How to Woo a Wallflower (Romancing the Rules #3)(12)
“No.” Helen shook her head. Her voice had taken on the firm tone she used with the girls at Fisk Academy. “It’s your birthday.” Determination shone in her eyes. “A family gathering is no place for business.”
“Have you forgotten that my family owns a business?” Clary tipped her friend a grin.
Helen’s left eye began to twitch behind her spectacle lens, a sign that she was about to pull forth an ingenious idea. “Why don’t you work for Ruthven’s?”
“No.” Clary shook her head with extra vehemence. “The point of finding employment is to strike out on my own. How can I be independent if I’m working for Ruthven’s? A business I now own a piece of?”
“You want work, and quickly. Believe me, positions are hard to find and extremely competitive.” Helen’s cheeks went ruddy, as they always did when she was excited. “You said you wished to take part in running the company. Why not assist with managing Ruthven’s or contributing to editorial decisions?”
“I can’t just waltz in and take over.” Though imagining the look on Gabriel Adamson’s face if she did so was almost worth trying it.
“I’d never suggest you be quite that high-handed. But think of what you might learn. We’ve both talked about purchasing typewriters for the girls at Fisk. If you became proficient, you could teach them.”
Helen was making sense. Rational arguments were Clary’s weakness.
“I suspect Mr. Adamson wouldn’t want me underfoot.” The man couldn’t even manage to endure an entire carriage ride with her. “If I’m going to be there, I’d want to contribute. What could I contribute to the running of Ruthven’s?”
“You’re one of the cleverest young women I know, creative, thoughtful. I’m not sure you’ll know until you get there.” Helen leaned over and whispered, “But first you have to get there.”
“He won’t like me lingering about the office, I suspect.” Mr. Adamson’s glower was fresh in Clary’s mind.
“You are co-owner, and you won’t be lingering; you’ll be applying your time and talents. After spending four years at study, surely you’re as competent as Mr. Adamson.”
Now that had a nice ring to it.
CHAPTER FIVE
“There is no victory quite as sweet as turning disappointment into determination.”
—JOURNAL OF CLARY RUTHVEN
Few visited the Ruthven offices who were not expected. Workroom employees were due at half past seven. Vendors arranged appointments weeks in advance. No meeting was ever scheduled before nine. Gabe imposed order efficiently and effectively on the daily goings-on of the business. If some random Londoner happened across their threshold, it was usually because the poor sod got lost.
Over the years, Gabe had learned the rhythms of the workroom floor by heart, memorizing the clatter of the printing presses and the patterned strikes of Daughtry, his assistant, and other clerks tapping at their typewriters. When productivity waned because of inane chitchat, he caught that too. And immediately cut such nonsense short.
So when he settled behind his desk on Monday morning, a half hour before any other employees were due to arrive, as was his habit, he savored the bliss of quiet. He felt something akin to peace. After weeks of mulling, he’d made a choice. He would inform Kit Ruthven of his plans to leave Ruthven’s and take the position offered by Wellbeck Publishers.
Why shouldn’t he go? He owed no loyalty to the late Leopold Ruthven. The man had been a reprobate, far worse than his family suspected. Only grudgingly, Gabe had come to respect the son. Kit Ruthven trusted him to carry out his duties, rarely questioning or interfering with his management. He even admired the man’s determination to share ownership with his sisters. If he’d been lucky enough to inherit anything of value, he’d have happily shared with Sara too.
Of course, Gabe didn’t believe in luck. Only in scrabbling and fighting for every scrap of good fortune that came his way.
Change was necessary. He needed the higher salary Wellbeck’s offered. He’d been beholden to the Ruthvens for long enough.
Unfolding the letter from Wellbeck’s, he smoothed the document on his desktop. Beside it, he poised a nib pen over a fresh sheet of foolscap and began scratching out a formal reply. A moment later, a noise in the outer workroom jolted his attention, and his nib sputtered blots of ink across the paper.
Hell and damnation. Gabe crushed the ruined page in his fist and shot up from his chair. No one ever arrived this bloody early, and he’d secured the door behind him when he’d let himself in.
After shrugging out of his suit coat, he rolled up his sleeves and moved slowly toward the door. He took care to land his boots softly on the polished wood. A distinctive sound froze him in place. Not the rustling that had initially drawn his notice but a steady, rhythmic tick of type bars hitting the platen of a typewriter.
Plastering himself against the frame of his open office door, Gabe gazed across the workroom to get a glimpse of the early morning typist. Irritation flared, and his chest collapsed in a long sigh.
Bent over Daughtry’s typewriter, Miss Ruthven swiped a strand of hair from her face and then proceeded to jab haphazardly at the keys. With her back to him, her body curved in a perfect hourglass shape. A single loose curl had slipped its pin, hanging down her back in the same sinuous line. Despite the fact that he’d never entered the workroom to find a lovely woman working away at one of the desks, she looked strangely right perched on Daughtry’s chair.