I’ve no doubt of their experience or the quality of their work, but Jenson was off sick more than he was at work over the last twelve months—severe arthritis, isn’t it?’ he asked in a brief aside to Robert, who nodded unhappily. ‘And Mains’s unfortunate stroke last year has slowed him up to the point where I believe he actually represents something of a danger to himself and others, especially when working on scaffolding. If you drop something from any sort of height you could kill or maim anyone beneath.’
‘I don’t believe this!’ She glared at him angrily. ‘They are craftsmen, the pair of them.’
‘They are old craftsmen and it’s time to let some young blood take over,’ Matt said ruthlessly, ‘however much it hurts.’
‘And of course it really hurts you, doesn’t it?’ Georgie bit out furiously, ignoring Robert’s frantic hand-signals as she jerked to her feet. ‘Two dear ol—’ She caught herself as the grey gaze sharpened. ‘Two dear men who have been the rocks on which this business was built just thrown on to the scrap heap. What reward is that for all their faithfulness to Robert and this family? But faithfulness means nothing to men like you, does it? You’ve made your millions, you’re sitting pretty, but you’re still greedy for more and if more means men like Walter and George get sacrificed along the way then so be it.’
‘Have you quite finished?’ He was still sitting in the relaxed manner of earlier but the grey gaze was lethal and pointed straight at Georgie’s flushed face. ‘Then sit down, Miss Millett.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘Sit down!’
The bark made her jump and in spite of herself Georgie felt her legs obey him.
‘Firstly, your brother has made it clear just what he owes these two employees and they will be retired with a very generous package,’ Matt ground out coldly. ‘I think, as does Robert if he speaks the truth, that this will not come as a surprise to them; neither will it be wholly displeasing. Secondly, you talk of sacrifice when you are prepared to jeopardise the rest of your brother’s employees’ livelihoods for the sake of two elderly men who should have retired years ago?
‘It is human nature for the rest of the men to tailor their speed to the slowest worker when there is a set wage at the end of each week. Your brother’s workers have been underachieving for years and a week ago they were in danger of reaping their reward, every one of them. If Robert had gone bankrupt everyone would have been a loser. There is no place for weakness in industry; you should know that.’
‘And kindness?’ She continued to glare at him even though a tiny part of her brain was pressing her to recognise there was more than an element of truth in what he had said. ‘What about kindness and gratitude? How do you think they’ll feel at being told they’re too old?’
‘They know the dates on their birth certificates as well as anyone,’ he said icily, ‘so I doubt it will come as the surprise you seem to foresee.’
He folded his arms over his chest, settling more comfortably in his seat as he studied her stiff body and tense face through narrowed eyes.
Georgie didn’t respond immediately, more because she was biting back further hot words as the full portent of what she had yelled at him registered than because she was intimidated by his coldness. And then she said, her voice shaking slightly, ‘I think what you are demanding Robert do is awful.’
‘Then don’t think.’ He sat forward in his seat, draining his mug with one swallow and turning to Robert as he said, ‘I’d suggest you take this opportunity to change the men over to piece work. With a set goal each week and good bonuses for extra achievement you’ll soon sort out the wheat from the chaff, and you’ve limped on long enough.’
Georgie looked at her brother, willing him to stand up to this tyrant, but Robert merely nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’d been thinking along the same lines myself,’ he agreed quietly.
‘Good, that’s settled, then,’ Matt said imperturbably. ‘Now, if you’d like to get Georgie to note those few points that need checking on site we’ll be on our way. Have you got any other shoes than those?’ he added, looking at her wafer-thin high heels which she had never worn to the office before but which went perfectly with the charcoal skirt she was wearing. They also showed her legs—which Georgie considered her best feature, hating her small bust and too-slender hips—off to their best advantage, but she’d tried to excuse that thought all morning.
Georgie was still mentally reeling from the confrontation of the last few minutes, and a full ten seconds went by before she could say, her voice suitably cutting, ‘I wasn’t aware I was expected to go on site this morning, if you remember, so, no, I haven’t any other shoes with me.’
‘There’s your wellies in the back of my car,’ Robert put in helpfully. ‘You remember we put all our boots in there when we took the kids down to the river for that walk at the weekend?’
Her brother probably had no idea why she glared at him the way she did, Georgie reflected, as she said, ‘Thank you, Robert,’ in a very flat voice. She was going to look just great, wasn’t she? Expensive silk jade-green blouse, elegant skirt and great hefty black wellington boots. Wonderful. And that…that swine sitting there so complacently with his hateful grey eyes looking her up and down was to blame for this, and he was enjoying every minute of her discomfiture. She didn’t have to look at him to know that; it was radiating out from the lean male figure in waves.
As it happened, by the time Georgie jumped out of Robert’s old car at the site of the proposed new estate she wasn’t thinking about her appearance.
Newbottle Meadow, as the site had always been called by all the children thereabouts, was old farmland and still surrounded by grazing cattle in the far distance. When Georgie had first come to live with her brother and his wife the area had been virtually country, but the swiftly encroaching urban advance had swallowed hundreds of acres and now Newbottle Meadow was on the edge of the town. But as yet it was still unspoilt and beautiful.
Georgie stood gazing at the rolling meadowland filled with pink-topped grasses and buttercups and butterflies and she wanted to cry. According to Robert, Matt de Capistrano had had the foresight to buy the land a decade ago when it had still officially been farmland. After several appeals he had managed to persuade the powers-that-be to grant his application for housing—as he had known would happen eventually—thereby guaranteeing a thousandfold profit as relatively inexpensive agricultural land became prime development ground. And then with the yuppie-style estate he was proposing to build…
Philistine! Georgie gulped in the mild May sunshine which turned the buttercups to luminescent gold and the grasses to pink feathers, and forced back the tears pricking the backs of her eyes. Badgers lived here, along with rabbits and foxes and butterflies galore. She and her friends had spent many happy hours marching out of the town to the meadow where they had camped for days on end and had a whale of a time. And now it was all going to be ripped up—mutilated—for filthy lucre. But it would be the saving of Robert’s firm and ultimately her brother himself. The blow of losing his business as well as his wife would have been horrific.
Georgie bit hard on her lip as she turned to see Matt de Capistrano’s red Lamborghini—obviously the Mercedes and the chauffeur were having a day off!—glide to a silky-smooth stop a few yards away. She had to think of Robert and the children in all of this, she told herself fiercely. Her ideals, the unspoilt meadow and all the wildlife, weren’t as important as David and Annie and Robert.
‘You could turn milk sour with that face.’
