Page 7 of The Secret Word
Chris had not liked Wright from the first, and his opinion was dipping lower with every word the man said.
“In every way, that man will be a son to me,” Wright went on. “I’ve a fancy for him to be a blue-blood, and to have entry in places denied to me. Good for the business, that. A pleasure to me, too, to have a son people look up to. People like your grandfather, who never thought I was good enough to be friends with his son.”
The crocodile grin broadened. “But I’ll have the last laugh when my grandson is good enough to marry their daughters, even if I don’t live to see it. The man who marries my daughter will teach her to be a lady, Satterthwaite. A lady as if she was born to it. He will also show me he can learn how to run my business. And he’ll do my bidding, same as a son would. Let me be quite clear about that.”
Chris couldn’t help but be curious, though he wasn’t considering the proposition. Was he? “And what does that lucky man get, apart from Miss Wright?” he asked.
“A sum of money on the marriage. A house in the best part of town for him and my daughter, where my grandson can rub his elbows with the upper crust. Enough money to keep up the lifestyle—the carriages, the clothes, the horses, the houses. And beyond that? His son will be my heir, young man. And if that man is smart enough, he’ll make a lot of money for me and for him. Is that enough for you?”
An odd thought crossed Chris’s mind. Clementine Wright would have been enough for him. But the rest was tempting. Very tempting. Except it would turn him into the puppet of this man, and even Miss Wright was not tempting enough to make him swallow that.
“You have given me much to think about, Mr. Wright,” Chris said. A polite nothing.
Wright stood and put out his hand for Chris to shake. “Don’t take too long,” he warned. “I have other candidates. My daughter will be married to the man of my choice by the end of theSeason. If you wish to be considered, be here at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon for Clementine’s first lesson. Good day to you, Satterthwaite.”
“Take the carriage,” Chris said to Becky, when he joined her again in the front hall. “I feel like a walk.”
A walk in which to think about Wright and his outrageous offer. And about Miss Wright.
He heard a sibilant sound and sought the source. It was Miss Wright, peering through the garden fence, hissing at him to attract his attention. Chris looked around quickly, but if Wright had put spies on him—or on his daughter, for that matter—they were well-hidden.
Ah well. A little risk made life interesting. Chris strolled over to the gate and lifted his hat in greeting. “Miss Wright, hello again.”
“What did you and my father talk about?” Miss Wright demanded, without any preamble.
Not a ladylike way of approaching a conversation, at least according to the “lady” lessons Ramping Billy held for his female employees. Chris liked Miss Wright’s directness, though. It certainly saved time and misunderstanding.
“He is determined to see you married to someone whose blood runs blue, Miss Wright. I imagine you know that. He seems to think I might be a suitable candidate.”
Miss Wright grimaced. “I suppose he told you that he needs a male heir, and that a grandson will have to do, since my mother was only able to provide a daughter.”
She put it as baldly as her father had, though her tone and her expression turned it into a scathing comment on her father’s opinion. And no wonder. “I am sorry,” Chris told her.
Her eyes widened. His apology surprised her. “For what?”
“I am sorry your father is a dunderhead,” he said. “And that he is a disappointment to you.” Chris had personal experience of fathers who were disappointments to their children.
She narrowed her eyes with apparent suspicion. “If you are planning to offer for me, you should be aware that my father plans to control my husband’s life as he controls mine,” she said. “He may promise you wealth, but marriage to me would be nothing more than life in a gilded cage.” She paused, and sighed. “You rescued me, Mr. Satterthwaite. You deserve better from my family than to become nothing more than an expensive slave at my father’s beck and call.”
That was the truth with no bark on it. “Yes, I’d guessed that.” Chris grinned at her. The knowledge didn’t put him off. People had been trying to control him all his life, and he’d been figuring out how to work his way around them since he was a child. “Or at least that he would try.”
“I suppose you think being a man and nobly born will keep you safe from his control,” Miss Wright scoffed.
Chris told the truth again—not his usual strategy, but he thought Miss Wright would appreciate it. “No. I think that you and I are both smarter than your father, and that we can outwit and out-manipulate him. Miss Wright, once you marry, you are no longer his to control. If you pick a husband who will be on your side, you will have the upper hand. He needs to be in favor with you, or you can refuse to let him visit his heir.”
Rather than appreciation, he received a snort of derision. “Fine words, but the man who controls the purse string wins the game, Mr. Satterthwaite.”
“Chris,” he said. “My name is Chris. And yours is Clementine. May I use it?”
“Clem,” she responded. “But no. I do not think we shall be on first-name terms, Mr. Satterthwaite.”
“Do you have a better prospect, Clem?” He showed no reaction to her pronouncement and her scrunched-up brow, showing that she’d recognized that he’d ignored her denial of the use of first names. “For your father says he will see you married to the man of his choice by the end of the Season.”
Clem winced. “I shall have to find one. But he will not be a man who frequents gambling dens, Mr. Satterthwaite, and is on intimate terms with a man called ‘Ramping Billy’.” Another brow scrunch. “What does that mean, ‘Ramping Billy’?”
“It’s what he used to do before he turned respectable,” Chris explained. He could see she was about to protest, and corrected his remark. “Sort of respectable. To ‘ramp’ something is to take it from somebody else by force. When he was a boy, he used to specialize in taking parcels from shoppers. Then, when he was older and bigger, he used to seize goods from people who were in debt to one of the money lenders and could not pay. He saved all his wages and became a money lender himself. He raised enough to start a gambling den and then another and another. And now he is a wealthy man. He is a legend for it.”
He pursed his lips. “The name is—an honorific, I suppose. Like ‘earl’ or ‘duke’. In fact, when you come to think of it, most nobles have ancestors who received a title because they ramped for whomever was king at the time. Billy’s title recognizes his prowess. He is part of the aristocracy of the gutter.”
