She set down the chocolate pot with a clink. “What are you reading?”
“The contract with Albert Brimley.”
Her mouth set. Mr. Brimley owned the warehouse in London where Papa shipped some of his finest wares. “Why?”
St. James glanced at her over his spectacles. “Someone ought to. Is it standard, this quota on breakage?”
“Some breakage is unavoidable, with the roads as they are, so yes, I presume it is the usual.”
“Presume,” he echoed under his breath. “The roads are terrible, but this contract allows Brimley to claim up to one fifth of every shipment arrives broken.”
A fifth? That sounded excessive. But Bianca was forced to admit, to herself if not to him, that she didn’t know if it were reasonable or not. She had never taken a great deal of interest in the particulars of any contract, only the choosing of the merchant they wished to deal with. Mr. Brimley, she felt, was an honorable man.
“Whatever made you read a contract?” she asked instead. Surely Maximilian St. James, London dandy, couldn’t possibly know more about shipping pottery and chinaware than she did.
“I’ve been reading them all,” he said, dropping the papers and removing his spectacles. “Are there any you wish me to read with particular attention?”
“No.” She gave a huff of astonished laughter. “Why would I?”
He smiled, his dark eyes fixed on her. “Why would you not?” Her smile faded at his pointed tone. “Perusia potteries are important to you, are they not?”
“Of course!”
“Then you ought to know what your contracts say.”
“I do, mostly—”
He cocked one brow. “And do you mostly make your wares high quality?”
She flushed. “Read them all, if you please. They’re already signed, though, and Papa won’t break his word. Those men are his friends as well as his partners.”
He smiled again. Damn the dimple, carving his cheek. “I never said he should break his word. Nothing I’ve seen is too dreadful.”
“Then why bother?” Bianca drank the last of her chocolate. “Are you well-versed in shipping contracts? I can’t imagine so.”
“I read law for a year,” he answered, to her immense surprise. “Not well-versed, but not ignorant.”
“Then you’re a solicitor?”
Finally his eyes dropped. He folded the spectacles into his waistcoat pocket. “No.”
Bianca wondered, but he said no more and she refused to show any interest in anything about him. The horn blew in the distance, and she plucked a roll from the basket on the table. “I wish you a pleasant day reading contracts,” she said, rising from the table and heading for the door. She said it to twit him; he would sit up here in the house reading while she did something actually important to the factory.
To her astonishment he also rose, gathering his papers with one hand as he drained his coffee cup with a flick of his wrist. “Shall we walk together?” He gave her another of his wicked smiles.
“There’s no need for you to go to the factory,” she said, but he was at the door, waiting for her with his arm offered.
She did not take it. Out the door she went, tucking the roll into her pocket for later. St. James followed without a word.
Chapter Nine
Around the hill and down the slope they went, in perfect silence. The sun was in the trees now, just barely, and the morning dew wet her skirts and petticoat as she walked. Bianca made a mental promise to ask Papa to widen this path, to spare her arriving damp to her knees.
As always, when Bianca came over the crest of the ridge and saw Perusia laid out before her, pride and happiness swelled in her chest. It was no palace or ducal manor, and wouldn’t impress anyone expecting such grandeur. Instead it was an industrious little village, with the factory buildings bustling with workmen, the canal sparkling in the rising sun just beyond, dotted with bargemen delivering coal and readying other barges to receive crates of Perusia wares.
The courtyards of the factory were alive with activity as well, workers driving wheelbarrows of unfired pieces to the kilns, to the glazing and paint workshops, to the drying room. A thin trickle of people still hurried through the spinney of birch trees from the workers’ cottages and boarding rooms. Everything was neat, well kept, and prosperous, overseen from the top of the hill by Perusia Hall.
She must have made some sigh of contentment, for St. James stepped up beside her. “Are you tired from the walk?”
Bianca scoffed. “That little stroll! Of course not. If you are,” she hastened to