminder that he needed to convince Lady Petra to undertake their fake courtship before John left.
That thought stopped Wolf for a moment as he returned to his carriage for the day.
He had two futures to save.
Perhaps his friendship with John was not so one-sided after all.
Twin fonts of guilt and relief coursed through Wolf’s veins as he reclined into the velvet squab of his carriage. John had not requested he travel to Bristol. He noted this as his driver departed for Belgravia, glancing out the carriage window as the streets shifted away from the docks.
Aside from a few short missives here and there, he had hardly spoken to his aunt and uncle, the people who raised him, for years.
They had appeared to have given up trying to write to him.
Until recently. He had not one but two recent letters from them.
Two unopened letters that he had attempted to shove to the back of his mind, just as they sat at the very bottom of his satchel.
At that moment, the carriage must have hit a dip in the cobblestones as it rattled loudly, shaking Wolf out of his guilty reverie.
Glancing at his surroundings, he recognized he had been lost in his thoughts for longer than he was aware, oblivious to the shifting neighborhoods around him.
The crowded, cacophonous streets that held just a hint of something floral in the air told him they were near Covent Garden.
Sitting at attention, he scanned the theatres before them.
Although completely lacking in artistic skill or ability, he had always taken to the arts in a way John had taken to the sciences.
He adored poetry, especially one rather macabre American author who he often read for his dark and mysterious yarns.
Of course, not a soul alive knew of this love, other than his general artistic patronage as a gentleman, which was publicly known.
A lord can be a patron, he can dally with opera dancers, but he cannot actually be a poet.
Byron would hardly have survived in the age of industry.
His father’s voice rang in his ears, as if it were stating an incontrovertible fact.
And yet, despite this advice, Wolf could not help sparing a second glance at a passing theatre whose foundation appeared to be sagging.
Perhaps they were in need of a patron. That would be an appropriate role for a lord.
As he took in the crumbling columns passing slowly before him, his eyes fell upon two figures. One was tall and blond, wearing a plain black cloak and the vestiges of a lady’s maid. And the other…
“What the devil is she doing here?” Wolf said to himself.
As he watched the small figure weaving amongst the crowd and headed away from the market, Wolf was overcome with a curiosity he rarely, if ever, indulged in.
Wolf’s father had ingrained in him the world’s natural hierarchy when he pulled him from Bristol at fourteen: gentlemen occupied the highest order, with everything else rightly positioned beneath them.
Though Wolf didn’t fully embrace this concept, his minor acts of rebellion were always within the bounds of what was deemed acceptable for a gentleman: gambling, drinking, and pursuing women.
And yet here was something outside of that schema of order within his mind.
He had always believed John and Lady Petra did not suit because Lady Petra fell so keenly into this order.
Her actions were always predictable. She attended a fete.
She wore the perfectly appropriate en vogue gown, the color and cut neither shocking nor plain.
She greeted everyone graciously and danced with whoever was appropriate as she was neither a wallflower nor a flirt.
She watched the entrance for her supposed betrothed.
Every single action was predictable, that which was expected of a lady, of the only child of one of the most powerful peers of the realm.
He had never expected to see Lady Petra doing anything so far outside the bounds of propriety, but there she was. Dressed in a simple gray bonnet and cloak, she hurried from Covent Garden with a companion who appeared to be part lady’s maid and part Viking warrior.
Absent-mindedly, Wolf tapped his walking stick up, signaling to the coachman that he wished to stop.
Stepping out from his carriage, his eyes sought the two figures, who were now at a rather great distance. Wolf surveyed the street before him, recognizing that he would have to move against the costermongers to track them.
“What the devil is she doing?” he repeated to himself, though this time, the question brought on a strange thrill. Something, nay, someone he thought he so thoroughly understood had presented him a new mystery, a new puzzle to solve.
To Wolf’s frustration, it was nigh impossible to move against the teeming crowd that day, as he possessed neither Lady Petra’s petite form nor her grace, and he was forced to give up his pursuit after several blocks of stepping through and around vendors, already tired from hawking their wares that morning.
He returned to his carriage somewhat defeated but infinitely intrigued. Perhaps this fake courtship would help him with this uselessness, this ennui he had been feeling of late.
And he was only slightly afraid of how.