Page 45 of Honor Unbound

Burton exhaled a long, slow breath. “I know, it’s one of the things I admire most about her.”

I arched an eyebrow. Admire was one word for it.

I stepped inside the office. “Hallo? Mr. Hicks?” The office and factory beyond were quiet. Had business still not resumed? I would think Mrs. Trent would have authorized the workers to be paid so profits could still be earned.

Something clattered upstairs. “I’ll be right down,” Hicks called.

Burton turned for the stairwell, his feet wide, shoulders tense.

I placed my hand on his arm. “Don’t act in haste. If you truly want to know what happened, you’re more likely to discover it with words than fists.”

His shoulders lowered an inch. “Perhaps.”

He didn’t sound convinced, and I didn’t want a black-and-blue Hicks on my conscience. “And you can’t protect Marie if you are arrested for assault.”

He sighed. “Fine. I’ll behave. For now.”

Fenton Hicks came down the last of the stairs. He hadn’t shaved that day, and there were more wrinkles in his jacket, blue, I noted, than in my linen shift after Southey had made a bed of it. He ran his hand across his stubbly jaw. “Lady Mary. What can I do for you today?”

“Has the factory been closed all this time?” I walked over to the factory door and poked it open with my walking stick. All the machinery was still. “Don’t you have food that will spoil if not canned?”

Hicks stared morosely into the factory. “Much of it has already spoiled. We could get back up and running as soon as the men are paid, but the only response I’ve received fromMrs. Trent is that she needs time to mourn before thinking of business.”

“I suppose that is understandable.” After my husband had died, I’d found the routine of paying bills and managing the estate to be quite useful in controlling my grief. Mrs. Trent, however, might have other things to distract her.

“You’ve been here all day, have you?” Burton asked. His hands were stuffed into his trouser pockets, whether in an attempt to look casual or a precaution against his urge to strike Hicks, I didn’t know. I appreciated the gesture either way.

“Yes, for what good it’s done.” Hicks leaned against the door jamb, crossing his arms. “I’ve cleaned the machines and tables three times over. When we do start again, we’ll have the most spotless factory in London. If we start again.”

“I still don’t understand the process.” I waved to the factory floor. “Can you explain what everything here does?”

He pushed off the door jamb. “Why not?” He led us to a long table with five deep bowls lining the center. “This is where our workers fill the tins with the food. The tins are then taken to this table to make sure the rims and outsides are clean. We don’t want food residue anywhere but inside the tin.”

After tasting the canned food, I wasn’t certainwewanted food residueinsidethe can, either. But I nodded as though it were the most interesting thing in the world.

He continued the tour, showing how the lid press worked, where the tins were heated, and then the final step, where a stamp was pressed into the lid of the tin identifying the manufacturer, its contents, and the date it was processed.

I picked up one of the metal files that lay on a side table. “Why do you have files here? At the factory that makes the tins it makes sense, but your cans are already shaped.”

“When you seal a lid on, the rim of the tin can get rough.” Hicks leaned back against a table, crossing his arms. “Before wesend the tins out, we do quality control and smooth all the edges so no one cuts themselves.”

“How decent of you.”

Hicks must have missed Burton’s sarcasm. He smiled fondly. “When old Trent senior was just starting out, I remember him spending nights here making sure all the rims were smooth.”

“You were here then, when Trent’s father owned the place?” I asked.

“I’ve been here since the beginning, and better run this place was then, too.” Hicks sniffed.

“At what step in the process is there the potential for contamination?” I asked.

“A couple.” Hicks rubbed the back of his neck. “The food could be bad to start. When filling the tins, any scratch or dent could interfere with the heating process. And then the heating process itself might not have been adequate to preserve the food.”

Burton rested his hands on his hips. “And what step were you going to tell the courts had been the issue for the spoiled food that killed our sailors?”

Hicks’s face reddened. “What are you talking about?”

I strolled over to a stack of tinned food. A stray can was wedged between the table leg and the wall, half-hidden by a warped floorboard. “We spoke with Mr. Gray. He told us you’d agreed to say that it was Mr. Trent’s error, and not Gray’s, that resulted in the contaminated food. Even if it wasn’t true.”