Page 1 of A Wicked Business (Wicked Sons #10)
Mr. Knight,
I so enjoyed our little talk at Lady Gladstone’s dinner. It is terribly difficult for a lonely widow, without the advice and comfort of a husband to guide her. I am sorely in need of a man to help me navigate this new world. I should be so very glad to welcome you to my home, should you care to call upon me, at any hour of the day – or night.
―Excerpt of a letter from Mrs. Lettie Norbury to Mr. Felix Knight.
4 th May 1850, Grant’s Gentleman’s Club, St James’s, London.
Felix lifted his glass and chinked it against that of his secretary, Charles Kirby.
“Congratulations, sir,” Charles said with a smile.
Felix nodded, worn out but pleased. He relaxed into the deep leather armchair and let out a satisfied sigh. The deal he’d signed today had been months in the making but would increase the speed with which his father’s railways could build new lines. The Cranborne iron foundry was already a massive concern, and Mr Cranborne of an age where he was considering retirement. He had no son to leave his business to, but he was a stubborn devil, and it had taken Felix a good deal of time to bring the man around to his way of thinking. Every time Felix thought he’d got the man on the hook, he’d back off.
At first Felix had been sympathetic. Like his father, Cranborne had created his business from scratch. He was a rather pompous fellow, but rightly proud of all he had achieved. Relinquishing his empire into the hands of another, even when he was so obviously tired of the running of it, was no easy thing. Felix believed he had soothed the fellow and answered all his questions to his satisfaction on a dozen occasions, yet at the last minute he’d get all prickly and irascible for reasons Felix could not understand and pull back again.
His father’s offer for the foundry was more than generous and even kept Mr Cranborne on as a generously paid consultant, ensuring he could see his business continued to be run in a manner of which he approved. Indeed, his father admired Cranborne, and all he had achieved, and had no desire to muddy the waters. He only wanted control so all the projects the foundry undertook were his own.
Cranborne, however, was the youngest son of an earl who, despite having committed the crime of going into business and making money, still had ideas about class and bloodlines. Felix might be nephew to the Duke of Bedwin, but his father had been born in the workhouse. Being with Felix reassured Cranborne that he was a gentleman, that his manners and speech and way of thinking were in line with his own. Yet, the moment he was out of Felix’s sight, he’d get cold feet again.
Not one to ever admit defeat, Felix stubbornly refused to give up and had turned his hand to a bit of detective work. It had been tedious but worth his while when he had turned up a Mr Flint. A man of impeccable breeding, but with a dwindling fortune after heavy losses at the gaming table, Mr Flint was a friend of the Earl of Keston. It was rumoured he hoped to marry the earl’s daughter, who had a substantial dowry, and he was doing all in his power to curry favour with her father.
This was all Felix had needed to know. Bloody Keston again. The earl was a terrible snob and he and Felix’s father, Gabriel Knight, had been sworn enemies for years. The earl despised his father for being a self-made man, for breaching the impenetrable and hallowed social sphere of the ton , first by means of becoming one of the richest men in the country, and then by marrying Lady Helena, the daughter of a duke.
Whenever the earl could make things difficult for Gabriel, he took the opportunity, from blackballing him for entry into Whites, to buying land out from under him if he had the slightest inkling Gabriel wanted it. Their dealings had become increasingly acrimonious, and it had been all Felix could do to keep his father from discovering who had caused the delay in the foundry deal. It would not do his blood pressure any good to find out.
Instead, Felix had discovered a few unpleasant truths about Mr Flint and had not hesitated to use them to his advantage. Flint had backed off. Whilst Felix considered himself a gentleman as much as any man, he refused to be a fool. If the Earl of Keston wanted to play dirty, so be it.
“Felix.”
Felix looked up to see his father standing by their table. He grinned, his tiredness vanishing as he caught the glittering look of triumph and pride in his father’s eyes. Felix stood, still finding it strange to discover he was as big as his sire now. In his mind, his father had always remained the giant of his childhood.
“Well?” his father asked impatiently.
“All signed and sealed,” Felix said, with no small amount of jubilation.
“Ha!” Gabriel clapped him on the back. “Well done, son. Well done, indeed. This calls for a celebration. What are you drinking?” He glanced down at the table, hailed a waiter with ease, and ordered their finest bottle of brandy. “Have you eaten?”
Felix shook his head. “We were waiting for you, sir.”
“Excellent. I’m famished. Let’s order and you can tell me all about it.”
They ate the finest dishes Grants had to offer and drank and talked, and Felix basked in the warmth of his father’s approval. Even Charles, usually rather quiet and diffident, especially in company with Felix’s charismatic sire, came out of his shell a little and chatted animatedly.
They left the club late, a tad bosky and feeling well pleased with themselves.
If he had thought more about it, Felix would have suggested they take a hackney cab, rather than walking past Whites. It had become a symbol to his father of everything the Earl of Keston was keeping him from: the last bastion of the aristocracy, a wall that even the great Gabriel Knight could not breach.
Sadly, the one man they could have done without seeing was sitting in the large bow window. The Earl of Keston raised a glass to them, a sneer at his lips as Mr Flint exited the door and walked down the stairs.
“Ah, Mr Knight, senior and junior, what a pleasure. I hear congratulations are in order. I’m so sorry it took such a long time to make it happen, but poor old Mr Cranborne is a bit of a stickler for class and lineage, even despite his crass manner of living.”
Felix groaned inwardly.
“You were the cause of the delays,” his father growled in fury as he understood Flint’s less than subtle jibe. “I might have known Keston had one of his mangy pet dogs sticking his filthy nose in my business.”
Mr Flint stiffened, his grey eyes looking suddenly a bit less pleased with himself and rather more murderous.
“Mind your tongue,” he said stiffly. “Not that I expect any better from the likes of you.”
“Fear not, Mr Flint, you’ve behaved exactly how I would expect from the likes of you . Did your dishonourable service buy you a wife to get you out of that financial trouble you’re experiencing, I wonder?” Gabriel replied with a sneer.
Flint flushed in outrage at Gabriel’s words, his fists clenching. Felix stepped forward. His father was still as fit and strong as most men half his age, but he was still in his sixties. Flint glared at Felix, sizing him up. They were of a height, but he could not match the breadth of Felix’s shoulders and must know that Gabriel Knight’s son was a chip off the old block in more ways than one. You didn’t mess with either of them if you didn’t want to come off the worse.
“You’re not worth sullying my gloves,” Mr Flint said defiantly, before turning and stalking off.
Gabriel Knight bared his teeth in what might have been a smile towards the famous bow window. Felix removed the newly signed papers from the leather cover that protected them and used them to perform a flourishing bow. The earl glowered and turned his back on them.
His father laughed and settled a heavy hand on his shoulder. “Don’t tell your mother,” he said softly. “She’ll be furious with us for giving into inappropriate behaviour.”
“I wasn’t about to. What do you take me for? I’m not stupid,” Felix said with a laugh and accompanied his father home in complete accord.