How to Woo a Wallflower (Romancing the Rules #3)(50)
“Business didn’t interest me back then.” Kit smiled and glanced down at Gabriel’s report. “To be honest, there are days when the details bore me now. We’re lucky to have Adamson at the helm.”
His words sparked an image in Clary’s mind. Gabriel at the helm, not of Ruthven’s but a ship. His black hair long, wild, and flowing around his shoulders. With his knack for management and physical strength, he’d make a fearsome pirate.
When the image faded, she found Kit scrutinizing her with a single dark brow winged high.
“You weren’t fond of him at first,” she said, recalling how the men had initially clashed.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I stepped into Ruthven’s after Father’s death. The West End theater world may be only a few miles away, but while I was living that life, it felt like a different world. Nothing could have persuaded me to set foot inside this place. When I met Adamson, I thought he was . . . ” Kit looked bemused, as if doubting whether he should continue.
“You found him what?”
“Insufferable. Arrogant, proud, and far too bloody young.” He chuckled and settled back in Gabriel’s chair. “Perhaps I envied an upstart managing Father’s enterprise so well when I hadn’t managed to stage a decent play in four years.”
“He must have been young when Papa hired him? Eighteen?”
“Younger than when I first pursued employment.”
“What convinced Papa to give him the opportunity?” Clary hadn’t known her father to be a particularly generous man, but she also had no real notion of how he’d run Ruthven’s. Business was a topic he’d never discussed with her.
Kit shrugged. “I suppose the old man saw potential in him. As I told Adamson recently, his hire may be the only decision Father ever made that I have reason to commend.”
Clary offered him a tight grin. After spending time with the girls at Fisk Academy, she knew that Leopold Ruthven, however controlling and cold and miserly, had been a good father compared to the horrors some of the girls experienced at their caretakers’ hands.
“What’s that?” Kit indicated the folder she pressed to her chest.
“Notes regarding my magazine project. I’d hoped to discuss them with”—Clary caught herself before calling Gabriel by his given name—“Mr. Adamson.”
“Let me have a look.”
She was happy to pass him the documents, including a few of the images she’d considered for the cover. At least he was showing more interest than he had when she’d first broached the concept at the company board meeting.
“You’ve put a good deal of thought into this.”
“Helen and I both have. We’re determined to move forward, even if we can’t use Ruthven’s presses. We’re going to take some of the funds we raised at the charity ball and pay two upcoming graduates of Fisk to work on an initial issue. They’ll produce articles. I’ll work on art and illustrations.”
“So you’ve been going to Whitechapel?”
“I teach the girls art and science.” Clary sat in a chair near Gabriel’s desk and leaned forward as far as her corset would allow. “After hearing about our plans, that’s your only question?”
“Does Adamson know you continue to venture to the East End?”
Clary bit her tongue. Gabriel wasn’t her keeper, and she wasn’t at all certain he’d want his own visits to the area divulged. She definitely didn’t wish Kit to hear a word about the matter with Keene. He’d lock her in the guest room in Bloomsbury Square and never let her see sunlight again.
“Why don’t you come to visit the school? See the good we’re doing. Bring Phee along.”
“I won’t expose Phee to danger.”
She wouldn’t win the debate. They could continue like this all afternoon, and Clary suspected she’d get no further in convincing her brother that working at a school in the East End was a worthy cause. Keene’s attack had left Sally shaken but, thankfully, unharmed. Now that he’d been arrested, the tension that had been hanging over Helen and the students had begun to ease.
“I’m sorry, Clary. I know you care about your causes.” He stood, his frown softening into the shadow of a brotherly grin as he looked at her. “I can’t stay. Sophia and I are meeting with one of the writers we hope will join the literary journal as a regular contributor.” He lifted the copy of Gabriel’s report. “I just wanted another look at these numbers.”
There was still something amiss between them. Not in tone or expression but an unsettledness she could feel like static in the air before a storm.
“I trust you’ll bring the plans for your magazine to the board meeting in a few days. If your project will keep you here at Ruthven’s more often, and I could make the decision myself, I’d send you up to use the lithographic press right now.” He dipped his head and swallowed hard. “Commanding you not to go back to Whitechapel holds enormous appeal, but you’d find a way, wouldn’t you?”
Clary gave a firm nod.
Kit pursed his lips and narrowed his gaze at her. “We Ruthvens can’t keep a desk clean to save our lives, but we’re stubborn as hell, aren’t we?”
Stubborn, tenacious—words of praise or reproof, depending on how they were wielded. Kit was enough of a wordsmith to know it was a compliment with a cut, and Clary bristled at the characterization.