She hesitated. “Of course.”
Her unenthusiastic acceptance rankled, but he’d take it. He wasn’t a patient man, but he knew a thing or two about biding his time.
She was less reserved by the time the carriage pulled into sunny Shoreditch an hour later. “This is far more exciting than the West End,” she said, her nose near touching the window glass. Music halls lined the street outside, shoulder to shoulder with colorfully painted coffeehouses, minor theaters, and the few remaining luxury furniture stores in the area, all wrestling for attention from reveling crowds with flags and boldly lettered signs.
“It’s the livelier district,” he said. “Renowned, too. The National Standard Theatre, which we’ll reach in a moment, is one of the largest theaters in London.”
“I heard.” She turned to him. “Do you enjoy the theater?” Her tone was polite. She’d be making conversation at formal events with newly introduced gentlemen this way.
“No,” he said. “Nor the opera,” he added to preempt the next question.
She didn’t appear rebuffed as much as curious. “Why not?”
He considered it. “I haven’t the habit of it,” he then said. “One does not need a habit of enjoying unintelligible singing for hours when the same hours could be used in better ways.”
“For creating a stock portfolio, I imagine,” she said. Was that sarcasm in her tone?
Not for the first time since she had taken her place across the footwell, he caught himself staring at her. It was because her scent filled the small space, burnt vanilla instead of roses today, and every time she moved, it teased his nose and made him look at her. Pink mouth and chocolate eyes. The red curls framing her face bounced whenever the carriage rattled over a rough patch. She had pinned one of the flowers from his bouquet to her bodice, not quite over her heart but not just to the emotionally neutral front, either. Diplomatically adept, his wife.
“Stock portfolios,” he finally said. “Among other things, yes.”
She smiled slightly. “You sound quite like my brother Zachary,” she said. He remembered young Greenfield and his outrage when the marriage deal had been agreed, and he remained silent.
“I’m wondering,” she said, “I’m wondering how you obtain the information required to invest as successfully as you do if you keep to yourself so much.”
He met her inquisitive look with an ironic one. “I do interact with other men of business, you know.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she replied. “Your name might be in many mouths, but it is rarely in the papers.”
“People prefer to keep silent about my participation in their ventures, until recently at least,” he said. “So I use aliases for doing business or let my intermediates handle matters. And a lot of the intelligence I piece together by myself.”
“By reading The Economist?”
“The Economist and trade and science journals,” he said. “And by analyzing data from merchant tables and government blue books. Then I extrapolate.” He realized he was rubbing his neck as he spoke. Reading for hours made his back feel as if he’d done a shift underground. His body, and his temperament, were more suited for physical labor in any case, but here he was, building his wealth and power on … reading. The irony of that was never lost on him. “As for the stock markets, there’s no impartial balance sheet,” he said. “There’s no rule of law, no inevitable logic that governs a stock price; they are beasts, and they’ll lash out at you after long periods of pretending normalcy.”
She nodded along. “My family has heated debates about the very morality of stock investments.”
“And in the meantime, they make profitable use of them.”
“What does your regular day look like?” she asked, unperturbed. “I know you rise early and begin with, erm, exercise. What next?”
He said aloud what crossed his mind: “You’re very curious.”
“I’m afraid so,” she murmured, and glanced down at her hands.
“As you said, I rise early,” he said, wanting to keep her engaged. “I exercise. Then I read the papers and take note whether there are new companies forming, any consortiums advertising for an investor, or troubles brewing for supply chains. I read my correspondence”—including any information supplied by his spies in various industries and the demimonde—“and I read the analyses from the men I hire to read the trade journals that I can’t fit in. Then I make portfolio decisions.”