The Tea Rose Part 66

"In here!" she cried. "Hurry!"

"Mrs. Soames, I must speak with you ... "

"Help me, please!"

But it was too late. She felt a searing pain as the dark man drew the blade across her throat.

She was in agony, unable to breathe, as her own blood cascaded down her chest, and then she heard the battering again. And the sound of gla.s.s smas.h.i.+ng. And then she was awake, panting with fright, blinking into the feeble light of a rainy morning. She sat up and looked around, rea.s.suring herself that she was alive, and alone. She saw a half empty bottle of wine on the table before her, a crumpled handkerchief She looked down at herself and saw that she was fully dressed. She remembered collapsing into the chair, spent and broken, when she'd gotten back from White's ... hours ago ...

pouring herself a gla.s.s of wine, and then being overcome by a convulsive fit of weeping. I must've cried myself to sleep, she thought. And then she'd had that terrible nightmare. Just the memory of it made her shake. The dark man, the knife, all that blood. She vaguely remembered that someone had tried to help her. She recalled a voice, the sound of a fist battering on wood. She closed her eyes, trying to calm herself: then nearly jumped out of her skin as the battering started again.

"Mrs. Soames! Fiona, are you there? It's me, Neville Pearson. Please let me in!"

Neville? What on earth does he want? she wondered. She glanced at her watch. It wasn't even seven o'clock yet. She ran her hands over her hair. She could tell it was a mess. "Just a minute!" she shouted, trying to tuck the loose strands back into their twist. Gla.s.s crunched under her foot as she stood. Her winegla.s.s. She looked at her skirt. There was a big wet stain on it. "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l!" she swore. "Coming, Neville!"

She hurried out of her bedroom, through the foyer, and to the door. Three men were standing in the hallway: her counsel; a well-dressed man in his fifties who was slight and anxious-looking; and a man with a thick dark head of hair, not yet out of his thirties, who had a brash and pugilistic look.

"Thank G.o.d you're here!" Neville exclaimed, relief was.h.i.+ng over his face. "Why are you here? What's going on?" Fiona asked.

"May we come in?"

"Of course. Forgive me." She ushered them in and led them to her sitting room.

Neville glanced at her. "Have you not slept?"

"Not really, 1-"

He cut her off "No, I can't imagine you would've. Not after last night. Terribly foolish of you, walking right into the lion's den. Terribly brave, too."

"How do you know-" she began, but Neville didn't let her finish.

''I've taken' the liberty of having breakfast sent up," he said. "Should arrive any minute. In the meantime, I'd like you to meet Giles Bellamy, the chairman of Albion Bank ... "

Fiona stiffened. She nodded at the man. This will not be good news, she thought.

" ... and David Lawton, Lord Elgin's counsel. David and Giles told me of your meeting with the duke last night. They are here to oversee the transfer of your late husband's shares."

"With the proviso we discussed, Neville," David Lawton quickly interjected. "Mrs. Soames must be willing to honor the offer she made to Randolph Elgin. The shares for the banker's draft.

Those are the duke's conditions."

"Yes, but things have changed a bit since last evening, haven't they, David?" Neville said hotly. "I doubt the shares are worth a farthing now."

Fiona, tired, wary, and now terribly confused, could only say, "Wait a minute ... what are you talking about? I saw Elgin last night, as you gentlemen somehow all seem to know, and he made it quite clear that he has no intention of giving me Nick's shares."

Neville blinked at her. "Have you not seen the morning papers?"

"No, I haven't. I was up late, and then I fell asleep, and 1-"

"Here." He opened his briefcase, took out half a dozen newspapers, and slapped them on the tea table. "Read those, my dear." There was a polite tapping at the door. "Ah, that must be the breakfast. I'll see to it. Do sit down, Giles. David, you, too."

Fiona picked up the Times. She had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for. The dolorous headlines about the British economy? A report of unrest in India?

"Bottom right," David Lawton said, settling himself into a chair.

Her eyes traveled down the front page. And then she saw it. "Burton Tea on Brink of Financial Ruin." She sat down, her eyes devouring every line of the story. Neville returned, leading the way for two waiters with a trolley. Tea was poured and breakfast served with great decorum, but Fiona was oblivious to it all.

Burton Tea was expected to declare bankruptcy by the end of the day, the lead said. Most of its major customers had canceled their orders. In addition, all of its inventory was destroyed by unidentified men who broke into its warehouse last night. Panicked shareholders were expected to flood the market with devalued stock as soon as it opened.

She gasped as she read the following paragraph.

When asked why Montegue's, one of Burton Tea's most lucrative accounts, withdrew it's order.

Joseph Bristow, Chairman of the popular chain, said, "I have spoken with the authorities investigating the case and I am convinced of William Burton's guilt. I would like to state, in the strongest possible terms, that Montegue's will have no further dealings with Burton Tea. We make our profits honestly and in a moral fas.h.i.+on and we do not support any supplier who does not do the same. Our customers' expect no less. I speak not only for myself but for the entire Montegue staff when I say I am shocked and outraged that a member of the Merchant cla.s.s would employ such villainous means to derail the just cause of labor.

How had he known? she wondered, dazed. The story could not have made the evening edition of any other papers last night and she doubted he read the Clarion. How on earth had he found out? The article continued.

Many of London's leading retailers, as well as hotels and restaurants, eager to be seen in their customers' eyes as inhabiting the same high moral ground as Montegue's followed suit.

Fiona read the names: Harrods. Sainsbury's. Home and Colonial Stores. Simpson's-in-the-Strand. The Savoy. Claridge's. The Connaught. Even the Cunard and White Star Lines. She slumped back in her chair, her head reeling.

"Keep reading," David said. "You even got the union involved. Quite a feat, Mrs. Soames."

"Common vandals. Rabble-rousers." Giles Bellamy sniffed.

Fiona turned to page two and learned that overnight, dozens of men their faces hidden behind scarves or sacking-had broken into Oliver's Wharf and tossed every single chest, box, and tin of tea into the Thames. They'd destroyed the packing machinery, too. Roving gangs had barged into neighborhood shops in East and South London and thrown any Burton Tea they'd found into the streets. Shopkeepers had been warned not to sell the tea: shoppers had been warned not to buy it.

Workingmen and housewives were quoted as saying they didn't need telling, they wanted nothing to do with William Burton's bloodstained tea leaves.

The article mentioned that no one knew who the masked men were, but suspicion was being leveled at the Wapping chapter of the dockworkers' union. Peter Miller, its leader, angrily responded that the union did not condone lawlessness of any sort and that reporters might do better by hounding the real criminal, William Burton, instead of himself and his men. The article concluded with market experts predicting a staggering sell-off of Burton Tea shares fueled by an unwillingness on the part of merchants, and of the public, to patronize the company.

Fiona looked at Neville, then at Giles, then at David. She was no longer confused: she knew why they were here. Last night, she had suffered the deepest despair. She'd been convinced she'd failed. But now it was clear she'd succeeded. She was going to get her shares. Because of three men Joe Bristow, Peter Miller, and Roddy O'Meara. Roddy was behind this somehow, she just knew he was. Neither Joe nor Peter Miller could possibly know what they'd done for her, but they would learn. She would tell them. She would thank them. She would go to visit Peter Miller in person as soon as this was all behind her. He could say what he liked to the Times, those were his men who'd thrown Burton's tea into the river and he'd told them to do it. And as soon as she was back in New York, she would write to Joe. He did not want to see her, and she would not compromise her pride a second time by going to see him, but he had done an incredible deed for her and she owed him her grat.i.tude.

"If we could get down to business?" Giles suggested, breaking tilt' silence.

"Certainly," Neville said. "As I started to explain, Fiona, earlier this morning Lord Elgin authorized David to make a trade he says you requested-Nicholas Elgin's Burton Tea shares for a banker's draft for the sum of three hundred thousand pounds. David then came directly to me, accompanied by Giles, and we proceeded to you. I informed these gentlemen that I knew nothing of such an offer, and even if you had made it, I would advise against it. Those shares have little if any value now."

"Make the transfer, Neville," Fiona said.

"What! But why? The shares are worthless!"

David Lawton leaned forward in his chair. "But they're not, Neville. Not to Mrs. Soames," he said. "Did you know that your client already owns twenty-two percent of Burton Tea? Young Elgin's shares will give her fifty two percent. You're looking at the new owner of Burton Tea. All she's doing by giving us the banker's draft is paying off the debt on her new company."

"Is this true?" Neville asked.

"Yes," Fiona said.

"Because of your father?"

"Yes."

He shook his head. It was his turn to look dazed. "Well then, gentlemen, let's get started, shall we? David, you have the shares?"

"I do."

David unbuckled his briefcase, pulled out a thick stack of stock certificates, and handed them to Neville, who examined them. "The duke has lost a fortune," he observed.

"The duke is a practical man," David replied. "He realizes his own money is already gone. He doesn't want to compound the mistake by losing Albion's money, too."

"Where is the draft, Fiona?" Neville asked. "In the hotel safe?"

Fiona shook her head. She reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out it crumpled piece of paper. "It's right here," she said.

"In your pocket?" he asked, incredulous. "You could've been murdered in your sleep for that.

Are you mad?"

"After the last twenty-four hours, quite possibly," she said. "Before I hand it over, I have a request."

"What is it?" David asked.

"I would like you, David, and you, Giles, to accompany myself and Neville to Burton Tea.

I'm going to confront him this morning. As soon as I've changed," she said. "Your presence will strengthen my claim. He and his board of directors may not accept the facts from me or from Neville, but they'll have to accept them from Elgin's solicitor and the chairman of Albion."

"Out of the question," Giles Bellamy sputtered. "This is nothing Albion should be a.s.sociated with. It's a dreadfully ugly business, taking a man's company."

"Not nearly as ugly as taking a man's life," Fiona said quietly.

David Lawton gave her a long look. The hardness in his eyes softened, just for a second, to something like admiration. "Finish your breakfast, Giles, we're going," he said.

"WHAT'S HAPPENING, MAN? Why aren't we moving?" Neville Pearson shouted, leaning out of his carriage window. Rain, fierce and battering, forced him back inside.

'Tm sorry, sir," the driver yelled, his voice nearly drowned by the din of the storm. "The street's jammed! It's 'opeless! You're better off walking from 'ere!"

Umbrellas were located, briefcases gathered. Outside the hackney, Fiona surveyed the scene before her. The street was clogged with carriages. Scores of people, all pus.h.i.+ng and jostling, were mobbing the Burton Tea building.

"Who are all these people?" she wondered aloud.

"Angry shareholders. That would be my guess," David said.

"And we're about to make them angrier still," Neville said grimly. "Come on. Let's relieve William Burton of his company." He turned to David and Giles. "You know the procedure. Mrs.

Soames will do the talking. We are merely here to verify her claim."

Both men nodded. Their expressions were somber. Fiona's was, too, but her companions couldn't see it for her face was hidden under a black lace veil attached to a broad-brimmed hat. It matched the black silk suit she was wearing. A mourning ensemble.

As the party proceeded up the street, Fiona was shoved and elbowed roughly. The rain was still sheeting down and it was all she could do to keep Neville in her sights.

"Mrs. Soames? Where are you?" he shouted, turning to look for her. "Over here!"

He was halfway up the steps already. She hurried to join him, wedging herself through the sea of shareholders-some shouting, some dumb with confusion - who clamored at the doors, imploring the beleaguered porter for answers. She suddenly felt desperately sorry for these people.

Many of them were facing heavy losses, perhaps even the destruction of their life savings. Because of her. She vowed to herself that she would make it up to them by turning Burton Tea into a profitable company. They would get their money back and more besides.

Interspersed among the investors were reporters, questioning anyone who would speak to them as to their views on whether William Burton was guilty or innocent. She saw Neville at the top of the steps now, gesticulating to the porter. Giles Bellamy was behind him. The plan had been for them to tell the porter that Giles wanted to see Burton. Burton was undoubtedly sequestered within his offices, but they felt certain he wouldn't dare refuse a meeting with the chairman of Albion Bank.

Just as she was about to join the two men, however, a new turn of events overtook them all.

A harried clerk carne out of the building, cleared his throat nervously, then bellowed at the crowd that Mr. Burton would give them all the information and a.s.surances they required in half an hour's time in a shareholder's meeting. The meeting would take place in the company's boardroom, which was big enough, the clerk said, to accommodate everyone If they would all proceed to it in an orderly fas.h.i.+on. Reporters were not welcome, he added, only shareholders. At that statement, notebooks were surrept.i.tiously dropped into coat pockets.

"Shall we still try to see Burton alone?" Neville asked as Fiona reached him.

"No," she said. "Let's attend the meeting." She felt a sudden deep relief that she would not be confronting the man in his office, the very room where she'd heard him laugh about her father's death. There would be people in the boardroom, plenty of them, and there was safety in numbers.

Slowly, the crowd filed into the boardroom. It was an impressive high ceilinged affair with a dais at the front. Twenty large rectangular tables were arranged throughout it in rows of four across and five deep. There ~ere chairs at the tables and more along the walls. Fiona and her companions seated themselves near the back. The room filled. Many stood. Anxious voices rose and fell trading hearsay. Ten minutes pa.s.sed, twenty.

Fiona felt William Burton enter the room before she saw him. In the same way a gazelle at a watering hole suddenly knows the lion is near, she was acutely aware of his presence. He had entered through a side door at the front of the room and now stood on the dais, behind the podium, hands folded behind his back, watching. She stiffened instinctively at the sight of him. A raw, uncontrollable terror gripped her. The last time she'd been in the same room with the man, she'd nearly lost her life. With effort, she fought her fear down. It was different now, she reminded herself.

She was not a teenaged girl anymore, set upon by two murderers. She was a grown woman now and in control.

He looked much as she remembered. Well-dressed, elegant, powerful.

His face was older, but smooth, and completely expressionless. His eyes, even from a distance, looked as black and cold as a snake's.

"Good morning," he said crisply. All talking ceased. Every eye was riveted upon him. He began to speak.

His voice was calm and a.s.sured. Fiona was surprised at how well she remembered it, but then again, she'd heard it for ten years in her nightmares.

"I have been accused, as you know, of complicity in the murder of a former employee of mine, a union leader named Patrick Finnegan. I a.s.sure you that the charges, brought against me by a Thomas Sheehan of Limehouse, a notorious extortionist, are entirely spurious. I have never harmed any of my workers, I have sought only to improve their lives through fair wages and decent working conditions."

Upon hearing his words, the vestiges of Fiona's fear fell away and the old familiar rage, the one that had smoldered impotently for so many long years, caught fire.

"I first had the misfortune of meeting Mr. Sheehan two years ago," Burton continued, "after he informed my foreman at Oliver's Wharf that he would burn the place to the ground if I did not pay him one hundred pounds a month as protection money. After I was told of his demand, I sought the man out and made it clear I would never submit to such extortion. He threatened to damage my property and harm my person. I increased security at Oliver's, but, foolishly, never thought to do the same at a former tea factory of mine. Mr. Sheehan burned it down. How do I know this? The man himself told me so. And now, finding himself in trouble with the police, he has made these absurd accusations. Presumably in a bid for leniency in his role in the Quinn murder."

The smoking fires of Fiona's anger had become a conflagration. She sat rigidly in her chair, her eyes closed, her hands clasped tightly together on top of the table, willing herself to remain seated, to remain quiet, to remain in control.

Burton continued, acknowledging that his stock's value had indeed fallen that morning, but a.s.sured his investors that he would win back his former customers' goodwill as soon as his name was cleared, and asked them to hold their shares and keep faith in the company while he guided Burton Tea through what would be only a short-lived storm.

Fiona looked around and saw how readily his explanations and promises were accepted by people desperate for rea.s.surances that their money was safe. They would believe his denials and discount the charges against him if it meant that their investments would survive. Well, she wouldn't let them. They would hear the truth.

When he had finished speaking, Burton accepted questions. One query after another was fired at him. He fielded them expertly, giving succinct answers and throwing in little jokes here and there to provoke smiles from his inquisitors. After he'd answered twenty or so, he announced he would take his last one.

"There's a rumor that Albion Bank is demanding full and immediate repayment of your loans, Mr. Burton. Is this true?" a man asked.

Burton laughed. "Where do you get your information, sir? From proper newspapers or penny dreadfuls? Albion has made no such demand. I spoke with them early this morning and they voiced their strong support. And now, if there's no further business, I must leave you to attend to my firm and get your share values back up to where they should be."

In the heavy gloom of the gas lit boardroom, Fiona stood. A reporter for the Timed would later write that she had looked like a modern-day Fury at that moment, a dark avenging angel.