“My family owns Warbrooke Shipping.”
She turned back around. “Oh, then I guess that makes you wealthy.”
“Very. Does it make any difference to you?”
“It explains your horse and your perfectly cut uniform and your education and having a servant like Toby.”
He didn’t tell her how pleased he was that his wealth didn’t matter to her. Sometimes, where women were concerned, having money was a hindrance. Sometimes they saw the money and not the man. “Some servant he is.”
“Tell me about Toby and why you think we’re alike.”
’Ring took a deep breath before he spoke. “You and I have been alone. I sensed it a few days after we met, but after you told me about your childhood, I knew you were as alone as I have been.”
“But I have never been alone. I have always been surrounded by my family, and later I had John and a hundred social engagements. I have had far too little time alone.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. Perhaps alone isn’t the right word. Different. You and I have always been different.”
“I have been different, but I can’t see that you are.”
“My father is a good man, a very good man. He has a heart of gold. He would give the shirt off his back to any man who needed it. He would give up his own life before he’d see one of his children harmed. But—”
“But what?”
“To be honest, the man has no head for business. He can’t sit still long enough to do the paperwork required to run a company the size of Warbrooke Shipping, and a sunny day is to him an opportunity to go fishing or go on a picnic with my mother.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad. Sometimes I wish I had more time to devote to pleasure.”
“You can’t devote all your life to pleasure when there is a company like ours to manage. There are thousands of employees depending on us. What we pay them feeds their families.”
“And your father forgot that?”
“I guess so. Forgot or never realized.”
“So that’s why you were involved in the company since you were a child?”
“Yes, I don’t know how it happened. I was curious, and my father praised me whenever I did anything that helped him. It all seemed to have evolved rather gradually.”
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sp; He smiled. “And then, too, like your gift for singing, I seem to have a gift for running a business. It was no problem for me to keep all the things in my mind that I needed to keep there. My father said I was like his father, that I was a true Montgomery.”
“So you gave up your childhood to do a man’s job.”
“Did you feel you were giving up anything when you were inside singing and the rest of the world was outside in the sunshine?”
“No, I felt lucky and sad for them that God hadn’t given them the talent He had given me.”
“I felt about the same. My mother hired a tutor for me and in the evenings I read with him and—”
“Learned languages.”
“Yes, I learned a few languages. I think I thought I’d use them when I visited all the exotic places I’d heard the men who sailed on our ships talk about.”
“Your mother hired you a tutor and your father hired Toby as a different sort of tutor, didn’t he?”
“Exactly.”
She was thoughtful for a moment. “But Toby doesn’t take care of you, does he? You take care of him.”