Liam behaved differently whenever Gwen left the room. He was hungry for information and latched on to everything Patrick could teach him. The first order of business was to improve Liam’s ability to read. He had dropped out of school twenty years ago and hadn’t looked at a book since. At first Liam couldn’t read more than a line or two, but he got better with practice. They put the financial section of the daily newspaper on the table before them, and Patrick read a sentence aloud while Liam’s eyes followed along each line of text. Then Liam had to read the same sentence with Patrick ready to help.

Liam’s ability to read came back quickly, but he could barely write. Patrick asked him to write a short summary of each article they read. Liam’s spelling was an embarrassment and his handwriting was atrocious, but he never tired. No matter how long they practiced, Liam was eager to learn and peppered Patrick with questions about contracts, interest rates, and investments.

Then Gwen returned, and Liam was once again contentious and difficult. A perfect example was the day it was too rainy to work outdoors, so Gwen settled in with an embroidery hoop while Patrick taught Liam the difference between a stock and a commodity.

“Stocks are shares in a specific company, but commodities are raw goods like wheat, corn, or copper,” he explained. “Depending on the supply of the commodities, the price rises or falls.”

Liam jabbed a finger at the headline. “People are celebrating the lousy wheat harvest. It’s coldhearted.”

“It’s not that they’re celebrating, but the price of wheat is going up because of the floods in the Midwest. That means people who invested in wheat futures will—”

“Will get rich off hungry people,” Liam said and glared at Gwen. “Do you people profit off these high-flying wheat prices?”

Gwen remained calm. “And by ‘you people’ are you referring to our family?”

“Your family,” Liam said. “Your family lives in a palace and gets rich while everyone else is paying inflated prices for bread.”

“Knock it off, Liam,” Patrick warned. “Gwen and I are trying to cram enough business insight into your head so that Frederick Blackstone will assign your father’s voting shares back to you. That’s your best shot to help the working people of this country.”

He didn’t need to ask a second time. Liam straightened and went back to painfully writing out his summary of the article, and Gwen sent Patrick a look of gratitude.

Thank you, she silently mouthed, and he beamed back at her. As much as he resented being torn away from home to play peacemaker between these two, Gwen needed his help, and that meant the world to him.

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