His gaze flickered over the court then returned to her. “No, thank you.” His tone sounded more formal than yesterday.
“We’re having ever so much fun.”
He looked away from her. “I have no time for sports.”
She fingered the edge of her racket, refusing to give up so easily. “I should think playing a hard game of tennis would help you in your work.”
A slight crease formed between his dark brows. “I fail to see how swinging at a ball on a grassy lawn would aid me in figuring the financial assets of a company.”
“Exercising your body will keep your mind sharp.”
Amusement began to dislodge the severity of his expression. She leaned forward, pressing home her point. “It’s been scientifically proven. You are breathing more deeply of oxygen, for one thing. More than in that airless cubbyhole my father has you closeted in.”
Before he could say anything, Victor shouted from the court, “Are you going to join the game or remain talking to a clerk all day?” Laughter from the others drifted over to them.
She turned back to the court, ashamed of her friends in that moment. She remembered the secretary’s question of the day before. These “friends” were mere acquaintances, offspring of her parents’ friends, forced on her during the holidays to keep her company.
Mr. Tennent’s face remained expressionless. “If you’ll excuse me—”
“Wait.” She stopped, casting about for another way to lengthen their exchange, not quite sure why. “Why don’t you join me for a game tomorrow—” her mind ran on, thinking of possibilities “—before breakfast, before you begin working.”
He looked away from her. “I know nothing of the game.” The words came out stiffly as if forced out of him.
She laughed, relieved. For a moment she’d thought perhaps it was her company he didn’t want. “That’s all right. I can teach you.”
His eyes widened slightly before resuming their formality. “I have no time for games. Good morning.” Before she could draw breath to argue, he hurried off.
She looked at his receding back, frowning at the rebuff.
“Come on, Alice, or you shall have to forfeit the game.”
With a sigh of frustration, she hurried back to her place, prepared to meet Victor’s serve.
Lucy gave a disbelieving laugh across the court. “Goodness, Alice, are you so bored you’re forced to seek out your father’s employees?”
“Why shouldn’t I be nice to Father’s employees? Maybe he’ll prove a better tennis player than all of you!” More determined than ever to get the serious young man out on the tennis court, she whacked the ball that came flying toward her.
Nick shook his head over the report. The mining company had already had one shaft collapse in the last year. Another was hardly producing. If he were a partner, he’d recommend to Mr. Shepard that he sell his shares of the company.
He gathered up the papers and prepared to go to the larger office adjoining his “airless cubbyhole,” as the young Miss Shepard had put it. He paused, considering once again the girl’s invitation to a game of tennis. To lessons, no less! He told himself once again, as he had all the rest of the afternoon, that it was nonsense. No matter that no one of her class had ever bothered to notice someone as lowly as a clerk, let alone issue such a friendly invitation….
The girl was no more than fifteen if she was a day. She was his employer’s daughter. He had no business daydreaming of her, lovely creature or not.
He stopped at Mr. Shepard’s door, hearing a female voice. Nick paused, his hand on the knob, his breath held.
“But Papa, why can’t you go rowing with us? The day is glorious and we shall have such a grand time on the water.”
“You know I must return to town tomorrow, and I have work this afternoon. Now, you have your friends here you must amuse.” Shepard’s voice was firm.
“You’re forever working. It’s a holiday.”
Something in the plaintive feminine tones caught at Nick’s heart, and he eased open the door a crack.
Miss Shepard stood with her back to him, in a maroon dress with a large bow at the back where the ruffled material was gathered. Its mid-calf length and her long hair worn down with a matching ribbon told him more clearly than anything else that she was still a schoolgirl.
“You’ll just have to content yourself with seeing me at dinner this evening.” Mr. Shepard stood and indicated the meeting was over.
“Very well, Father.” She turned around, her chest heaving in a sigh.
What kind of a man could ignore such a tender request? The next instant he remembered his own cold refusal of her invitation to play tennis the day before. But that had been different. He was here to work and not to amuse himself. Still, the image of himself as a hard-hearted brute like the girl’s father persisted as he waited behind the door.
What he’d seen of his employer thus far—a man who expected a lot and was all business—qualities Nick admired—took on a different perspective when seen from his personal life. Something about the glimpse of Miss Shepard’s forlorn face as she dragged her feet toward the exit, elicited a response he’d never thought he’d feel for someone of her pampered station. There were enough people in real want not to waste his sympathy on a spoiled little rich girl.
When the door clicked shut behind her, Nick waited a few more seconds before clearing his throat and entering the library from the side door to his office. His footfalls made no sound on the thick Turkish carpet as he advanced toward the large mahogany desk planted in the middle of the room as if to proclaim its owner firmly in control of the space.
Nick cleared his throat again.
“Yes, what is it?” Mr. Shepard didn’t look up, and a trace of impatience underlined the clipped words. He was a man in his fifties, his hair still thick but with threads of gray fading the burnished coppery mane. It occurred to Nick that Shepard must have had his daughter late in life.
“I have the information you requested on Rafferty, Limited.”
Shepard adjusted the spectacles on the bridge of his nose and thrust out his hand. “Well, bring it here.”
Nick handed him the sheaf of papers, hoping his employer would notice the careful analysis he’d made of the mining company. But with a wave of his hand, Shepard dismissed Nick. Nick’s years clerking at a bank had inured him to being treated in such a manner. Clerks were usually ignored until someone needed something pressing and then barked at to produce it immediately.
But he’d looked forward to just a hint that Mr. Shepard had noticed all his extra effort.
Nick returned to his office, unable to help comparing his own footsteps with those of the girl who’d been just as summarily dismissed.
This was a mistake. Nick knew it, yet found he could do nothing to change his course of action.
Setting his alarm clock for an hour earlier than usual, he rose with a sense of foreboding that he was about to make a fool of himself. After washing and shaving, he stood a moment looking at his sparse wardrobe of black suits appropriate to a clerk. What did one wear to a game of lawn tennis?
Finally, he donned a clean white shirt and waistcoat and one of his two black frock coats, calling himself a number of names as he buttoned up the front. He looked like he should be heading to a counting house instead of outdoors. The young men he’d observed the other day had worn light-colored trousers and loose jackets.
Nick