by A. R. Rend
Though he was still mildly unnerved by the fact that there was no male presence here. When he asked Lenore about it, her only response had been that her father was at their country home.
Rolling up to the home came two carriages.
Lenore’s sister that was closest in age to her from her younger siblings ran up and quickly opened the door.
Mim bounced out of the carriage and pulled down on her blouse slightly, tugging it into position.
She looked rather amazing if Phillip was honest with himself. She was a beautiful woman and definitely was attractive to him.
Catching his eyes on herself, Mim gave him a flirty smile then stepped to the side but remained near the carriage.
Alice came next.
Phillip felt the smile on his face disintegrate to nothing. She was the last person he wanted to see at all. Looking around briefly, she moved over to stand next to Mim.
Matilda exited last as her daughter cleared the way and then let out a short breath.
“It’s good to be home. Though I miss your father,” muttered the older woman. She looked from child to child, and eventually her eyes landed on Phillip. “Ah! Phillip. You’re looking well.”
“Thank you, Mother,” Phillip said, inclining his head to Matilda. She had done him no wrong and deserved his respect. “May I say that blue is a very fine color on you? I had no idea it could match your eyes like that.”
Matilda gave him a radiant smile at the compliment. One that actually reached said eyes.
Waving a hand at him, she clicked her tongue.
“You know, if you picked that tongue of yours up from your father, maybe Clarissa did win in the end,” murmured the older woman. Then she put her attention on the daughters that’d remained home.
As he’d been speaking to Matilda, Alice had closed the distance on him and was now in front of him.
“Good afternoon, Phil,” Alice said, coming to a stop a few feet away.
“Afternoon,” said Phillip without anything in his voice. He planned to give her the full measure of the respect owed to her.
No more, no less.
Thankfully there was no kindness needed with such a debt.
Alice reached out and laid a hand on his forearm and moved in.
Realizing what it was, Phillip turned his head fractionally at the last second, Alice’s kiss landing on his cheek.
“I hope your trip was well,” Phillip said formally.
“It-ah-” Alice said, clearly perturbed at his dodge. “It went well enough. We could discuss it over lunch. We could talk about it and how things went here?”
Phillip gave her a tight smile.
“I’m certain you likely have business to attend to. I would not wish to intrude or distract,” he replied.
Watching him, her eyes moving back and forth across his face, Alice had the appearance of a woman in distress. He could see a mounting frustration and sadness in her eyes.
“Phil… I’d really like to spend some time with you,” Alice said directly. It was so forthright that he was momentarily stunned that it came from Alice. “I want to talk with you and be with you.”
Blinking, Phillip just stared at her. He had no possible way of answering without it likely being rude. Gritting his teeth, he could only stand there, unspeaking.
“Please… just talk to me. You can say… you can say anything,” Alice said as her family and servants drifted away. They were alone.
“Anything,” Phillip murmured.
“Yes, please. Anything,” agreed Alice.
“I see no reason to speak with you, Alice. You’ve given me no reason to spend time with you. Nor do I see any outcome where having lunch or dinner with you would be helpful,” said Phillip, striking to the heart of the matter. “I’ll provide you with the respect that is due to you as your husband. If you come to my room at night I’ll service you as is my duty. Otherwise, there’s no reason for us to be in one another’s company.”
“Phil… I made mistakes,” said Alice. “I erred. I erred badly. I want… I want to make this work.”
“There’s nothing to make work,” Phillip said with a shake of his head. “If it makes you feel better, I absolve you of any guilt you feel for sleeping with Jay, or spending time with him. Or if that’s what you’re looking for in the future. Do as you will.”
Unable to help himself, his tone had become cold and dark by the time he finished speaking.
Looking shocked, Alice shook her head.
“No. No, Phil, I never slept with him or anything like that. I don’t intend to in the future either,” argued Alice. “What… what you saw was a massive mistake on my part. One that I never should have even allowed to happen. I-”
“Twice. Happened twice. Once I found on my own, the other Mim told me,” muttered Phillip. “You’re only saying any of this because you got caught. You don’t actually care at all. This is regret for being exposed, not for the act.”
Alice was shaking her head much more firmly now. Then she nodded it slightly.
“Yes, it did happen twice. You’re right. I regret both and for different reasons. One for not telling you about it, the other for letting that happen at all but also not telling you about it. Please. I just need-”
“Alice? Sophia? I could use a hand in my personal study,” Matilda called as she headed into the house, her voice cutting through her daughter’s words.
Grimacing, Alice glared at the doorway and her mother’s retreating back.
“Please? Can we continue this later?” Alice asked, looking back to him.
“Business calls,” Phillip replied grimly.
Watching him for several more seconds, Phillip could see Alice was actually considering not chasing after her mother.
“Later?” she asked, clearly trying to get an affirmation out of him.
Phillip said nothing.
“Later,” Alice stated. “We’ll talk more later. We need to talk. I want to talk.”
Saying nothing, Phillip stood there waiting for her to leave.
Turning, Alice did just that, moving up the stairs and away from him.
“Business calls,” he murmured a second before Alice tripped over one of the steps. Catching herself barely and hurrying up toward the door.
“It sure does. But opportunity knocks,” Mim said, bouncing up into his side. Her arm slipped through the crook of his own. “And I’m going to see about that opportunity. Now… let’s go play. I’m hungry, you look annoyed, and I bet I can cheer you up.”
Unable to help himself, Phillip grinned at the ever-effervescent Mim.
“Oh! I got a smile. That’s a profit in my favor,” Mim said, pulling on him, dragging him away from the house. “Come, come. Let’s go to my place. I bought a cute little manor home just for me. It’s rather small but just right for me and my future husband. Furniture is arriving slowly but arriving. It most definitely has a bed. And a stove. We can do lunch! Then a ‘bun’ in my personal oven.”
“Didn’t Matilda ask for you?” Phillip asked as she rushed him off the grounds.
“She sure did, but she’s a grown woman. She’ll survive without me. Besides… you were looking so down, how could I leave my baker all by himself?” Mim asked. “Come along, it’s ‘bun’ time!”
Dragged into her pace, Phillip decided he wasn’t going to decline.
At least he wouldn’t decline going to her house.
While he was still angry at Alice, he wasn’t feeling as weak minded as when he’d gotten atop Mim.
Right now, he just didn’t want to be where Alice was.
“Drat, your guards are coming. I thought I could get you away before they noticed,” Mim muttered. “Would have been a lot easier to get that ‘bun’ without them. I’m kind of regretting asking you to stop last time. Should have just gone for it.
“Eh… whatever. Think they’d let me have a go if I paid them off? I think the big one would let me have you into my bed if I offered her the second round with you. She eye s
exes you like crazy when you’re not looking.”
Turning a dark-red color, Phillip was willingly kidnapped from the Rias household, his guards rushing to catch up with him.
Fourteen
Watching quietly, he observed Madeline as she slowly worked.
He didn’t understand anything that went into these machines, but what he did know was it normally required one hand to spin the wheel. Madeline’s work would free that up by including the pedal.
“And the wheel goes between the posts,” Madeline murmured, settling the piece into the stated position. She put in a peg to each post after getting the post into position. “This is what we made earlier.”
Picking up the long piece of wood she had spent some time making earlier, she slid it over the Z-shaped bar of metal that stuck out from the wheel.
It clicked into place and she tightened it into place with a leather thong.
Reaching to the lower part, she tied that down to what she had described as a “pedal” and tied the stick there with a leather binding as well.
“And there,” Madeline said, looking back to him with a smile. Realizing she had his full attention, she reached over and pushed down once on the pedal with a hand.
The wheel spun, the wooden rod moving downward. Then it came back up, bringing the pedal along with it.
“And all I have to do is move it down again,” Madeline said, demonstrating once again with her hand. “I keep my foot on the pedal and push each time. I have much better control over my work and I can do some different things with it.
“I’ve also improved a lot of the controls since… well, since I have two hands now.”
Reaching over, Madeline began to demonstrate and fiddle with her controls. One by one and how she’d changed them.
Phillip nodded his head. He understood the premise well enough to know that this was indeed going to change how things worked as far as textiles were concerned. Honestly, he didn’t need the details.
“Good work, Madeline. Good work. And how many of these can you make in a month?” Phillip asked, looking into the woman’s face.
She had a good deal of arm strength in her. He’d watched her carve the wood herself, and even fashion the wheel.
While it didn’t appear that way from the outside, he knew for a fact that she was actually quite muscular.
“It isn’t the assembly that takes time, just creating it,” she said with a nod of her head.
“Okay, that-okay. I’m not sure I want to hire outsiders as that would only speed up the rate at which other people end up building their own,” Phillip said. “With that said, how many can you create parts for in a month? Knowing that it’s nearly just you and your husband and any other family you trust.”
With a few blinks Madeline’s eyes slowly lost focus. Sitting there she didn’t move, clearly thinking on his question.
“We can get most of the pieces from someone else, or hire people to do those,” said Madeline in a thoughtful tone. “My husband can do final assembly. It doesn’t require that much strength to do it. If I did nothing but assemble the wheel, wood, pedal, and prep work, we could probably get… forty? Fifty? A month?”
Madeline looked back to him as she worked through the task in her mind.
“Great. Then what we should do… is not sell a single one of them,” Phillip said. The look of confusion on Madeline’s face was very amusing to him. “At least for three or four months. Lenore and I will handle your expenses, pay, and needs until then. When we start selling them you can defer as much of your cut to repay that debt as you see fit. With no obligation to repay it in a timely manner.”
“Why?” Lenore asked, standing on the other side of the table, idly toying with a half-built spinning wheel. “There’s no reason to not start selling them as we make them.”
“Because there’s no way to prevent someone else from making the same thing. And if they hire people rapidly, they could drown the market in inventory,” said Phillip. “Long before we even have enough product to get our own investment back.”
Lenore was looking at him as understanding slowly dawned in her eyes.
Then she let out a short breath and nodded her head.
“You’re right. It’s something I would do on the other end,” said Lenore with a chuckle. “First to market only counts for so much. Your work is innovative, Madeline, but it isn’t hard to replicate.”
Wincing, Madeline could only nod her head.
“That… yeah. You’re not wrong. We’ll have to wait. You’re right. Make as much as we can for a time, build our inventory, then take the market,” agreed Madeline.
“Exactly. And like I said. My partners and I have more than enough money to sponsor you, your family, your workers, long past even four months,” soothed Phillip. “It won’t even be a concern. Hardly an inconvenience.”
Lenore laughed and shook her head. Holding onto the legs of the spinning wheel she was toying with, she began to roll it back and forth across the ground.
“Phil, thank you for being my partner,” she said. “I wasn’t doing badly for myself before you, but I feel like you’ve really opened doors I never would have known existed.”
“Course,” said Phillip with a chuckle.
“Aren’t… aren’t you two married?” Madeline asked, looking from one to the other.
“I’m marr-”
“Not at this time,” Lenore said, speaking over Phillip. “I should have him as my husband by the end of this year. He’s currently in a love-less marriage that’s going nowhere. I’ve already made my intent clear to his wife.”
Madeline looked rather shocked at that.
Of course a bought husband would rattle her. It’s just not something you hear of every day in polite society. A duchess could more readily marry into a commoner family than a husband be bought.
It’s just not… polite.
“Well, I’ll wish you both luck then. You work as wonderful partners to one another. I wish my husband had as much sense as you do, Phil,” offered Madeline.
“Thank you,” Phillip replied, watching Lenore as she kept rolling the spindle wheel back and forth.
Then he frowned and turned his head to the side.
“What? Is it my pants?” Lenore asked, following his eyes. “They’re new. I thought they showed off my legs rather well.”
“They do, actually,” murmured Phillip. Getting up, he walked over to Lenore and gently took the legs of the spinning wheel from her.
Holding onto them, he slowly began to walk the item around the room, the wheel turning freely across the ground. Then he set it down in front of himself, the base board acting as a resting point.
If I put a small wagon bed atop it… would it be a one-wheeled wagon?
I bet it could carry a lot more than baskets.
Less than a wagon but… if the size were kept small, it could go where wagons couldn’t.
“Lenore, how do you feel about getting into the transportation business,” Phillip said as his mind rapidly began to coalesce his thoughts.
“I’d say at this point, Phil, I’m going to follow you where-ever you lead,” said Lenore in a soft and warm voice.
“Then… we’re going to need some wood, and I think Madeline is going to have a second business to start up with us. Nearly at the same time as the spinning-wheel,” Phillip said, wondering if his one-wheeled cart would work out.
***
Since Alice had come back four days ago, Phillip had managed to nearly avoid her completely. With only a few brief periods of time where he was forced to be in her company.
Her schedule was very regulated and left him with near-perfect blocks of time to stay away from the Rias household.
This was considerably easier since Mim had indeed bought a small manor in the upper-end of the merchant quarter. More often than not, all he had to do was to go visit her.
Sometimes with Lenore, sometimes without. But she always welcomed him inside regardless.
Or at the
worst, to lock himself in his room and pretend nothing existed when he couldn’t get out of the house.
Those were the times Alice managed to see him.
He would of course speak to her at his door. If she wanted in, he let her in.
Then spoke to her in the same fashion until she finally left. Rebuffing any attempt to engage him in conversation, draw him out somewhere with her, or to just be alone with her somewhere else.
Thankfully she didn’t try to avail herself of him sexually.
Apparently she had at least enough common sense to realize that wouldn’t endear him to her. Though he was willing to perform if that’s what she wished.
They were his husbandly duties, after all. It was expected for him to take care of her needs if she requested it.
Walking back into the Rias household after visiting Mim, he felt fairly well. Alice would be at her office till the evening. At which point he could simply go see Mim again.
“She’s very energetic,” Mildred grumbled.
“Yes. Then again, that’s just how she is,” Phillip agreed. “That and even I have to admit her deals are really working in her favor. She’s doing extremely well for herself.”
“You mean, deals she talks to you about, takes your advice, and then applies it? Those deals?” Mildred asked with some heat to her voice.
“Yes. Those deals. The same one she’s paying me consultation fees for,” added Phillip, giving Mildred a curious look.
“She just used that as an excuse for you to come over. She didn’t think it’d turn into something,” complained Mildred.
Laughing, Phillip bumped up into Mildred’s side.
“Be still, Milly. She’s being so obvious about her intentions that there’s almost nothing to worry about,” he argued.
“She offered to let me bed you, if I let you bed her first,” Milly whispered somewhat urgently.
“And? She told me she was going to make the offer before she did,” admitted Phillip. “Or are you angry you didn’t say yes?”
The other guards with them all chuckled at that. Apparently it had indeed dawned on them that he’d heard every comment they made. Both about him, and what they wanted to do to him.