“Swear to me that you will never do business with that bastard again.”
She shrugged. “I certainly hope I won’t have to. As for your miners, look to their actions. What are their intentions? Then find some way to either use that intention or fire them. You really have no other choice.”
He frowned, startled by her logical thinking. If he weren’t staring right at her, he would swear the advice came from a man. Meanwhile, he was trying to follow her words to their logical conclusion.
“Charlie writes that the previous manager has been stirring up the men. I understand Hutchins well enough. He wants his job back. But I am making the mine better, safer for these men. Why would they turn on me?”
“They’re not turning on you,” she snorted. “You are a viscount and perforce believe that everything relates to you. You make logical steps toward the improvement of their lives, and you don’t understand why everyone doesn’t fall into line with your ideas.”
He sighed. “It has certainly worked before.”
“Or you have merely had the money and the distance to do what you deemed necessary and didn’t look any closer.” She tilted her head and the firelight caught on the delicate tracery of veins in her neck. Her skin was so fine, it seemed almost transparent. Clean and clear. He vowed he’d never seen so beautiful a neck. “What has changed, my lord? Why are you struggling with this business venture and not the others?”
He was so caught up in the sight of her flawless skin that he didn’t at first catch her words. But she was looking at him so frankly, as if expecting an answer.
“My lord?”
“Robert,” he admonished, though the word was automatic. His mind was caught on the shocking realization that she was figuring out the one thing that he kept carefully hidden.
“Very well, Robert. Tell me the truth. Are you really worried about the mine? Or was this just a ruse to get me alone?”
“Yes, I am worried,” he said.
“And yes, it was a ruse. That part I already knew. But if you are truly worried about the miners, then perhaps you should be a bit more specific. What exactly are they doing that is so worrisome?”
He sighed. “Someone has vandalized the equipment. I purchased new carts and ponies to pull them, but someone has destroyed the new ones.” Normally he would just buy new carts and post guards for as long as was needed, and thereby enforce his plans for long enough that the people accepted the new status quo. That was what he had done for his father’s other investments. Eventually the people saw that their lives were better off and accepted the changes. But he hadn’t the money to do such a thing right then. And so he was in the awkward position of having to try to appease vandals and worse.
“Have you posted guards?”
“I have instructed Charlie to do so, but what if those that work as guards are the very ones doing the damage?”
“Can Charlie hire from outside the town? Or would that just be seen as outsiders trying to step in where they aren’t wanted?”
He nodded, impressed again. “You understand my dilemma.”
“I understand stepping into a new place, a new business, and trying to learn the rules. Fortunately I had Wendy to teach me, just as you have Charlie. What does he suggest?”
He grimaced. “That we hire the children again. He believes that is why the carts were destroyed, so that I would be forced to hire the children again.”
“Then I think you should listen to him.”
He straightened. “Did you not hear me talk about the horrendous conditions there? Would you send your child into that pit? Never seeing the sun, in constant danger of fire or gas or cave-in? I have a hard enough time allowing the women to work, but to use children is monstrous!”
She didn’t answer. She was looking at him with her head tilted, her hair slipping free to dangle about her shoulder. He saw the beauty of her skin again, and his eyes were drawn to it, as well as to lower down where the soft mounds of her breasts were revealed.
“How tight is your money, Robert? Do you have the funds to force your opinion on these people? To pay the children to go to school?”
He grimaced. Yes, she had figured him out exactly. “No,” he snapped. “No, I do not.”
“Then I am afraid you will have to compromise your ethics in favor of slow change, slow growth. You can work to fire the children, one by one, later. But not just yet.”
He looked at her and knew she had come to the exact crux of the problem. He was not a man who compromised easily, and certainly not on the welfare of children. He couldn’t erase the sight of those bones in the tunnel, the ones placed specifically to frighten the children.
“I hate the idea of a child going down in that hole.” So saying, he flopped onto his back. The place where he had meant to lay her down ended up being the pillow for his own head. He stared up at the ceiling and he tried not to see those bones again.
He didn’t. He saw her face as she leaned over him. She touched his cheek, her hand warm, her expression filled with beauty. “You are an overbearing, pompous, opinionated man, my lord. But you are also a good man.”
He waited a moment, deciding whether he would be insulted by her words or not. In the end, he decided she was too beautiful to be at odds with.
“Will you kiss me now?” he asked. “To make me feel better about stealing the sun from little children?”
She laughed. “Of course.” Then she leaned down and planted a quick kiss to his forehead. He was prepared, though. Once she was close, he slid his hand behind her neck. And when she would have pulled away, he did not release her.
“You know,” he said right next to her ear, “you have offended my lordly sensibilities.”
“Have I?” she asked. Her voice was breathy, but no less clear. “By calling you overbearing?”
“And pompous and opinionated.”
“Do you deny the charge?”
“Of course not. It is part of my aristocratic heritage. I would not be allowed the title were I not.”
She arched her brow. “There is overbearing, and then there is
“Kiss me again.”
“See, there you are, ordering me—”
He did not allow her more time. He pulled her close and used all his skill. She was in the superior position, so he could not dominate her as was his usual method. Instead, he tried to tempt, to ask, and to cling. This ended up working much too well. Usually when he took his pleasure from a woman, he controlled the pace, making sure they both ended up satisfied.
But in this position, he was forced to please and not take. But it made him crazy with lust. If he allowed it to continue, he would go too fast. He would forget her and take what he wanted. This time, it was he who broke away.
“Helaine,” he gasped. And when he had no more words, he looked back at her, traced her swollen lips with his thumb, and calculated the force he would need to flip her on her back.
She must have read his intention. She must have seen that he was on the edge of his control, because she pulled back, her eyes wide with alarm. It should have cooled his lust, but with distance he could see more of her. He saw how her skin was flushed and her nipples were tightly pressed against her dress. He caught her wrist, holding her beside him when she would have run. “You must know this is why I asked you here today.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“So why do you run?”
She bit her lip, and he found the sight too gamine. She was not a woman who gave in to games. She was clearly torn, her desire at war with her good sense. He wanted her to cease this indecision and choose him. Choose the pleasure they could share.
“I will not hurt you, Helaine,” he said. “Though I have never done it before, I know how to initiate a virgin.”
She blanched at that, her gaze slipping from his face to his chest, but stopping there. At that point, he realized that perhaps she was not
