She hoped Amelia was busily spreading word that Cathy had run off with her true love, and that Bianca had acted only out of concern for the future of the pottery works, making a marriage for purely business reasons. If there was one thing Bianca couldn’t bear, it was people staring at her. And while her marriage might be a scandal, there was nothing interesting about it.
“From here the clay is brought to be mixed.” She led the way through a doorway and down a wide ramp. “Different pottery requires different mixtures of clays, precisely measured.”
St. James stepped up and peered into one bin. “Which is used in making your plum pot?”
She flushed at the memory of him in her bedroom, inspecting her private things. “That is something else—porcelain, not pottery. There is a different workshop for it.”
“Oh? How is it different?”
“Entirely,” she said brusquely, and no more. The porcelain workshop was a tender subject, and not one she wanted to discuss with him.
From the clay rooms they went into the production hall, which was a collection of workshops divided by shoulder-height walls. A walkway ran the length of the hall, with periodic staircases descending to the floor, and it was not unusual to see Papa storming down one of them in a temper, having spied a workman neglecting his work or engaging in unsafe or illicit behavior.
She led her husband through the hall, pointing out and explaining the throwers and turners, making items on the pottery wheels; the modelers, carving out of clay; the grinders and polishers, smoothing the surfaces of the unfinished pieces; the slip-makers and mold-makers, making delicate ornaments from the water-thinned clay called slip.
“This entire workshop is for teapot spouts,” she said in one doorway. Trays of neatly made spouts lined the shelves by the door, like the fat little tails of upside-down piglets.
“Odd-looking little things, aren’t they?” St. James studied them with a faint smile. “I never thought of the spouts being made separately.”
“As are the handles,” she replied. “And the lids.”
He slanted her an amused look. “Are they? Who might have guessed?” Bianca rolled her eyes. “Where, pray, are the lids created and when are they attached?”
“They aren’t—” she began, before catching herself. He was laughing at her. “The body of a teapot would be made in the previous rooms, while the spouts and handles are made here, then sent along to be attached before firing. You confessed you knew nothing about the pottery works. I was trying to be helpful and explain them.”
“Ah.” His dark eyes glinted at her. “And now I know that lids are not attached to the pots. A mystery I have pondered all my life, solved.”
She smiled sweetly back. “I’m sure there are innumerable others to perplex you.”
He gave her a sizzling, knowing look, up and down. “Perhaps there are, but I intend to solve them all.”
Meaning her. Her pulse roared in her ears, and she had to grip a handful of apron to keep her temper in check. “That should keep you occupied for an eternity.”
That Man leaned closer. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he didn’t touch her, but Bianca tensed all the same. “If that’s what it takes,” he said quietly. “I don’t quit, my dear.”
She inhaled raggedly. If he were anyone else, or if they were anywhere else in the world, she would ring a peal over him. But the very last thing she needed—even less than she needed St. James’s company, let alone his smoldering looks—was to spark rumors that the two of them were already quarreling on the workshop floor.
“Spoken with the sheer idiocy of Pyrrhus himself,” she returned, and marched away.
Chapter Ten
Max understood exactly what Bianca was up to, and it amused him to no end.
She was going to keep him at arm’s length; she was going to lose no opportunity to put him in his place and let him know she thought very little of his intelligence and ability.
Max was accustomed to being underestimated: by landlords and merchants, by the Duchess of Carlyle and her solicitor, by his own father. None of them had thought he had any brains in his head, nor any ambition beyond running up debts and being as languidly elegant as possible. So he was neither surprised, nor even upset, that Bianca felt the same. Like the rest of them, she saw what she wanted to see, and like the rest of them, she would be astonished when she eventually realized the truth. He looked forward to that day.
Also, he had seen the covert way she looked at him, and especially at his legs. Max wasn’t above displaying himself to best advantage in the hopes of piquing her interest, and unless he’d completely lost his touch, he sensed she was more interested, and attracted, than she would admit.
He followed her through the factory, docile as a lamb. Samuel Tate had showed him all this before, and Max had read a number of tracts on the subject of manufacturing and pottery production. He let slide her needling about him being perplexed until the end of time by her, as well as her smart retort about Pyrrhus. Nothing he’d seen so far made him think the costs would outweigh the benefits of victory. To the contrary—everything he saw and learned about Bianca made him think they would be an incomparable team . . . once he persuaded her they ought to be one.
In the packing house he couldn’t stop himself from asking questions. The issue of breakage in the contracts lingered in his mind. If Brimley and other merchants insisted on being able to write off a fifth of all wares sent to them as broken on arrival, there was a significant opportunity for improvement. Max expected there would be many such opportunities, but this one seemed an obvious choice to attack first.
So he watched workers nestling cups and plates into straw-filled crates, and he questioned every step. “What sort of straw?”
“The dry sort,” Bianca answered shortly. “It’s straw.”
Max scooped up a handful and crushed it in his palm. “Not so. Some straw is little more than dried grass. Some is as stiff as a willow. After the considerable effort it takes to produce these fine wares”—he lifted a finely wrought pot, awaiting packing, from the shelf nearby—“you would toss it into a crate filled with anything?” He shook his head and replaced the teapot. “But perhaps this is not an area of the business which concerns you.”
Her mouth was hanging open. “How— What— Of course I care!” she said furiously. “How do you know so much about straw?”
From the many nights I’ve spent scrounging for a spot to sleep, and never turned up my nose at any safe, warm, straw-filled stable, he thought. “I know many things that might surprise you,” was all he told her.
Incensed now, Bianca hailed a workman passing by. “William, what sort of straw is used for packing the wares?”
“Wheat, mostly, and barley,” answered the man, barely breaking stride.
“Wheat and barley straw,” she snapped at him and strode off.
Max contemplated the straw in his hand and let it fall back into the crate. “Use more straw when packing anything going by road,” he told the worker lingering curiously nearby. “One quarter more, on Mr. St. James’s orders.” The fellow nodded and scurried away, and Max went after his wife.