What They Saw

[POV SWITCH: RUPERT ANDERSON]

Funny, how quickly a house stops feeling like yours.

I was a man well settled in his habits. Knew the exact creak of the hallway floorboards, the rattle of my saucer when I set it down too briskly. I thought my days were mostly accounted for, a slow drift toward the kind of quiet that only old campaign medals and older grief can give a man.

Then along comes Richard.

He didn't storm into my life. Might've been easier if he had. No, he simply sat there that afternoon, back ramrod straight, papers laid out with painful precision, and started talking through a future so large it made me dizzy.

There's a steadiness in him that pulls at me more than I'd care to admit. Oh, he was brittle at first, fingers tensing too hard around his fork at supper, like he half-expected the food to vanish before his eyes. But that passed. Now there's a calm in him sharper than any battlefield I ever marched. When he stops by my chair in the evening to ask about tariffs or import codes, I sometimes get the uncanny sense he's balancing more than just ledgers.

It might've unsettled me once. Now? I like knowing he's under my roof, like an iron weight at the corner of a map that keeps the whole bloody thing from blowing away.

Sometimes, polishing my old medals at the kitchen table, I'd glance up to see Richard bent over some ledger. Strange how his presence made those bits of brass and ribbon feel less like mementoes of men I'd left behind, and more like… well, anchors. Proof that what I'd done led to something still walking and breathing under my roof.

More than once, I've found myself awake before dawn, listening for the light tread of his feet on the landing. Odd, how that slight sound settles me more than any loaded revolver on the nightstand ever did.

He calls me Father. It's courteous, deliberate, not born of childish affection. But I don't need it to be that way. Watching him walk out into the world with my old name tied to his, I find myself fiercely glad I gave it.

Maybe that's the best a man like me can hope for, in the end.

[POV SWITCH: MR ELLERY]

I've handled my fair share of ambitious sorts. Young heirs drooling to unlock trust funds, oily inventors pawning off "guaranteed marvels," even a viscount's whelp trying to register a shipping concern he couldn't spell.

None of them were Richard Russo.

The first real clue was three months in. He returned to my office with a new stack of licensing drafts, my drafts. Sat there silent, reading every line, finger tapping ever so lightly. Didn't say a word until near the end, then just slid the paper over with that grave little look.

"Best we tighten this, don't you think?" he murmured, fingertip resting on a clause I'd missed, one that could've let a supplier claw back a fair slice of foreign royalties.

I felt my ears burn. Spent two hours combing back through every document while he waited, patient as a priest. Not once did he smirk or gloat. Just watched with those cool eyes, like he was curious how well I'd measure up.

The strangest thing is, I've come to relish it. Used to mark my days by lunch at the club, maybe a quiet brandy after filing. Now I double-check every contract before it crosses his desk, hoping for that slight nod he gives when something's done precisely right.

If you'd asked me that first month, I'd have wagered Richard's schemes would all collapse in a year's time, like so many bright, ill-built follies. Funny how the months turned, and I realised I was the one scrambling to keep pace with him.

I also noticed, once, unsettling as anything, that he never fidgets. No drumming of fingers, no tapping of pens. Just sits still, as if everything inside is perfectly ordered.

It's absurd, really, chasing the approval of a boy not half my age, but there he is.

Making me a sharper man.

[POV SWITCH: MORAN]

War puts strange cracks in people. Seen plenty of blokes come home with their eyes rattling around loose, bodies all there but souls stuck in some trench in Belgium.

Richard? He's different.

He's got ghosts, sure. I see it in the way his shoulders coil before he steps onto the mat, like bracing against some old memory. But he's not hollow. Not even close. There's something hungry in him, like he's building himself blow by blow.

The pay's decent. Not going to pretend that didn't matter when he and the old colonel showed up. But after the first few sessions, I was hooked by plain curiosity. Most lads I train flinch or curse when the gloves land clean. Richard? He drinks it in. Stands back up every time, grinning through split lips, eyes lit with something half promise, half dare.

"He's got it," I told a mate who leaned on the ropes one morning. "That fire, deep inside."

Fella snorted. "Fire doesn't stop a right hook."

No, but it's what makes a man climb back to his feet for another. That's what forges something harder than bone.

[POV SWITCH: FORGIEN INVESTOR]

I am not easily impressed. My family has weathered two wars, rebuilt looms that were nearly seized by German hands, and kept the ledgers clean through blockade and rationing. I've sat across tables from Americans with shark grins and Scots who'd haggle over their mother's last crust.

So when young Russo invited me to dine at a small place off Rue de Rivoli, elegant but discreet, I expected a fumbling boy with a memorised script. He looked hardly older than my eldest daughter, with dark hair, a neat suit, and eyes bright but cautious.

Then he started speaking. Asked after my family by name, inquired about the status of our Marseilles mill. Ordered the wine in French, which was enough to surprise me.

When I teased, "How long have you studied?" he only smiled faintly.

"Two months."

I laughed, sure he joked, until I saw that glint behind his eyes.

By dessert, I found myself offering freight terms my father would've boxed my ears over. Signed the next morning, hand trembling a touch, and watched him stroll out into the Paris sun as if he'd merely been shopping for gloves.

[POV SWITCH: JUNIOR CLERK]

I was just glad for the work at first. Russo Holdings offered timely wages, decent working hours, and the office kept the kettle warm. Sorting invoices and tallying orders felt safe enough. Easy to hide in the numbers.

Didn't expect the owner to be a boy about half my own age. It was unnerving, as if I were waiting for him to trip up and embarrass himself, so I could laugh about it later.

Only... he never did. If anything, he caught my slips. Never cruel, never loud. Just tapped the page, murmured, "Check that again, Henry". The first time he used my name, my hands actually shook.

Now I check things three times over, not out of fear, more out of this strange hope that when he passes my desk, he'll give one of those small nods that says, just barely, well done.

I suppose that's what loyalty really is. Wanting someone to see you at your best, even if they're hardly old enough.

[POV SWITCH: TEXTILE MILL OWNER]

He turned up in Yorkshire in a jacket two sizes too neat for our soot-choked yard. Thought I'd have some London pup on my hands, soft fingers, soft words.

But he stood in the middle of the floor, thread-lint clinging to his trousers, and listened. Really listened. Asked how long our dye vats ran before souring, how many spindles we lost each month to rust. Most southerners just nod at the tour, shake hands, and vanish.

When I quoted my cautious trial rate, high enough to give me room, he didn't bluster. Only asked two questions about freight duty, then agreed with a hand that didn't so much as tremble.

"Because we'll be partners a long while yet," he said. Calm as anything. And somehow I believed him.

It wasn't just that his questions were clever. It was how he waited for the answers — patient, unblinking, like he'd stand in that hot, reeking hall all day just to be sure he understood the workings right.

When he finally signed, I noticed he wrote his name slowly, each letter deliberate, as if sealing a pact he meant to honour, even if the whole mill burned down tomorrow.

I'd wager I'm over twice his age and three times his weight, but when we signed, I left thinking he was the one doing me the favour.

[POV SWITCH: MARTHA]

I've seen orphans grow into fine men, and I've seen them shrivel before they even sprout. Thought I knew which sort young Richard was. Too still, too watchful. Like a fox in the henhouse waiting for the torchlight.

But he surprised me. Came back week after week, even when he could've turned his back like so many do once they've sniffed out a better bed. The little ones cluster round him like chicks, even though half the time he just listens, gives them those few coins with a nod as if it's a pact more than a kindness.

Me? I'm grateful enough to keep my tongue soft. Lord knows the world doesn't hand out many boys who remember where they came from, or who pay down old debts with small copper coins.

I reckon one day I'll see his name in the papers for some grand company or clever invention, and I'll think: Aye, that was our Richard. Came from Wool's, he did. And didn't shame it one bit.

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