Trying to sound jovial, Roo said, “It has to be a boy. Otherwise I’m going to have to have all the signs changed to ‘Avery and Daughters,’ and wouldn’t that be something to see?”
She smiled weakly. “If a son will make you happy, I hope it’s a boy.”
He said, “If it’s as wonderful a child as this one, then I’ll be happy.”
Karli didn’t look convinced, and as Roo started to leave the room, laying his half-drunk cup of coffee on the table, she said, “Aren’t you going to eat?”
“No,” he said as he took down his coat from the peg on the wall next to the outer door, “I have to make straight for the office. I have an important letter to write, then I have to come back over here for a meeting at Barret’s.”
Without waiting for her to say anything else, he left the house and Karli heard the door slam. She sighed as she attempted to keep most of the food going into the baby’s mouth and not onto the floor.
Time passed and life took on a strange but steady tempo. Roo conspired to steal away to Sylvia once or twice a week, while spending a like number of nights each week with his business associates. There had been a horrible scene when she had claimed remorse because he was married, and he had to beg for weeks to get her to agree to see him again. She had at last relented when he had sent her a diamond and emerald necklace that had cost him more gold than he could have imagined only two years before. Sylvia finally admitted she loved him, and Roo had fallen into a routine of illicit love and lying to his wife.
His strengths as a businessman emerged quickly, and rarely did he enter into a bad bargain, and those few he did become enmeshed in created little financial hardship. Over the course of months the Bitter Sea Company grew and prospered.
Roo also learned how best to deploy the skills of those working for him. Duncan was most valuable at ferreting out rumors and keys to trading opportunities among the inns and taverns of the caravansaries and docks. Jason was proving adept at the single most confounding element of business to Roo, the management of funds. There was far more to being a merchant prince than merely buying and selling. Such odd concepts as cross-collateralization and mutually shared risk among non-members of the company, where best to invest gold not being used for purchases, and when to seek safety by simply letting the gold sit—all these were areas of knowledge where Jason showed an uncanny knack, while Roo could barely follow along. Six months after he first bedded Sylvia, Roo’s company took control of a countinghouse and began its own banking.
Luis was proving to be a treasure to Roo. He could be as gentle with an angry woman customer as he could be merciless with the toughest teamster. Twice he had to prove to one of the more belligerent that even with one crippled hand he was more than able to enforce his orders.
Dash was the mystery to Roo. He seemed indifferent to any personal gain, but was pleased by the growth of the Bitter Sea Company as much as Roo was. It was as if he was serving the company for the sheer pleasure of seeing it thrive rather than to benefit himself. And upon occasion, he even contrived to involve his brother in some scheme or another. Between the two of them, Jimmy and Dash could be a formidable pair against whom Roo wouldn’t wish to find himself pitted.
As Karli grew with what he hoped was his son, Roo felt life could hardly be better save for two sour notes: the continued existence of Tim Jacoby and the absence of his friends from the old days.
17
Disasters
Roo sighed.
The baby squirmed in his arms as the priest droned through his incantations and poured scented oil on the baby’s forehead. While he was thrilled at having a son, Roo decided that nothing would ever make the naming ceremony any more bearable.
“I name you Helmut Avery,” said the priest at last. Roo handed the child to Karli and kissed her upon the cheek. Then he kissed little Abigail, who was squirming in Mary’s arms, and said, “I must rush to the office for a while, but I’ll be home in two hours at the latest.”
Karli looked dubious, knowing as she did that her husband often worked impossibly long hours, sometimes throughout the night and the next day, before returning home. “We have guests coming,” she reminded him.