Read Online DisobediencebyDesign by Regina Kammer - Free Book Online Page B

such an insecurity
moved her deeply. “I can’t see anyone thinking that about you,” she said,
subdued. “You’re very confident, you know the railway business and your accent
is exotic.” And ridiculously seductive . She could listen to him reading
railway schedules and be riveted.
    He sipped his tea. “Thank you,” he said. “Still, I have to
mingle with the Cambridge and Oxford set to get investors. There’s only so much
ignorance I can attribute to cultural difference.”
    “I admire that very much. Does Arthur know you put in all
this extra effort?”
    “He does. He says I shouldn’t worry.”
    Sophia stood. “Well you shouldn’t. Would you want to take
money from someone who minds if you don’t know your Homer from your
Shakespeare? I’d rather my investors cared that I knew about railway parts.”
    He smirked. “That’s what your brother said.”
    “Well it’s true!” she said, her hands on her hips. She went
to the writing desk. “May I see what you’ve done today?”
    “Of course.” He got up and joined her.
    Before them were multiple pages of drawings of machines. Some
of the drawings appeared to be of the same machine, as if Joseph was trying to
get it just right but didn’t quite know what was missing. The mechanical pieces
were just that—mechanical. Nothing special. Nothing spectacular. Nothing that
would incite a man with money to lay it down very readily.
    “They’re so precise, so perfect. So…lifeless.”
    “They’re machines. They’re supposed to be lifeless.”
    “Well yes, but…” The drawings lacked something but
what? She looked around the studio at the ornate metal rafters, the disused
furniture of forgotten eras, the stacks of books… One very large book stuck out
in the middle of one of the stacks. A folio.
    The Grammar of Ornament by Owen Jones. Perfect.
    She grabbed the pasteboard folder and opened it on the
floor, spreading out the plates. “What if you put some decoration on your
machines?”
    He pursed his lips as his gaze followed her finger tracing a
curling tendril of Greek design. “They go under the carriage—one really does
not see them.”
    “But a railway carriage is big. You have to step up onto it.
So you might see all these bits?” She waved over at his drawings on the desk. “Like
if you were a passenger and walked by it on the platform.”
    “You might.” He eyed her with a smirk.
    “And what about the men who build the carriage?”
    “What about them?” His challenge was tinged with enthusiasm.
    “They’ll see all these parts, won’t they?”
    “Yes,” he admitted, “they will.”
    “And the investors. They’ll see all your drawings, won’t
they?”
    “Many of them, yes.”
    “So make it beautiful for them.”
    He crinkled his forehead. “For whom exactly?”
    “For all of them.”
    “But the passengers—surely they won’t even notice,” he
countered.
    “The women will notice. And the children. The parts will be
at their eye level.”
    “And the laborers—they’re just workers. Surely they do not
matter?” he said with playful antagonism.
    “How will they ever be elevated from their base and horrid
state unless they are exposed to beauty?” she said in a teasingly condescending
tone.
    “And the investors?” A quiver at the corner of his mouth
revealed he fought to quell a grin.
    “What better way to appeal to the classically educated
investors from Cambridge and Oxford than to make the designs more classical in
form?”
    Joseph beamed. “You have a point.”
    “And you could convince my brother such elegance will be
good for the business. Surely the wealthier railroad men could be enticed by
their vanity into having the most beautiful machines? You would simply charge
them more for the privilege.”
    “Sophia, you’re a genius!” He put his arm around her
shoulders and kissed her hair.
    Her breath hitched, her head tingled where his lips had
touched her. She drew back slightly and looked up at him. He