LITMIR.BIZ

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and landaulets, gigs and tilburys. There was even a magnificent berline. Some were plain, some highly decorated, but all bore the hallmark of the Gilpin works, meticulously finished and polished.

      ‘This chaise is a sturdy vehicle,’ she said, indicating a travelling coach in forest green, its only decoration lines of pale green about the body work and round the rims of the wheels. It was highly varnished, elegant but not ostentatious.

      He walked all round it, rocked it on its springs, jumped on the coachman’s box with its red-and-green-striped hammercloth and sat there for a few moments before jumping down and climbing inside. The interior was upholstered in green velvet and there were light green curtains at the windows. He sat a moment and stretched out his legs. There was little leg room for one so tall, but that was not unexpected; he had yet to ride in a coach which allowed him the luxury of stretching out.

      Charlotte watched him without speaking. He was undoubtedly athletic, climbing up and down with consummate ease, and the way he had climbed on the box suggested he was no stranger to driving a coach. He was self-assured and would not be easy to gull. Not that she intended to deceive him; that was not the way Gilpins did business. Their reputation for honesty and fine workmanship had been well earned over the years and she would do nothing to jeopardise it.

      He emerged from the coach and rejoined her. ‘I think it will do me very well,’ he said.

      ‘Would you like to look at others before you make up your mind?’

      He agreed and she showed him several more, some more sumptuous, others well used with scuffed paint which she told him would be remedied before the coaches were sold on. Some were extra large and cumbersome, needing at least six horses to pull them, some too lightweight for any but town roads.

      ‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘You have chosen well, Miss Gilpin. I will negotiate a price with Mr Gilpin.’

      ‘The price to buy is one hundred and nineteen pounds sixteen shillings,’ she said firmly. ‘We give value for money, Captain, and do not enter into negotiation. If that is too much …?’ Her voice faded on a question.

      ‘No, I did not mean I would beat him down,’ he said hastily. ‘The price seems fair enough. I meant that I would need to arrange for horses and harness and for the coach to be fetched.’

      ‘Let us return to the office and conclude the transaction,’ she said. ‘The doctor will have gone by now.’

      They crossed the yard again and entered the main workshop where several men were using ropes to lower a coach body down the stairs. Joe, supporting himself on two sticks, was standing directing operations.

      ‘What did the doctor say?’ Charlotte asked him.

      ‘’Tis but a sprain,’ he answered. ‘I must rest it for a week or two and then all will be well.’

      ‘You will not rest it by standing there. The men can manage without you for a week. Ask Giles to take you home in the gig, and do not come back until you are recovered. You will lose no pay.’

      ‘Yes, Miss Charlotte. Thank you, miss.’

      Charlotte moved on, followed by Alex. ‘Do the men usually obey you so promptly, Miss Gilpin?’ he queried. He had noticed the adoring look in Joe’s eyes as he answered her. The poor fellow was evidently in love with his employer’s daughter. He wondered if she knew it.

      ‘Yes, why not? One day the business will be mine and I will have the full running of it, but please God, not for a very long time.’

      ‘Really?’ he queried in surprise. ‘I had thought a brother or a husband would take over.’

      ‘I have neither brother nor husband.’ She was used to people making assumptions like that, but it never failed to raise her hackles and she spoke sharply.

      ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘I can see you are a very determined woman.’

      A woman, she noted, not a lady. There was a world of difference in the use of the words and reminded her of her conversations with her father on the subject. It simply stiffened her resolve to prove she was as good as any man when it came to business. It was far more important than being a so-called lady. Or a wife, come to that.

      They entered the office where her father was standing looking out of the window on to the busy street, watching the doctor’s gig disappearing up the road. ‘It’s time he changed that vehicle,’ he said aloud. ‘He’s had it three years now and it is beginning to look the worse for wear. I must persuade him to turn it in for a phaeton, much more befitting his status as a physician of the first rank.’ He turned from the window to face them. ‘Captain Carstairs, did you find something to suit?’

      ‘The captain is going to buy Lord Pymore’s travelling chaise,’ Charlotte told him, fetching papers from a cupboard and taking her seat at her desk. ‘He has agreed our price.’

      ‘Good.’ Henry said. ‘Captain, do you need embellishments? Heraldry? Additional lines, scrolls perhaps?’

      ‘No, thank you, I cannot wait for such things to be done. It will do me very well as it is, but I do need harness and cattle. Miss Gilpin tells me you can also supply those.’

      ‘Indeed we can. I pride myself on dealing in animals sound in wind and limb. You may safely leave those to me. Do you have a coachman?’

      ‘Yes,’ Alex said, thinking of Davy Locke, who had been his servant on board ship and now went by the grand title of valet, though anyone less like a valet was hard to imagine. He was an untidy giant of a man, but a good man to have beside you in a tussle, whether it be confronting lawbreakers or struggling to get into a tight-fitting coat. He was, surprisingly for an ex-seaman, very good with horses. He put it down to working on a farm before he was pressed into service with the navy. A man of many talents was Davy Locke.

      ‘I shall have the paperwork drawn up in a few minutes, Captain,’ Charlotte put in. ‘You are welcome to inspect the premises while you wait.’ She gave him what she considered to be a condescending smile. ‘You may learn something of coachmaking.’

      Alex, recognising the put-down for what it was, smiled, bowed and left the room, followed by Henry Gilpin, who went immediately to inspect the coach body which had been safely brought down to the ground floor and was being set upon a wooden cradle waiting to receive it. It had yet to be set on its undercarriage, painted and decorated and the interior finished, but even so Alex could appreciate the skilful work of the woodworkers.

      Henry began explaining some of the processes to him, but Alex was hardly listening. He was thinking about Miss Gilpin. She was certainly very touchy about her gender. Perhaps she wished she had been born a boy. She was undoubtedly handsome with fine eyebrows, a straight nose and a well-defined, determined chin, but he would not describe her as feminine, not in the way he would have used the word. Her gown was decidedly practical, in a heavy grey taffeta, having only the slightest of false hips, and her quilted stomacher was made to match the gown and had no decoration beyond a satin bow on the square neckline. There wasn’t an ounce of lace on it anywhere. It was certainly not the height of fashion. She wore her own rich brown hair pulled back into a thick roll on top of her head and fastened with combs. She wore no gloves and her fingers were ink-stained.

      And yet … and yet, she had the most expressive grey eyes. There was intelligence behind them, and humour, too, something he could admire. Was she really as competent as she appeared or was there, underneath that façade, a woman as weak and fickle as all her gender? Would she collapse in a flood of tears as soon as her self-sufficiency was put to the test? Did she really know the ins and outs of a coach-building business or was her father simply humouring a spoiled daughter? He found himself wanting to know the answers, to engage her in conversation, to find out what she was really like under that severe exterior. He felt sure such discourse would not be shallow and meaningless. It was a pity he was leaving town so soon, but then, on reflection, perhaps it was not. She was clearly not the sort for mere dalliance and he certainly did not wish for anything deeper, not after what had happened with Letitia. She had soured him for all women.

      Why

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