Rivals in the City by Y. S. Lee Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t think I’ll go to church today.” He felt perfectly healthy in body. But he wasn’t going to risk St Pancras today in case Mary was there. Even sharing a parish church was too great a link between them, now.
    George looked at him carefully. “I thought you seemed off. Grim and terse.”
    “Well, it’s nice you could distinguish between that and my usual behaviour.”
    George failed to smile. “What’s wrong, Jamie? Is the headache anything to do with, er, your … female friend?”
    James became genuinely irritable. “She has a name, George. I’d appreciate your learning to use it.”
    “Miss Quinn, then.” Despite his best efforts, George looked as though the name left a nasty taste in his mouth. “It’s something to do with her, and that infernal detective agency she made you set up, isn’t it? I knew that was a disastrous idea, but would you listen to me? Oh no—”
    “George!” James leaned forward and pounded the side table, making the biscuits leap and skitter across the tray. “Just because you’ve a poor opinion of her doesn’t mean she’s the source of all trouble. And don’t give me that look. I know what you’re thinking.”
    “Do you? I’d be surprised…”
    James was sick of acrimony. Besides, George was dangerously close to the mark. It was to do with Mary, but not in the way that George suspected. “My ill temper has nothing to do with Miss Quinn,” he repeated, with a truth that was more emotional than factual. “Now, will you please tell me your news?” He raised his coffee cup to his lips, then set it down again. The early argument had curdled his stomach.
    For answer, George pulled a letter from his dressing-gown pocket and placed it triumphantly before James. It was addressed to the Messieurs Easton and had a City postmark. “Came yesterday evening,” said George, in tones of great satisfaction. “But you’d gone out…”
    James refrained from rolling his eyes and unfolded the letter. As he read, his eyes widened and he glanced up at his brother’s smirking face.
    “Keep reading,” said George. “It gets better.”
    James forced himself to read each word slowly – the letter-writer prided himself on a dashing and near-illegible penmanship – but there was no controlling it: that instant, prickling excitement of a new and ambitious project. The sort of request to which he couldn’t possibly say no. Even if he were so inclined. When he’d finished the letter, he sat staring at it for several moments, his mind already racing ahead to design, materials, time to completion, possible difficulties.
    It was George who brought him back to the present with a smug, “Awake now?”
    “Fully conscious, yes.” This would be one of the largest and most important jobs Easton Engineering had ever been offered: the reconstruction of a series of underground vaults at the Bank of England. Utterly confidential. Highest security. And, naturally, deeply urgent. And yet … deep within him, there was an alarm bell ringing.
    “Come on, you donkey! This is just the sort of thing you need. That bridge project is boring you silly, I can tell, and that’s why you’re still lolling in bed this morning.” George squinted at James, leaning in close to inspect the patient. “Tell me you’re not instantly bucked up by this job: logistical nightmare of new excavation, two storeys underground. Vaults full of French gold to be juggled about London in the middle of the night. It sounds damn near impossible, and must be done in as little time as possible. That sounds exactly like you, Jamie.” He paused, then added, “Not to mention that there’s no tender. You’re the man they want.”
    James nodded, chewing his lip. That sentence, stipulating his specific involvement, made him nervous. “I wonder what they mean by that? I mean, why not you? If it comes to that, why not one of the larger engineering firms? Brunel has far more experience than we do.”
    “Perfectly obvious,”