Page 57 of What's an Earl Gotta Do?
Maggie shook her head, but she was smiling fondly. “Now that’s all right, Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy.” She turned to Anne. “’Tis an honor to work for a truly great man. We don’t pay no mind to the occasional inconvenience.”
“Well, I think your invention is marvelous,” Anne said. “You cannot imagine the wretched conditions from which it will save hundreds of young boys. Will you be able to produce them in your family’s factories? Or do we need to find a manufacturer?”
“That was what I particularly wished to discuss with you,” Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy said, digging around his desk. Anne blanched as he pulled out a copy of her old pamphlet. “I was so impressed after reading the article in The Times, I set out to learn more about your Ladies’ Society, and I found out you’d written this pamphlet.” He shook his head. “I’m ashamed to say I’d never before considered the rather obvious ramifications that paying women at a lower wage must have on widows with children to support. I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try it.”
“Try it?” Anne asked, blinking at him. “Try what?”
“Your plan, of course,” Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy said, flipping to the appropriate page of the pamphlet. “To hire widows who find themselves in the role of breadwinner and pay them a living wage. I see no reason a woman couldn’t make one of these.” He glanced up at Anne, his eyes guileless. “Do you think you could find a dozen or so women who’d be willing to work in my family’s shop?”
Anne found herself unable to speak. After all those years, all of those failed attempts to convince someone to give her proposal a chance, she had resigned herself that this moment would never come. Now that it was here, she should be elated. And she was, but she was also blinking back tears.
Oh gracious—she could not start crying in front of Archibald Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy.
She glanced up and found him peering at her with wrinkled brow. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and started to offer it to her, then blanched as he noticed it was covered in soot. “I’m sorry,” he said, fumbling the handkerchief, “I—”
Anne chuckled, pulling her own handkerchief from her pocket. “You have absolutely nothing for which you need apologize. I am the one who is sorry. It’s just…” She swallowed. “This is actually the first time someone has agreed to put my proposal into action.”
Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy leaned a hip atop his desk. “You’re joking.”
“I’m afraid not.” Anne dabbed at her eyes. “It seems that many men do not appreciate a woman making suggestions as to how they should run their businesses.”
He regarded her for a moment. “If you will pardon my saying so, Lady Wynters, it is my impression that the world is full of stupid people. Not because they aren’t engineers,” he said, gesturing to his workshop, “but because they wouldn’t know what’s important if it came up and bit them on the nose.” He held her gaze. “You do not share in their failing. And I hope you won’t let those blowhards discourage you.”
Anne gave him a watery smile. “You cannot imagine how much that means to me. How much this means to me,” she said, gesturing toward the bending broom. “And to answer your question, yes, I am certain I can find a dozen respectable widows who would be thrilled to work in your shop.”
Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy escorted her to the foyer. He cringed as they approached the statue of a man’s buttocks. “Please pardon the… uh…” He cleared his throat. “A few months ago, Lord Ardingly sold some items from his Egyptian collection, and my parents purchased this, um… striking statue.”
“Ah.” Well did Anne recall it, as the sale had been orchestrated by her sister Caro, to restore the Ardingly estate to solvency so she could marry the earl’s son. “That explains it.”
They arranged to meet at the same time the following week to discuss the particulars of the jobs for her residents.
Once she was ensconced in her carriage, Anne sagged against the plush cushions, overwhelmed by waves of emotions. Someone had finally agreed to put her plan into action. And there was real hope that Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy’s invention could eliminate the need for climbing boys to squeeze themselves into burning chimneys. She felt as though she could fly.
Yet at the same time, she was on the brink of crying or screaming or punching the velvet squabs upon which she sat, she wasn’t quite sure which one. That was how she deserved to be treated. That was precisely how, and yet today was the first day a man had ever afforded her such respect. Usually she was dismissed, she was condescended to, she was lectured, as if those windbags knew a tenth of what she knew about the harsh realities faced by the poor.
She had grown so used to sitting through such remarks that she could do so without her smile wavering. After all, it served no one and nothing for her to show her ire. No one would donate to a society run by an angry harridan. She always had to be mindful of the bigger picture.
Everyone thought she was submissive to the point of being lily-livered. They could not have been more wrong. Her public demeanor was a calculated decision, one she had to make every single day. It took a great deal of backbone to sit through all that drivel with a placid smile on her face.
But Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy respected her. He thought her work was important. So what if a hundred blowhards dismissed her? Mr. Nettlethorpe-Ogilvy was smarter than all of them. He was one of the greatest minds of their age, and if he held her in esteem…
“Beg pardon, m’lady,” her coachman called through the window, “but we’re being followed.”
Anne froze. Although most thought her meek and kind, she was not without her enemies. There was a reason she didn’t go into St. Giles without at least two of her hulking footmen. And the recent business with Lord Gladstone was an ugly one. If he held no compunctions about selling four-year-olds into the worst imaginable conditions, who knew what the baron might be willing to do to avoid the consequences of his actions?
“What does he look like, Harold?” Anne asked.
“Uncommon tall fellow. Black hair. Dressed like a gentleman. Got himself a big bunch of flowers, he does.”
Anne wrinkled her nose and dared a peek out the window. Surely enough, there was Michael some thirty feet back, following them on horseback.
“Try to lose him,” she said, slouching against the squabs.
They had almost reached the Ladies’ Society’s lodging house. Anne still wasn’t sure quite what this newfound swirl of feelings meant, but she did know one thing.
She wasn’t about to put up with any nonsense from the likes of Michael Cranfield.
Chapter 21
