Page 9 of My Fair Lord

Florence ignored it and beamed at him.

“I absolutely agree. In fact, one of the things I want to do while I’m in England is pay a visit to the garden villages established by some factory owners and a few of the more enlightened landowners. I want to see what improvements we can take back to Philadelphia with us. Have you ever considered establishing one, Mr Seachie?”

Mr Seachie looked unimpressed at her suggestion. “I don’t think that’s quite what I meant. I was thinking that if they wanted to improve their lives then they should work harder for promotion and thereby put themselves in the position to earn a higher wage.”

“Well, yes of course,” Florence said patiently. “Isn’t it our duty as their betters to help them achieve that?”

Mr Seachie bestowed upon her another patronising smile. “Great Scott, no! If a man achieves anything, he must do it with the sweat of his own brow, not anyone else’s.”

Florence smiled. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her father’s brows shoot down and curbed her first response.

“Of course,” she said demurely. “I have ordered some tea to be brought up. While we drink it, you must tell me about your journey to becoming owner of Seachie’s Distillery. I believe the mill was your father’s originally. Or was it your grandfather’s?”

“My grandfather built it,” Mr Seachie said slowly. He looked a little puzzled, as if he suspected Florence was taking a jibe at him but her tone had been deferential and there was nothing critical in her words themselves. “I’d be delighted to tell you more about our history on another occasion, but now if you will excuse me, I have a meeting to attend to.”

He left the room, with smiles and polite murmurings on every side.

“What was the purpose of that little display?” Clayton Wakechild demanded as soon as Mr Seachie had left and the tea had been brought.

Florence poured the tea and passed the cup to her father. “By that ‘little display’ you mean questioning that awful man’s opinion of the workforce? I believe it was necessary. Didn’t you hear the contempt in his voice?”

She took her cup and saucer back to the window and looked out at the group below once more. How many were there? Forty or fifty, all wanting work. No wonder there was no incentive for their employers to raise their wages when they had so many ready to fill the positions.

“Yes of course I did,” Clayton replied. “But you need to learn to be more cautious. Especially in Great Britain. They really aren’t as used to young women speaking their minds as we are at home. And if you are to find yourself a husband among the aristocracy, then we will need to…”

“Let me stop you there, Daddy,” Florence said firmly, turning away from the window to give him her full attention. She knew what he was going to say. It had been the main reason for their coming to England and she was determined not to have the argument again. Her stomach grew painfully twisted whenever they discussed it and made her wish she could run from the room.

“I have no intention of being sold off to some titled nightmare just to raise your status back home.”

“I’m not going to sell you!” Clayton said. “That’s a horrible way of putting it.”

Florence wrapped her arms tightly around herself and stroked her thumbs across her upper arms, as if she could ward off the feeling of misery through such self-consolation. “Traded or bartered, if you prefer. The husband gets a large dowry and you get to drop his title into conversation. It’s all rather lovely for both of you but I have to admit I fail to see what I gain from it.”

“You get a husband to care for you and give you children,” Clayton said, ticking his finger at her. “You get a house of your own to run as you like and won’t be beholden to anyone when I’m no longer with you. I’m not going to see you become an old maid like your Aunt Patricia having a couple of rooms in our home. Would you really like to be fifty and living with your brother, Ashley, and whomever he settles on when I pass away? Your mother wouldn’t have wanted that and I don’t believe you do either when you bother to give it some rational thought.”

Clayton averted his eyes as he spoke of Lavinia. They had really loved each other and at times his grief was still an open wound for the world to see. Regretting her tone, Florence left her seat in the window and moved to the settee. She took her father’s hand, feeling the smooth gold wedding ring that he still wore.

“Mama wouldn’t have wanted me married off to just anyone for the sake of a roof over my head. She didn’t want that for herself. She wanted to marry you.”

“The husband I want for you won’t be ‘just anyone’. He will be an aristocrat. I’m determined of it,” Clayton said. “He’ll have a mark of refinement that comes with decades—no, centuries—of titled ancestors. That’s not something that money can buy. You’ll be able to walk into any establishment in America or England with your head held high, knowing that your husband’s ancestors were aristocrats before our country was even freed from the British yoke.”

“Not necessarily!” Florence recognised the light that filled her father’s eyes; at once dreamy and enthusiastic. Once he had that mood on him, he was prone to all sorts of wild ideas. She sat on his lap and wrapped her arms around him, planting a kiss on his forehead.

“You’ve already tried it once when you married Cordelia to Twemlow. He’s got a title and a house that’s practically a castle, but even then you barely scraped a seat in the upper circle at the New York Opera last August. What makes you think it will be any different if you marry me to another baronet?”

“You know it goes without saying that I have the utmost respect for Lord Griggs and I don’t believe there is a worthier baronet in all the British Isles, but I’m aiming higher than a baronet for you.” Clayton sucked his teeth and put his finger to his lips before continuing.

“Taking you into my complete confidence and knowing you will keep it, I must admit that your sister’s husband was the highest rank that I could manage to take an interest, considering I am not in the league of families such as the Vanderbilts or Jeromes when it comes to the size of your dowries.”

He chucked Florence beneath the chin, smiling warmly. “The fact that Cordelia has the avarice of a magpie and the conversational skills of a trained cockatoo didn’t help matters.”

Florence giggled. Clayton nudged her off his knee and back onto the sofa. He stood and tugged her back on her feet where he looked at her with the keenly intelligent expression Florence had inherited from him.

“You are different from Cordelia. You are witty, kind, and intelligent. With you at his side, a man could really go places. With the right husband, you will most certainly go far. Could you expect me not to boast that my daughter was a countess or a duchess and beloved by all her husband’s tenants and servants, and your children the descendants of centuries of nobility?”

Florence pressed her lips together as emotion filled her. His obvious pride was clear to see, even if she disagreed vehemently with his plans for her. She had always known she was his favourite child. She loved him so much that she didn’t even mind that he habitually left “beautiful” off his list of her attributes. Kind friends said she was interesting or attractive, or said there was something about her that was intriguing. Having no plans to marry or to win the eye of a man, she was content with that.

“I could go far by myself if I had the chance,” she said. “I could be beloved of your workers. I could run the factory alongside Ashley. Better than he could, if truth be told.”