With Love From Ma Maguire Read Online Free

black hat on the table, a silver-headed cane leaning against bookshelves, a pair of handsome grey kid gloves tossed carelessly on to a chair.
    She hesitated fractionally, her hand resting on the door knob. Swainbank was a quantity relatively unknown, a being that passed occasionally through the spinning room with a time-piece in its hand. A spectator. A creature that escaped frequently to fresher and cooler air. This was a hard man, one whose supposedly regal posture commanded immediate respect and unquestioning obedience.
    ‘Well?’ he asked, a straight eyebrow raised towards thick brown hair. ‘What can I do for you?’
    With a bravado fed by anger, she fixed her eyes on him, although her knees seemed to have gone to jelly. The cotton barons of Bolton were a breed apart, a breed that defied both description and explanation. Here sat a gentleman who was not a gentleman, a monied person who owned lands and cattle without ever touching plough or feedbag. Yet his vowels were often as flat as those of any winder, while his manner fell far short of the genteel. What was he, then? A self-made man? No. His money was old, passed down along the line from earlier generations of mill tyrants. But this man of means had been known to roll up his sleeves a time or two during epidemics, could kick a mechanical mule to life when every engineer in the town had signed its death certificate. Aye. She nodded slightly. Himself would work the mills until the day he died . . . A self-made gentleman? Was such a creature a possibility, even a fact? He was, she concluded with an almost imperceptible shrug, an improbability . . .
    ‘What is it you want?’ He folded his arms and leaned back in the chair.
    It was the edge to his words that thrust her forward, propelled her through the space between door and desk. The tone, the very cadence of his voice, that mixture of superiority, condescension and . . . and amusement! With grim determination, she stared into eyes as black as hell itself, irises of a brown so dark as to leave the pupils unremarkable. Richard Swainbank was a man of great beauty, the sort of beauty that went beyond the merely handsome. In spite of more than forty summers, his face remained unmarked by time, while the odd combination of colourings with which he was endowed set him even further apart from the general run. Hair and whiskers were fair to mid-brown, while lashes and eyebrows echoed the darkness they so clearly framed. But Philly was not impressed by such arresting packaging.
    ‘Well?’ he asked impatiently.
    Her hackles were fully risen by this time. He was known far and wide for his tantrums, was Mr Swainbank, had never been averse to on-the-spot sackings or wage dockings. But she didn’t care, didn’t choose to care! Straightening her shoulders, Philly slapped the grisly parcel on to his desk where, lying between inkstand and blotter, it slowly unwound to reveal the sad contents.
    ‘I expected the manager, but I suppose you’ll have to do. That, Mr Swainbank, is a severed finger. The child to whom it was recently attached is twelve years old with ricketty legs and not a pick of flesh to his bones . . .’
    ‘Bloody hell!’ He returned the woman’s furious stare. She talked as if she were educated, as if she imagined herself to be his equal! ‘And what, pray, would you have me do with this item? Shall I use it as a paperweight? If the damn fool lad can’t run fast enough to save his hands, then he’s no use to me!’
    She leaned forward, tightly clenched fists pressing against the edge of the desk. ‘You can shove it, Mr Swainbank!’
    ‘Pardon?’ The second eyebrow joined its twin.
    ‘You heard me sure enough! Shove that and the job up your waistcoat front!’
    He fought a chuckle that rumbled ominously in the region of his chest. What a fighter, eh?
    ‘The poor boy is no use to anyone from this day! And that is your fault!’ After a moment or two, she added a derogatory ‘Sir’ to this