“I will not pretend, then,” Ben told him curtly. “Yes, I have feelings for her. Inappropriate and pointless feelings. And I will be leaving this morning because there is no future for us, because she needs to be left alone to find herself and her place here. I believe she will. And I believe she has a chance for happiness. She has not had much of that in her life. And I will be leaving because I need to find myself and my place of belonging. I will do it. You need not fear that I will linger.”
“And I would not believe Samantha,” Bevan said, “if she told me that you are no more to her than a friend.”
“Pardon me,” Ben said stiffly, “but I am not sure you have the right to offer any opinion on this matter, sir.”
The older man’s eyebrows rose, and he picked up his knife and fork and tackled his breakfast. “I like you, Major,” he said. “You are a man after my own heart. And you are quite correct. I have no right whatsoever.”
He paused to eat, and Ben did likewise. He would excuse himself as soon as his plate was empty and be on his way. He did not know why Bevan had come except, perhaps, to warn him to leave without delay and never to return. He did not need to say it. He really did not have the right, anyway.
“I am sixty-six years old,” Bevan said, picking up the conversation again. “I am not an old man—at least, I do not feel like one—but I am not young either. If I had a son, I would be gradually transferring my responsibilities to his younger shoulders, provided he showed the necessary interest and aptitude, of course. It has been one of the enduring disappointments of my life that I have no son, but that cannot be helped now. I have able and trusted men in charge at the mines and at the ironworks. I have been fortunate in my employees. What I have longed for and actively searched for in the past four or five years, however, is an overseer, a supermanager, if you will, someone with the interest and energy and ability to take charge of all my industrial concerns. Someone I can trust, and someone who trusts me. Someone who is as like a son to me as possible. Someone to replace me, in fact, after I retire and until my death, and to be well compensated afterward. He would have to be a special kind of man, for it is not enough just to understand facts or to have ideas or even to have both together. It is not enough even to have organizational skills, though they are necessary. He would have to be someone who could get work done and ensure profits while not neglecting the safety and well-being of all the workers under him. He would have to inspire trust and loyalty and even liking while at the same time demanding the best efforts of his workers. He would have to take a personal interest in what he does as well as just a professional one. He would have to be someone rather like me, in fact. He has not been easy to find, Major. Or to find at all, in fact.”
Ben had stopped eating to look fixedly at the other man. “Are you offering me a job?” he asked.
Bevan set down his knife and fork and poured them each another cup of coffee before answering.
“I pride myself upon being a good judge of character,” he said. “I think it is one reason for my success. I sensed something about you as soon as I met you, even though I was predisposed to dislike you, having listened to some of the local gossip—which was not particularly vicious, I must add. I sensed something about you both then and last evening, and you have confirmed that impression this morning. You liked your men, Major? You were not the sort of officer who commanded obedience with a whip?”
“I never ordered or condoned the British army’s practice of whipping its soldiers,” Ben said. “Yes, I liked my men. Apart from a few irredeemable rogues, most soldiers are the salt of the earth and will give their best, even their lives, when called upon to do so.”
He was being offered a job. In Wales. Overseeing coal mines and ironworks. Could anything be more bizarre?
“Employment for me has always been about more than just making money,” the older man said. “I could have lived in great luxury on what my father left me. I could have appointed managers for the mines and given them no further thought. Indeed, I did just that during the years when I was drinking and feeling sorry for myself. Fortunately, I was not cut out for idleness of either body or mind, and that fact was perhaps my salvation. I believe that in many ways we are similar, Major.”
“You are offering me employment,” Ben said.
“Knowing that you do not need the money,” Bevan said, raising his coffee cup to his lips, “and that some gentlemen, maybe most, would find it demeaning to work around industry. But you do need to use your gifts and your skills, and you will never again use them in the army. I would rather you than anyone else I have met.”
Ben shook his head and laughed softly. Was he actually tempted? More than tempted?
“Everything I have will be Samantha’s one day,” Bevan said.
Ben sobered instantly. “Are you offering the job on condition that I marry Mrs. McKay?” he asked. Sudden anger curled like a tight ball in his stomach.
“On the contrary, Major,” Bevan said. “I offer the employment on condition that you leave here. An empire is not run from a country estate or even from a seaside cottage. I have homes in Swansea and in Merthyr Tydfil. You would live on site. And I do not offer permanent employment. Not yet. I do not know that you are capable of doing the job well. I do not know that it would suit you. Or if it would suit me to have you. We would need time to discover if we are a good fit for each other. As for my granddaughter, well, I will not deny that I sat up half the night thinking of how convenient it would be if you really did become my right-hand man, as capable and enthusiastic a manager as I have been, perhaps even with new, fresh ideas to bring to the task. And of how convenient it would then be if you were to marry Samantha. For then, eventually, everything would be yours as well as hers. It would be a storybook ending for an elderly man who long ago gave up all hope of happy endings. But I press nothing on you, Major Harper. Or on her. Indeed, I would insist that you leave here immediately.”