Tea or a chair would be all the opening he’d need to feel emboldened in his pursuit.
Where another man would have been put off by her rejection, Davenport merely ignored it and forged ahead with his conversation. “I came to see if there was any news of young Paulie.”
“I will send word if there is any news.” Jenna said coolly. It was an answer and a dismissal. Davenport knew it too. Something akin to anger flashed through Davenport’s eyes but was gone almost instantly, his face softening its hard features. He stepped towards her and she was careful to stand her ground.
“You don’t need to be strong for me.” His voice was low, private. It was a tone reserved for close friends or more. It was entirely inappropriate. “These are troubling times for you. I don’t pretend to know the depths of your struggles. You won’t share them. But I am here for you.” Another woman, a less discerning woman, might have found Davenport attractive. The features were there — the thick brown hair, the brown eyes that could be chocolate soft or agate hard, the strong line of his jaw, the brackets at his mouth that defined him as a man of experiences, who had seen something of the world.
However, Jenna did not find him appealing. He lacked a certain nuance, a polish to mark him as a man of distinction.
Oh, he aspired to distinction, but he did not achieve it. There was something indefinably coarse about him. He lacked a nobility of character. But he’d been an officer — even if a low ranking one — and he’d been available when her father had needed him.
“Let me help you.” He renewed his request.
Jenna offered a frosty smile. “You are my foreman, Davenport. It is not your place to help me.”
His features hardened. He did not like being put down by a woman although he tried to hide it. “I am your father’s foreman. What I am to you could be refined if you so wished. I am a patient man, Miss Priess. My offer stands.” He gave her a curt nod of his head and gathered up his coat to depart.
It was not the first time, he’d found her behavior displeasing. Neither was the first time he’d pushed his personal agenda despite it. Jenna waited until he was gone before she sat. Davenport’s ambitions were becoming problematic. He found her displeasing and yet he dared to put himself forward as a suitor. His efforts were not even subtle. He wanted the factory and he was willing to marry for it. If she gave him an inch, he’d take matrimony.
The door had barely closed when eager footsteps sounded on the staircase. Her brother clattered down the steps, his voice excited and loud in the quiet of their home as the questions began. “Did you see him? What was he like? How was the race?” Daniel was fourteen and he’d been furious that morning because she hadn’t taken him with her to see the notorious ice racer. “Were there any crashes?”
Jenna laughed at his exuberance. “There was one crash. A horse went down and Islington jumped it rather than give up the lead.” Her reaction to that event had been much like her reaction to the man; mixed. At the time, she’d wanted to be enraged over the foolishness of taking such a chance and at the same time, she’d not been able to look away. Daniel would have loved every moment of the drama. She wished she could have taken him, he had little enough excitement in his life but her business wasn’t suitable for a child and she didn’t want him to worry.
“Cor! He jumped over a horse? On ice?” Daniel gave a wistful sigh full of disbelief. “I can’t believe I missed it!” He gave her a reproachful stare. He squared his shoulders, suddenly looking more mature than he had a moment ago. “But it’s a good thing I was here. Father was asking for you. He wanted to know where you’d gone.”
Jenna sobered too. Having her father ask questions had been something she’d worked hard to avoid. She’d kept the current business of the disappearing mill workers and the subsequent consequences from her father. He was too ill and she wouldn’t have him bothered. She could handle this latest problem on her own.
“What did you tell him?” she asked Daniel, but she could guess. Her father suspected she was working too hard at the mill, intervening in the foreman’s job.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him anything. I said you’d gone shopping.” There was pride in Daniel’s voice and something else too, something akin to ‘I told you so. I am old enough to help you.’ He was proving to her he wasn’t a child.
“Well done.” She smiled her praise. Fourteen was a difficult age. One was not really a child but nowhere near an adult. It wasn’t so long ago that she’d forgotten what it was like to be fourteen, but Jenna would still have preferred to protect him. The issue of missing workers was a sordid one. No one was certain what was behind it although she’d heard several hypotheses bandied about in the last weeks, everything from human trafficking and prostitution rings to a mass murderer on the loose. Unfortunately, all were possible.
“So,” Daniel asked again. “Will Islington help us?”
“Us?” She noted his use of the word. “What do you know of all this?”
Daniel straightened his thin, adolescent shoulders. “I know Paulie is missing, that he’s not the first. Other workers have been missing for weeks now and it’s serious enough that you want an investigator to help you find them.”
Jenna nodded. She wouldn’t lie to him. The situation had become dire enough she feared having to close down until the situation was resolved. Her mill couldn’t function without enough workers to fill the shifts and in the dead of winter, she wasn’t sure where she’d come up with new ones.
Her workers had started disappearing over two months ago. Since then, it had been one or two a week, which might not sound terribly significant but when a mill was run by forty-five to fifty men and young boys, a ten percent attrition rate was quickly reached as was the mill’s ability to function. The workers were hired from gangs that came from Manchester and Leeds. Couple that with the winter weather and the difficulty of getting another work crew in before spring, it was no wonder she was worried.
Until this week, she’d been able to fill the empty spots from the small worker pool available in town. Now, with Paulie’s disappearance, fear was rampant. She was well aware of the rumors surrounding the Priess mill disappearances. The workers available were reluctant to work for her, afraid they too might be among the next to disappear. Not even the prospect of higher wages could entice them.
She was starting to panic. If she couldn’t fulfill her orders for bobbins, they would lose money and future contracts. It would be a financial disaster. Even worse, if the workers’ suspicions of foul play reached her father’s ear, it would devastate him. The winter had been cruel enough as it was. This last might just finish him off.
Her father was known in the area as a champion of workers’ rights. He was proud of the conditions in his mills, the fairness of his wages and his concern for his workers well-being. It would destroy him to know those ethics were being questioned to say nothing of what the practical realities of a shutdown would do to the business. She’d not lied to Islington when she’d said she’d pay handsomely. The Priesses were wealthy, but they wouldn’t be if they lost the mill and its income.
“You’re dodging my question, Sis.” Daniel prompted patiently. “Will he help us?”
“I don’t know.” Jenna hedged, drawing her mind back from the dark abyss of her thoughts. There was no sense worrying about what ifs just yet. “Maybe.”
“Then he didn’t say no?” Daniel argued hopefully.
She
