minutes to spare. Wayland had had to finish a design for the company he’d been working for before heading back to England, sailing directly to Bristol.
“It’s bigger than I’d thought,” Smiggs, Kit’s groom-cum-stableman, observed, breaking through Kit’s introspection.
Smiggs was perched behind Kit. Kit had co-opted Smiggs, several years older than he, from the Abbey stables when he’d first gone on the town. Smiggs had eagerly thrown in his lot with Kit, and subsequently, they’d shared many an adventure. Kit considered Smiggs a confidant of sorts and knew he could rely on the wiry man’s support in any situation.
“This is one of the few decent views of the city sprawl,” Kit said, “and last time, we didn’t stop to look.”
“Last time” being two weeks before, when he and Smiggs had driven over for a few days to allow Kit to make the necessary arrangements for taking up residence in the city. Among other things, he’d finalized the purchase of a decent-sized house in a good neighborhood and had discussed leasing a warehouse on the Floating Harbor with the Bristol Dock Company.
“So, Mr. Cobworth should have arrived a few days ago,” Smiggs said.
Kit nodded. “He wrote that his ship would dock on the sixteenth.” Kit grinned expectantly. “I imagine that, after having two days to reconnoiter, Wayland will be eager to forge on.”
“When’s your meeting with the Dock Company?” Smiggs asked.
Kit shifted to draw out his fob watch. “Not until half past three.” He checked the time, then tucked the watch back. “It’s just after two o’clock. We’d better get moving.”
“Will Mr. Cobworth be staying with us?”
Turning his head, Kit glanced at the younger man standing behind the rail alongside Smiggs and smiled. “No, Gordon.” Until recently, Gordon had been a footman at the Abbey, but Mary had allowed Kit to lure him away to fill the role of Kit’s majordomo. “Mr. Cobworth likes his own space, for which we should all be thankful—as he tends to lose himself in his work and often works very odd hours, he’s not a comfortable houseguest.”
“Oh.” Gordon’s eyes had widened. He was of similar age to Kit, but had led a much more sheltered life.
Reminded of the tasks he had to complete before he joined Wayland at the scheduled meeting—during which Kit hoped they would be able to sign the lease on the warehouse he intended to convert to their yacht-building workshop—he faced forward and lifted the reins. “We’ll drive straight to the solicitor’s office and pick up the house keys, then go and take possession.” Of the first house he’d ever owned. Releasing the brake, he continued, “I’ll leave you two to get settled and organized. The solicitor will have the direction of a household staff employment agency. Gordon—you’ll know the sort of people we need.”
“Yes, my lord,” Gordon promptly replied. “You may leave all that to me.”
Kit smiled at the eager pride in Gordon’s voice; he had no doubt Gordon would take to his duties with the keen fervor of one out to make his mark. Thinking further, Kit said, “I left a note at the shipping office to be given to Mr. Cobworth when he landed. I imagine he’ll be waiting impatiently outside the door of the Bristol Dock Company at half past three.” Champing at the bit to get on.
As were Kit’s horses. He steered them out of the lookout and back onto the road.
Then, smile deepening and with a sense of expectation—and, yes, eagerness—welling, Kit flicked the reins and set the bays trotting.
He might have lived for twenty-nine years, yet to his mind, today was the first day of his adult life.
* * *
Across a long, highly polished table, Kit, with Wayland beside him, faced five members of the board of the Bristol Dock Company.
“So”—the chairman, a Mr. Hemmings, exchanged a swift glance with his fellow directors before returning his gaze to Kit—“are we correct in thinking that you anticipate hiring local men to build your ships?”
Kit nodded. “To build and, ultimately, to service our yachts. Once we’ve established Cavanaugh Yachts as a going concern, we intend to look into sailmaking as well, either to invest in an established business or commence one of our own.”
He was unsurprised by the direction of the chairman’s probing; he’d done his homework and knew the Dock Company was under increasing pressure from the local council over the loss of jobs on the docks. With the advent of steamships and the changes in materials and practices building such vessels entailed, many men who had previously had steady employment in the shipyards were now out of work. Restless, unhappy, and at a loose end—prime targets for those sowing social discord.
“I understand,” Kit continued, “that we should be able to find workers with the expertise we require reasonably easily.”
“Oh, indeed—indeed,” huffed another of the directors. “Good to know that the old ways of sail aren’t going to completely disappear, what?”
Just two months earlier, Brunel, who had launched his first ocean-going iron ship, the SS Great Western, five years before, had launched his latest wonder, the SS Great Britain, the first propeller-driven, ocean-going iron ship—both ships built in the Bristol yards.
Steam power had changed the face of ship building, tossing many shipyard workers on the scrap heap.
Cavanaugh Yachts held out the prospect of giving some of those workers a new lease on working life.
Kit smiled. “Just so. And from my earlier visit, I gathered that, what with the difficulties the Floating Harbor poses to larger-draft ships and the consequent drift of shipyards and warehousing to Avonmouth, there are quite a few opportunities to secure space of the sort we need on the docks here.”
At that, the company men exchanged another meaning-laden glance, then Hemmings clasped his hands before him, leaned forward, and met Kit’s gaze. “As you say, my lord, we’ll be happy to see Cavanaugh Yachts take up residence on our docks.”
The company secretary, a Mr. Finch, a desiccated man in sober black, cleared his throat and looked down as he shuffled several papers. “We understand you’re interested in the warehouse off the Grove.”
Kit nodded. “That seemed the most suitable. We require ready access to the harbor, and in size and location, that seemed the best of the properties you showed me earlier.”
Wayland shifted; several inches taller than Kit, he was long and lanky and exuded the air of a man who possessed little patience for the minutiae of life. Wayland fixed the secretary with his dark gaze. “Do you have any other properties similar in size and location to that one?”
Finch blinked at Wayland, then looked down. “No—that’s really the only warehouse in that stretch that’s immediately available.”
As if suddenly reminded of something, the chairman glanced at Kit. “You propose to commence work soon?” An “I hope” hovered in the air.
Kit exchanged a swift look with Wayland, then replied, “If we can come to an agreement today, then we are prepared to start hiring immediately.”
“Ah...” Finch caught Hemmings’s
