structure that now surrounded the bilge board. Before Kit could join them, Wayland hailed him and beckoned him to join him in the new design office.
Kit found his friend ears deep in sketches.
For the next several hours, he worked alongside Wayland in selecting those design elements they felt would best serve to set the yachts they built apart from all others.
“As our aim is to make ocean-going yachts people will beat a path to our door to purchase, we need to make them special,” Wayland said, repeating the mantra they’d decided on when he’d agreed to come back to England and become a partner in Cavanaugh Yachts.
Wayland proceeded to present his next amazing idea—which Kit pointed out would surely make the ship too heavy and unbalanced as well.
“Ah.” Wayland stared at his diagram for several silent moments, then set it aside and picked up the next.
They’d always worked like this, with Wayland spouting ideas left and right, and Kit picking those that might work and cutting and trimming them to fit.
Hours passed. It was late morning when Mulligan propped his bulk in the doorway of the design office. When Kit and Wayland looked up, directing inquiring looks Mulligan’s way, he nodded at Kit. “Man here to see you.”
Kit straightened. “Any idea who?”
Mulligan hesitated.
Kit’s instincts pricked. “What?”
Mulligan shifted farther into the office, then said, “His name’s Bill Johnson. He says he’s not here about a job, and I believe him because the daft beggar is too proud to ask.” Mulligan crossed his beefy arms across his chest. “I didn’t know he was still in Bristol, or I’d have suggested you hire him earlier, when we were taking on men. Like I said, he’s too proud for his own good, but he’s a right handy man to have in a workshop, even though he has no skills. He’s a lifter, see? He’s good at moving and positioning things, then holding them in place while we work around him. Lots of bits in ship work are long and clumsy—Bill can easily handle them all. Us older men all know him and trust him to do things right. It really helps move things along to have a man like him working alongside us.”
Kit nodded. “You’ve made a good case. I take it you and the others wouldn’t be averse if I offered this Johnson a position here.”
Mulligan flashed him a grin. “You’ve got the gist of it.” He tipped his head toward the workshop doors. “But I’ve no idea what he wants with you.”
With a glance at Wayland, Kit tossed the sketch he’d been studying on the table. “In that case, best I come and see.”
Mulligan returned to the men about the hull that was taking shape in the first bay of the three they’d set up in the workshop.
Kit walked to where a large, hefty, obviously very strong man stood waiting to one side of the open doors, incongruously twisting his cloth cap between his massive hands. Kit halted in the doorway and nodded. “I understand you wish to speak with me.”
Johnson bobbed his huge head. “Yes, sir, your lordship.” He moistened his lips, then blurted, “I’ve seen you at the school, and I’ve come to ask if you’ll use your influence to get them at the school to stop teaching my nipper.”
Kit blinked several times as he took that in. Of all the things he might have imagined being asked, that wasn’t even on the list. “You want me to ask the school to stop teaching your boy...” He focused on Johnson. “What’s the lad’s name?”
“Ned. He’s Ned.” Johnson continued to wring his cap. His earnest, almost-desperate expression left Kit in no doubt that whatever his reasoning, Johnson’s request was sincere.
Puzzled and curious—and faintly concerned, for this was the first he’d heard of any parent being unhappy over their son attending the school—Kit turned and glanced into Miss Petty’s office to discover that two desks and chairs had appeared that morning. He looked back at Johnson and waved to the office. “You’d better come in and tell me what the problem is.”
The big man was reluctant, but Kit gave him little choice, ushering him in and closing the door behind them. Then he waved Johnson to one of the chairs and drew the other to him and sat.
He waited while Johnson gingerly lowered his massive frame onto the rather small chair. Once he had, Kit fixed him with a commanding but unthreatening gaze. “Right, then. Tell me why you want the school