W ith an agile jump to the left, Jacob Hawthorne narrowly avoided the generous portion of bird droppings from landing on his new hat.
The offending excrement splashed onto the ground next to his boots, onto the pier, as foul as ever, though the noise of its landing was largely overcome by the shouts and sounds of the thriving London docks.
The upper echelons of society might think of the bustle of London as balls and routs and lavish visits to the theater, but here was where the nation truly thrived.
It was not fancy evening dresses that built the empire, after all.
Jacob looked about him, admiring the plentiful wares of the latest shipment with approval.
The British economy might be driven by the ever-changing tastes of the ton, but the sailors who ventured across the unforgiving seas, the workers who diligently transported the latest goods in demand, the craftsmen who drew beauty out of the roughest materials, and the tradesmen who coordinated all of them were the true heart blood of the kingdom.
Jacob might have been raised with a gentlemanly education—all part of his father’s keen foresight, and the convenience of having a scholarly clergyman for a neighbor—but he was far too aware of his humble roots to ever turn his back on trade.
The Hawthornes might never ever be considered truly fashionable within Jacob’s lifetime, but they were certainly richer than half the aristocracy could claim to be.
“Master Jacob,” a voice hollered from the end of the pier. Jacob looked up to see the young boy, one of the newer apprentices, running towards him. “Mr. Hawthorne’s askin’ for ye, sir.”
Jacob nodded. Father no doubt wanted a reckoning of the latest arrivals. He would have good news for the old man. It was rare to have so many crates of tea arrive unscathed.
“I will join him shortly.”
“Yes, sir.”
The boy scurried off, and Jacob took another moment to soak in the view of towering masts and sweeping sails, the dramatic heights surrounded by the humming of rough yet hardworking men groaning, joking, singing, and shouting.
He didn’t like trade for its own sake half as much as Father did, but he certainly appreciated the productivity of it all.
He gave some parting instructions to the captain, promised him a hefty bonus, and headed for Father’s main offices.
Given the expanse of the Hawthorne business empire, Father didn’t need to continue keeping his headquarters near such humble—and, not to mention, smelly—parts of town.
But Jacob supposed there would always be a part of Father tied to his sea trade.
He said staying around the docks kept his people honest. Jacob rather thought it was Father’s large, biting presence that did so, but people rarely believed the right things about themselves.
Jacob picked his way through the familiar alleys, nodding to a few acquaintances here and there, before arriving at the large square building looming on the edge between the stench of the docks and the road to the nicer end of London.
Jacob almost smirked at the thought of how the building’s location represented his family so well—rooted in trade yet constantly attempting to be noticed by those born to higher places.
At least, Father always did.
“Mr. Hawthorne,” the army of secretaries and clerks said as he walked through the maze of desks and chairs and paperwork.
Jacob greeted them back. At three and twenty, he was young enough to feel starkly different from his father, and yet old enough to understand how much their small family owed to the men in this building.
Father gave them a livelihood, but it was their tireless work that continued to line the Hawthornes’ pockets.
And Alastor Hawthorne was no easy master.
A flight of dubiously maintained stairs later, Jacob knocked on his father’s door.
“Come in!” he boomed.
Jacob slipped inside. Father’s office was large, yet packed to the brim with boxes, papers, pens, and all sorts of unfinished business. In fact, if Father were not so large a man himself, it might have been difficult to spot him amidst the chaos.
“Father. ”
“There you are. I’ve been asking for you all morning.”
“The Fairwind came in today. Only two crates perished. The rest survived.”
“Excellent,” Father said with significantly less enthusiasm than Jacob had anticipated. “And Captain Moreland?”
“Appeased with an offer of twice the agreed rate.”
“Twice?” Father frowned.
Jacob huffed. Alastor Hawthorne was no saint.
Despite being known amongst his peers for a thriving business that was ostensibly built upon running shops that addressed the clamoring public’s desire for more and more places to publicly consume tea, Father had always wrung most of his vast financial gains from his shortchanging, bribing ways more than from honest service.
“He’s brought in the Fairwind a week earlier than expected, with an almost unprecedented amount of cargo intact,” Jacob argued.
“A bonus is in order, surely, but twice .”
“You told me yourself that you’d driven a hard bargain. His performance warrants the reward.”
Father shook his head, as if Jacob had been the one in the wrong. “Did you think we earned our fortune due to rewarding people for merely doing what they’d promised?”
“Father, Captain Moreland has a family to feed. With just you and me at home, we hardly need?—”
“Ah, that’s where you err.” Father leaned back and folded his plump hands on his even plumper body. He grinned. “You are to have your own house, son, and we shall need to tighten up on our funds to finance it properly.”
“A house—for me?” It was the most unexpected thing. Was this the urgent news that had his father searching him out all morning? “Is our townhouse not grand enough? We only moved in last year.”
“Oh, it’s decent.” Father waved a dismissive hand. “At least until one of the bigger estates sell. But our neighbors to the left are selling, and it would be so much more impressive if we can present a house to the niece of an earl.”
Father might be cruel and selfish and avaricious—but he was rarely this confusing.
“An earl?” blurted Jacob. “What do earls have to do with anything?”
“Ah, I see you’ve missed the point.” Father leaned forward, looking practically giddy with excitement. “I’ve been looking for you all morning.”
“As I am aware.”
“Because you, my boy, are getting married.”
For once, Jacob was stunned into silence.
“Married?” He squeaked, a good half-minute later.
“It has all been arranged. They need a month or two to get the gel’s things in order, during which we may have the banns read. And then you shall be two thousand pounds richer and the nephew of an earl to boot!”
Jacob stared, dumbfounded.
Father had never been the sort to think much of his own faults, of which there were plenty. But Jacob had always thought him at least capable of comprehending the extent of his humble beginnings and dubious virtues .
Apparently, the taint of dishonest gain did not seem to bother Alastor Hawthorne one bit, and the man actually possessed the audacity to aspire towards ties with the nobility. And unfortunately for Jacob, he was his father’s most immediate ticket to entry.
“I knew you couldn’t be so handsome for nothing.” Father grinned.
Jacob flinched. He knew he had his mother’s fair looks.
He’d learned from a young age that there were very few women, old and young alike, who could resist denying him his requests, however impertinent, when made with a wink and a smile.
The other boys who’d studied with Mr. Terrance, his dear clergyman tutor, had seemed to envy him and tease him in turn about his golden locks and blue eyes.
But Father, of course, saw his son’s physical attributes—and any talents he was possessed of—as mercenary assets.
It ought not to be surprising, given that it was the only way Alastor Hawthorne seemed capable of understanding anything in life.
But it was still a little disappointing to see the fact proven repeatedly.
“I am not a gentleman. They wouldn’t want that,” said Jacob. “Noblemen are famously snobbish about such things.”
“Ha. Money is enough of a motivation for most folks, I tell you.” Father chortled, his laughter deep and harsh, like most things he did. “And have you not been afforded every advantage of education? They’d be a fool to turn down a specimen like you for a few quibbles of birth.”
Jacob winced. There were few things more dehumanizing than being described as a specimen by your last living parent.
“You say she brings two thousand to the marriage,” Jacob said, using logic to curb his rising panic. “What need would she have for the Hawthorne fortune?”
“That’s where you young folks are always naive.” Father shook his head. “Two thousand may sound significant to your captain and his ilk, but nobles always need more blunt to keep up appearances.”
“Surely, you are not paying them for her hand in marriage.”
“Not directly. But there will always be a demand for wealthy relations.”
Father scoffed. It was always a trifle bit confusing whether Father revered or disdained the ton .
“The niece of an earl, you say.” Jacob tried to imagine a placid, pretty debutante at his dinner table. He winced. She’d probably look down her nose at him her whole life. “I don’t think I would do one much good as a husband.”
He didn’t think he’d do much good at being a husband at all, seeing as he hadn’t been planning on becoming one in the near future.
He’d expected to marry, eventually, perhaps when approaching thirty.
He’d even expected, perhaps subconsciously, to having a slightly limited selection of potential brides given his background.
He most certainly had never expected being sold off like an ox at the prime age of three and twenty.
“Not just a niece of an earl.” Father’s eyes practically glistened. “Her father’s man of business could not say so, at least officially, for you know how hush-hush all these political things are—but I have it on good authority that she bears royal blood.”
“Royal blood? Well then, it keeps getting better, doesn’t it?
” Jacob snapped. Father had always been a shrewd businessman.
Had the chance to marry off his son for some dubious connection to an earldom doused all his good sense?
This had to be a fraudulent offer. “Did the Prince Regent suddenly decide that he wants an illegitimate daughter to be tied to a tradesman in tea?”
“Mind your tongue,” Father barked.
“What? I speak only the truth.” Jacob leaned over the chair in front of him.
He hadn’t even had the chance to sit down before Father had decided to upend his life.
“What sort of royalty would want to marry off their daughter to an unknown man, with blatant ties to trade, merely to establish access to our tainted fortune? Next thing you know, this supposed man of business would be offering to arrange a match with Princess Charlotte herself.”
“Do you think me mad?” Father growled.
Jacob shrugged, since he rather did.
“We’re not speaking of British royalty, per se,” Father said in a slightly more reasonable tone. “The lady is a child of a foreign princess—and it’s all therefore a matter of greater sensitivity. Although I wouldn’t turn down the chance to propose to any daughter of the prince, given the chance.”
Jacob grimaced. Thank goodness the Prince Regent and his mistress didn’t have any daughters. His father just might think it a decent match.
“Let me think about it,” said Jacob.
“There is nothing to think about.”
His eyes snapped up. “You are serious? You want me to marry this woman, sight unseen, and live the rest of my life tied to someone who might well be deformed, odious, or insane?”
“She is none of those things. ”
“How would you know?”
“Her father’s man assures me that she is every bit eligible.”
Jacob laughed harshly. “Of course he says that.”
“You do not believe me?”
“You are blinded by delusions of grandeur.”
“And you are blinded by the hubris of youth.” Father shoved himself to his feet, his presence large and looming.
“I have sacrificed endlessly for our family—never resting, never stopping in my tireless work for the Hawthorne name. And you, with your high-born looks and your gentleman’s education—did you think to merely take up all the privileges and do nothing in return? ”
Jacob scowled.
“I am not sending you to the wilds of the New World or expecting you to row the galleons yourself,” Father ranted on.
“I have shielded you from the harshest realities of our trade. I have allowed you to manage the cleanest, easiest, most straightforward tasks in our business. And now, I arrange for you a future that improves you in every way in the eyes of society, and you act as if I am asking you to swallow a horse.”
“I am willing to work,” Jacob argued. “But marriage?—”
“Is the least you can do! Have I raised you like a gentleman for nothing?”
Wordlessly, they seethed at one another.
Father spoke first. He always spoke first. “I give you two months to live as you please—sow your wild oats, if you must, but leave me no bastards to feed. Revel with your friends and muse upon your future. And when the two months are done, I expect you at the altar to do your duty.”
Jacob fumed quietly. There was too much happening, too quickly. He hardly knew what to think—although he knew with a sinking certainty in his stomach that Father would never be otherwise persuaded.
“As you wish,” he growled. Then he marched out, slamming the door behind him.