Page 19 of Coming for the Champion
“The Hobart?” Malcolm had only been a young man, new to Sotheby’s, when Lawndry and Mr Gilbert had arrived with this watch, the unique Hobart that had brought Lawndry and Mr Gilbert together and solved the mystery of Mr Gilbert’s odd name and family circumstances.
“No, Nobbie still wears that piece. I forgot that you helped us with that. It was a long time ago.”
Malcolm laughed. “Trust you to remember the watch and not the story of the people.”
“I remember Nobbie’s role.”
“Of course you do.” Malcolm had been the one to catalogue the entire original Hobart collection and that watch had been one of the few missing. He didn’t need to rehash the whole story.
“No, these two are not for sale. This is a Lechti that my mother made, and this one made by Harrison of the longitude problem.”
“That’s not H1?” Malcolm had seen that on display at Greenwich.
“No, it’s his personal watch that he made for himself. A simple fob but unique and made by one of the greatest time piece makers the world has ever known.”
Lawndry got the watch out of its cupboard and together they looked at it, and many others, until there was a knock at the door.
“Dinner is served, my Lord.”
Chapter 14
Rory had an investor and the terms from Mr Gilbert were rather simple. It was a better deal than the one Bennington had proposed which had required a meeting with his rather scary lawyers and large contracts that he had spent the last two days reading and re-reading until he wasn’t sure what they said.
Instead, with Mr Gilbert, he would retain his land, and the coal business would be a joint venture between himself and Mr Gilbert—the new coal business would even pay a lease to him for the use of the land—with Mr Gilbert handpicking the employees who would run the show. As part of that, Rory would agree to employ every woman that Mr Gilbert sent north to him. Mr Gilbert and his friends ran a charity that saved women from abusive situations and found them new lives. It would help Rory and it would give Mr Gilbert’s charity another safe place for women in need to escape to, and of course, as Mr Gilbert said, there was good money in coal, so it was a good investment too.
He should be relaxed.
Malcolm rested his hand on Rory’s thigh under the table and the glorious heaviness of his fist was exactly what Rory needed. What he craved.
“My Lord, there’s a problem with the dessert that we need to sort out,” Mr Gilbert declared.
“There is?” Lord Lawndry looked incredibly confused, and then Mr Gilbert winked.
“Come with me.”
How Mr Gilbert knew that Rory needed a moment alone with Malcolm was a mystery, and one he was incredibly grateful for. As the pair left the dining room, the tense air in his lungs slowly eased out on a long sigh.
“He’s an interesting—”
“Will you?” Rory paused as he spoke at the same time as Malcolm. “Who is interesting?”
“Mr Gilbert.”
“Yes, he has an intuition about people that is finely tuned. He understood my problem immediately and outlined a resolution. The only thing is that I will need a manager to help me on site. I don’t have the skills required. Too many of my formative years were spent boxing.” He tried to laugh, at himself, but it came out strangled. Mr Gilbert would pick most of the management team, he was allowed to bring one person to the team, and then the locals would form much of the labour which was the entire point of the enterprise; to give the locals work after everything had been lost when after the salt crash.
“Luckily I have spent years doing project management.”
Rory blinked. “You want the job?”
Malcolm grazed his hand along Rory’s thigh. “I have the skills, and I’d like to spend some time getting to know you.”
Rory stared at Malcolm, at the way his skin glowed with a flush and his eyes were slightly wider, and how the shake in his hand, still resting on Rory’s thigh, was more of a tremble.
“You are nervous?”
“Yes.” Malcolm’s giant chest rose and fell. “I have a good job here, friends, a comfortable life, and I’d be risking all of that to come and work for you.”
“You’d be working for Mr Gilbert, really, given the way he’s structured the new business.” Rory didn’t bring expertise, only land. “He is doing the employment, so you’d need to talk to him about it.”
