“Mariah,” her father called out, “I will see you now.”
“Good luck!” Evie placed a kiss to her cheek, then hurried away to her room as she did after every one of these morning talks with their father. Ostensibly to pack for Cornwall, only to be reprieved by dinnertime when Papa always changed his mind.
Drawing in a deep breath, Mariah walked into the study and stopped in front of her father’s large desk. She contritely folded her hands in front of her and awaited the ritual tongue-lashing.
“This time, my dear, you have gone too far.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
He wouldn’t be scolding her like this if she were a man. No, he’d have been crowing with pride that his son possessed the skills to match any of the best drivers among the gentry. On the other hand, if he’d treated her with the same respect and pride that he would have treated a son, she would have been too busy with the business to look for ways to disrupt a dull afternoon in the first place.
She swallowed down the bitter taste of frustration. At twenty-five, she should have already been a partner in the company, fulfilling the dream she’d wanted since she was a little girl. To have a serious role in running the family business. To participate in the merchant trade that was such a large part of her father’s world and that still connected her to her late mother. Instead, he saw her as nothing more than a young miss to be dressed up in furs and silks like a doll, who should be content wasting away her days at silly teas and boring balls.
But Mariah wasn’t like that. Had never been. One good look should have told him that.
These days, however, Papa never truly saw her at all. Unless she was standing in front of him, being scolded. Like now. But instead of gaining his attention, he saw her behavior as simply another act of rebellion.
He shook his head. “A phaeton on St James’s Street.”
“I drove that team well,” she countered. “You cannot deny that.”
“Yes, you drove well.” For a moment, she thought she saw a flicker of pride in his eyes. “But you are not a driver at the Ealing Races. You are a young lady from a respectable family—”
Her chest fell. No, not a flicker of pride after all.
“—one who scandalously flaunted herself by racing down St James’s Street—”
“I did not flaunt myself,” she corrected firmly but quietly. Heavens! He made her sound like an actress strutting the boards at Covent Garden.
“—risking both her neck and her sister’s, in addition to ruining their reputations.”
“Our reputations are not ruined.” That was one thing about which she was always careful. No matter how bold her antics, she always danced the fine line that separated acts for idle rumors from acts of ruination. Oh, she’d let the fops and hens of the so-called quality gossip about her behind her back all they wanted to, as if she didn’t know that they already did just that. As if she didn’t know that they’d nicknamed her the Hellion. She couldn’t care less what those busybodies thought of her.
But ruining her reputation meant possibly ruining the business’s reputation, and she would never do anything to harm Winslow Shipping. She loved the company as much as her father did, and what she desired more than anything was to work side by side with him in growing the business for the next generation of Winslows who would continue the company that her grandfather had started. She held no delusions about running the business herself. As a woman, she’d never be able to do that. But it was certainly within her reach to be a partner, one who oversaw day-to-day responsibilities. And then it would truly be a family business in every way.
If Papa would ever let her.
“If you keep behaving like some wild creature without any understanding of her position,” Papa continued, exasperation heavy in his voice, “how do you ever expect to find a respectable husband?”
She bit back the urge to answer that she hoped to find a disrespectable husband, knowing a comment like that would certainly get her sent back to Miss Pettigrew’s, right beside Evie.
“How do you expect to receive any invitations for this upcoming season if you behave like this?” he demanded in a tone clearly implying that he did not want an answer. “A lady of quality would never invite someone who cannot control herself to her soiree.”
Oh, the devil take society invitations! The very last place Mariah wanted to be was at some stuffy, boring ball. If society cut her completely, what would she care…or notice? After all, it wasn’t as if the quality was flooding the front foyer with calling cards and invitations in the first place. Not when they regarded the Winslows as nothing but upstart cits infringing on their hallowed aristocratic ranks. While they couldn’t ignore the importance of the company or her family’s wealth, they could certainly ignore her. And did.
Yet this was the part of Papa’s speech that Mariah knew by heart, the same one it seemed lately he’d delivered at least once per sennight and more frequently as the new season approached. Another season in which he hoped she would finally venture into the uncharted waters of society and make her mark, ideally snatching up a fine husband in the process. Mariah couldn’t have cared less. But this division between them seemed to be growing wider as the season drew nearer.
This hadn’t been an issue before she was sent to Miss Pettigrew’s, where she’d received a fine education…if all she wanted to know was how to host dinner parties, paint watercolors, and play the pianoforte. So she’d taken it upon herself to carve out a real education through tutors secretly paid to ignore whatever frivolous lesson had been planned that day and teach her useful skills instead. The result was an education that more than prepared her for success in business. And a decided lack of talent at the pianoforte.
But Papa refused to entertain the idea of her working with him. All he wanted to know was how she planned to spend her season, when she would marry and give him grandchildren. Every time she arrived at the office to surprise him, to throw herself into work and show him how capable she was, he promptly told her that the docks were no place for a lady and sent her home.
So last fall, she’d set out to prove to her father that she was far more than just some mindless miss. To finally gain his attention as something other than someone to be molded into a perfect society lady. To show him how important the business was to her.
And so far…
“Mariah, you are embarrassing yourself and this family.”
It wasn’t going well. At this rate, he might never offer her the partnership she dreamt of.
Yet he hadn’t offered one to anyone outside the family, either. She took hope in that. Because perhaps that meant he understood that the best person to guide Winslow Shipping and Trade was a Winslow. To Mariah, the company was so much more than a business. It was her heart and soul, and one of the few connections she had left to that happy time before her mother’s death. Surely, Papa was coming around to realizing that.
If not…well, then she’d simply wear him down until he surrendered. Siege warfare worked with medieval castles, after all. And she couldn’t imagine a more medieval relic than Henry Winslow.
“So I have decided to make some changes.”
Mariah’s gaze snapped to his. That was different.
Usually this was the part of the speech where he threatened to revoke her allowance, to force her to remain room-ridden for the next fortnight, to send her to a convent even though they were devoutly Church of England—
But this time, there were no empty threats. This time, he stared at her across his desk with the same glint in his eyes that shined whenever he faced down business adversaries.
“I’ve been listening to you during the past few months,” he told her, “to your concerns about how the company needs new blood. How we need a new generation to keep us moving into the future.”