Page 18 of Ravishing Camille
“Her brother. A fine man. As was she a fine woman. He’ll have trouble here in Europe, you know.”
“Prejudice.” His father nodded and drummed his fingers on his desk. “We can help him.”
Pierce found solace in his father’s acceptance of everyone as his equal. That was part of what Killian stood for and what Pierce had learned made his father great. “I plan on it.”
“A few will ignore him.”
Pierce nodded. “Because he is different. Looks different. Understands a culture so far from our own. Many will try to cheat him.”
His father winced. “And? Will he survive here?”
“Has he the stamina? The nerve? Oh, indeed. They will not know how to cope with one who beats them with his wits. When he outmaneuvers them, they will blame him. There will be trouble.”
“Does he realize this?”
“He does. He’s had the best education in Shanghai with those who cannot fathom that a Chinese can best them at their own game.” Pierce was done with this subject and he wanted to know what concerned his father. “But you wanted to talk about our business. What is it that worries you?”
“I am having a problem with laborers in Liverpool. Strikes. Nasty business. It weighs on me.”
“Yes. Workers demanding more. They’re doing it everywhere. New York, Paris. People want compensation for their hard work.”
“I’ve no objection to higher wages. You know I never have. But banding together to beat my office workers with clubs is not the way to win my heart or the point. There is an element. Bullies. Reminds me of the gangs on the docks in Waterford and Dublin in the years before I left. I won’t stand for it.”
“Tell me what their demands are. We’ll find a way.”
“I hoped you’d help me with the negotiations. You have the temperament for it. Not that I don’t, but you have more patience than I. What’s more, I dare say, you take the longer view.”
Pierce widened his eyes. “Kind of you, Da. But I doubt you’ve read the newspapers’ analysis of my tactics in Shanghai.”
“With the Russians who wanted to buy out your porcelain suppliers?” His father laughed.
“Ha! Or the Germans who wanted to undercut my prices for steel.”
His father scoffed. “And failed because they had no idea you paid your people very well. The Germans value strength not resilience. They had no idea what they were up against. I value you for your ability to see others’ reasoning. So. What do you say about this Liverpool problem? Will you handle this for me?”
Pierce nodded. “I welcome the chance to help you. Have you called for meetings with the workers?”
“I promised them to begin mid-September.”
“Four weeks from now?”
“Approximately yes. Might that fit your schedule?”
“I guess I won’t return to Shanghai for a while,” he said with a smile.
“Or ever?”
Pierce lifted a hand. “To be determined.”
Chapter 5
“Come along, Ivy.” Camille motioned for her maid to catch up to her and her friend Brianna Price.
The girl loved to dawdle before the shop windows. Especially the baker’s. Not that Camille could blame her. She herself would buy everything she desired. And she did desire a lot. Not simply from the bakery. But shirtwaists from the dressmaker’s, cotton caps from the linen drapers, crocheted canezous from the lacemakers. All goods, any goods to make a woman’s life easier, brighter. Yes, she would buy it and pass it on to Wattledge House where young women who had nothing, discovered they were about to have that most precious and—for them, each one single and destitute—the most damning thing of all—a baby. “I promise we’ll take tea and luncheon after my reading.”
“Ha!” Brianna tossed her head, today enfolded into in a peach straw affair with white egret plumage sticking out at obtuse angles. “You love to eat more than she does.”
Camille rolled her eyes. “You know me too well.”
