Page 24 of Never a Duke
“Neddy, where the hell are you?” Lord Stephen spoke gently, his usual sarcasm nowhere in evidence.
“Sorry,” Ned replied. He was sitting in his office at the bank, enduring a meeting that had no end. “I’m a bit distracted. You were saying?”
His lordship closed the blue-bound ledger book dearest to Ned’s heart in all the world. “Your small investors’ projects are generating twice the rate of return we see on the grander schemes. His Grace will want to know how you’ve done it, and how we can get the same profits for the larger clients.”
Ned scrubbed a hand over his face, dragging his mind away from a stolen kiss and a lady who knew exactly how to handle a man surrendering to delicious folly.
“It’s not like that,” he said. “My small investors choose which businesses to support from the list I present them. In addition to investing, they give those businesses their custom. The investors take an interest in the venture and talk about it to their friends and family, who drop around to see what the fuss is about. The business prospers, the investors see a return, and so they boast about that too, and the circle of prosperity widens.”
Stephen sat back, brows knit. His lordship had been lamed in childhood by a father prone to excesses of gin and violence. Stephen had compensated by developing his intellect in architectural and mechanical directions. He was only recently taking more of an interest in the bank’s activities, and Ned’s feelings about that development were mixed.
Exceedingly mixed.
“And that scheme would never work among the swells,” Stephen said slowly, “because talking about money and commerce is vulgar. Do you tell the clients to prattle on about their financial successes?”
“I insist upon it. Part of what the investors contribute is free advertising. I also introduce the merchants and shopkeepers to their investors, because I want every proprietor to know that if he or she fails, they will disappoint the hopes of people like the Misses Carruthers or old Mr. Lowell. The sense of investment has to go both ways.”
“And among the aristocracy,” Stephen said, gaze on the blue ledger, “that would never do. One invests and one reaps profits. One doesn’t involve oneself in the tiresome financial details.”
Stephenwasthe aristocracy—a ducal heir—and yet he spoke as if describing a curious culture in a distant land.
“Moreover,” Ned said, “if some lordling’s investments go well, he would never impart that happy news to his friends at the club, lest they invest in the same ventures, and dilute his profits. His objective is to narrow the circle of prosperity to one, and that one contributes only cash to the business. The person doing the work seldom knows his investors personally and if he fails, that’s merely a risk any investor ought to assume.”
Ned wanted this meeting to be over—he wanted this day to be over—but the small investors were the bright spot in his otherwise dull list of duties at the bank.
“How do you find the businesses?” Stephen asked. “How do you know which ones will turn more profit with a little extra capital?”
Nedknewbecause he’d listened to his father and mother talking late at night, when the children were in bed and parents could air their dreams and frustrations. He knew because he recalled the difference between Papa’s shop and those of less successful tailors. He knew because he’d spent some long, hard years on London’s streets, learning to assess who prospered, who was carefully maintaining appearances, and who was careening toward ruin.
“You look at the cart horse,” Ned said. “Is he a solid, well-groomed specimen in good weight, or a skinny hack one delivery away from the knacker’s yard? Are the womenfolk cheerful and energetic or listless and sullen? Do the apprentices serve out their terms or decamp for parts unknown after two years? Are the windows spotless, suggesting somebody has too much free time, or are they filthy, suggesting nobody has any care for appearances? You pay attention.”
Stephen twiddled a quill pen. “I could study the shops for ten years and never realize the successful enterprise has slightly dirty windows. Quinn would not come to that realization.”
Ned smiled, because Stephen was right. “That bothers you.”
“It puzzles me, but Quinn did manual labor in his youth, then he was in service, then he was a clerk and eventually, a banker. He never managed a shop.”
“Neither have I.” Though Ned had been born above his father’s shop, and been given needle and thread before he’d been breeched.
“Abigail will adore your scheme,” Stephen said. “Her Quaker leanings will approve of that bit about a circle of prosperity.” And much of life, for Stephen, balanced on what Abigail liked or disliked. A man could have far worse lodestars.
“She gave me the idea,” Ned said, “or the Quaker approach to banking did. They regard their obligations from a congregational perspective and are considered more trustworthy as a result, hence more people do business with them. The Friends back one another and rise or fall together.”
“Their banks still sometimes fail.”
“Not as often as most.”
What did Rosalind think about mercantile ventures? How would she approach managing a bank? Did she have an opinion on the Corn Laws? Ned suspected she did, a well-thought-out, rational, and slightly unorthodox opinion.
“Neddy, something is troubling you,” Stephen said, after a pause in the discussion had turned into a silence. “I realize you should figuratively draw my cork for prying, but Abigail would want me to ask if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Abigail would want you to ask?”
Stephen tossed the feather aside and folded his arms. “Very well, I want to know. When the rest of the world was tiptoeing past my door for fear I’d go off into one of my tantrums, you taunted me to attempt a game of pall-mall. I’m returning the favor now. What’s amiss?”
Ned had forgotten that exchange, had forgotten how upsetting he’d found the thought of a human being voluntarily shutting himself away from light and fresh air.
“You excel at pall-mall. You have the eye for it.”
