Tom proved to be as good as his word, instructing Theo in the most efficient way to feed the flying shuttle without getting his fingers pinched or, worse, his hair or clothing trapped. Even while he absorbed this information, however, Theo’s thoughts returned to his brother by marriage. Whatever else might be said of him (and Theo had said quite a lot over the last few days, none of it flattering), Ethan was a shrewd judge of character. It seemed unlike him to leave his mill in the charge of a bully-boy whose subordinates seemed to tread in fear of him. Did Ethan not know? Perhaps Wilkins showed the owner of the mill quite a different face than the one the men beneath him saw; perhaps the workers were afraid to let on, for fear of reprisals once Ethan returned to London. Should Theo somehow get word to him, and let him know how things stood?
He had not long to ponder this dilemma, however, for once Tom returned to his own machine, leaving Theo to fend for himself, that young man had all he could handle just keeping up with his work. The loom was much faster than he had expected, grabbing the thread as fast as—or faster than—he could feed it in. By the end of two hours, the pads of his thumbs and the sides of his index fingers were reddened and sore from the cotton fibers sliding between them; by the end of four, several blisters had formed. When he was finally able to stop for a midday meal, he realized with some chagrin that, in his haste to reach the mill on time, he had neglected to provide himself with anything to eat.
As the workers left their stations and filed into an adjoining room furnished with long tables and benches, Theo followed in their wake, trying to act as if he was not hungry at all. He took a seat on the nearest bench, sitting with the table at his back so that he might rest his spine against it. Unfortunately, it soon appeared that his seeming nonchalance did not fool anyone.
“Never mind, lad, it gets better with time.”
Turning to identify the speaker, Theo found him in the man seated on the opposite side of the table. He might have been any age between fifty and seventy, although if his wrinkled face and missing teeth were anything to judge by, Theo thought it was nearer the latter. Still, in spite of his unprepossessing countenance, his eyes were kind, and his smile (gap-toothed though it was) held nothing of mockery.
“I hope you’re right,” Theo said, hoping even more fervently that he would not remain at the mill long enough to find out if the old man’s prediction was correct. He swung his long legs over the bench and underneath the table, the better to offer his hand to the encouraging stranger. “How do you do? Theo Tisdale’s the name. And you are—?”
“Benjamin Yates. But you can call me Old Ben. Everyone else does.” He glanced down at the blistered hand clasping his. “You’ll want to get some bandages on those before tomorrow. Won’t do to have you bleeding all over the cloth.”
Theo grinned mischievously at him. “I don’t know about that. It might serve—well, never mind that,” he amended hastily.
Old Ben cast a quick glance around the room and then leaned forward, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Might serve Wilkins right? Aye, maybe it would, at that. But you don’t want to go setting up his back, you know.”
In fact, Wilkins had not been uppermost in Theo’s thoughts, but it recalled to his mind the circumstance he had wondered at earlier. “No, of course not. Tom said as much. But tell me, why has no one mentioned the matter to E—to Sir Ethan Brundy? He wouldn’t—that is, he doesn’t seem the sort of man who would tolerate such a thing, if he knew of it.”
“Aye, you’ve the right of it there. But Wilkins’s nose was put out of joint when our Ethan”—Theodore noticed Old Ben didn’t bother to use his brother-in-law’s title—“up and married the daughter of a duke, when he’d had hopes there for his daughter Becky.”
To Theo, who had seen the beau monde react to that same marriage with revulsion, it came as a considerable shock to discover that, in some circles, Ethan Brundy had been seen as a very eligible parti. “Becky,” he echoed thoughtfully. “But she married someone else, didn’t she? The foreman?”
“Aye, she were already mad for Tommy, and he for her. Ethan gave Tommy a rise in wages, to make him a mite easier for Wilkins to swallow as a son-in-law—him having lost an arm, you know, and Wilkins saying he won’t give his girl to a cripple—and then he made Wilkins assistant foreman, thinking that might smooth his ruffled feathers.”
“Did it?” asked Theo, intrigued in spite of himself by this hitherto unsuspected result of his sister’s marriage.
Old Ben shook his head. “Not that I could tell.”
“But, dash it, it’s been four years!” exclaimed Theo, unwittingly betraying far too intimate a knowledge of his employer’s marriage. “Surely if he was capable of being placated, it would have happened by now.”
“Aye, you’re probably right.”
“Then why doesn’t someone speak up?”
One graying eyebrow lifted toward Old Ben’s hairline. “Are you volunteering for the job?”
Theo started to make a hasty demurral, but reconsidered. Surely no one was in a better position than he to make Ethan aware of how matters stood. “Maybe I am, at that,” he said thoughtfully.
Old Ben reached across the table and laid a hand on Theo’s arm as if to forestall him. “Take my advice, lad. Don’t do it. Oh, I know you mean well,” he added quickly, anticipating Theo’s objection. “But it won’t serve. You’ll only make
