“Did you feel the lure—the one I know all true inventors feel? Did it feel right—that it was right and proper? Did it feel as if you have a place in inventing?”
“Yes.” Her reply came so quickly, he knew he’d touched on something she truly had experienced. She went on, “At least to your first question. As for the others...” She frowned. Even though he couldn’t see her eyes, he knew she was looking inward.
Then she shook her head and met his gaze. “I can’t yet say. I’ll have to take them under advisement.”
They were alone in the night, standing close.
He felt the tug of attraction, of building desire, a tangible sensation that pushed him to shift closer still—to draw her to him.
They’d both spoken openly of things they had—he felt quite sure—never revealed to any other. They’d started, deliberately, down the path of understanding each other better than anyone else in the world.
The temptation to take the next step—to draw her into his arms and set his lips to hers—thudded in his blood.
He teetered on that indefinable edge, but held his breath and braced against it—achingly aware of the compulsion, but not yet willing to take the plunge and risk...any sort of awkwardness that might drive her from the workshop she’d only so recently reentered or strain the cooperation he now knew to his soul he needed from her if the Throgmorton engine was ever to see success.
Was it wrong to put that in the scales? To weigh his responsibility to all the others against what he felt for her?
Regardless, his voice lower still, a touch of gravel in his tone, he said, “Promise me you’ll tell me when you learn the answers.”
Felicia held his gaze and felt his words resonate deep inside. Tension had risen between them—but this wasn’t a tension she’d felt before. This tension excited. Tempted and lured.
But he made no move, and she told herself she was grateful for that. They’d met only five days before. Surely that was too short a time to have developed a meaningful connection. And yet...there they were.
In the dark of the night with secrets already spoken and shared.
Still holding his gaze, she inclined her head and stepped back from the lure. “Goodnight.” Her voice had lowered to a sultry tone.
Her nerves leapt and prickled as she turned, opened the French doors, and slipped into the drawing room.
As she crossed the shadowed space, absentmindedly avoiding the furniture, she told herself she was deeply glad he’d refrained from reaching for her; if he had, God alone knew what she might have done.
She passed through the open drawing room door and walked slowly into the front hall. She’d been kissed before, been waltzed and wooed, yet nothing had prepared her for Randolph Cavanaugh and his effect on her senses, her wits—on her will.
Nothing had prepared her for her own desire—no other man had ever evoked it. She’d never before had to deal with this sparkling compulsion.
Yet another novel and unexpected twist in her new direction—courtesy of Lord Randolph Cavanaugh.
Rand stood on the night-shrouded terrace and let Felicia walk away from him.
He waited—not thinking, not allowing his mind to speculate—until he felt enough time had elapsed for her to have gained her room.
Only then did he haul in a deeper breath, shove his hands into his pockets, and turn to look out over the south lawn.
The silvered expanse remained empty.
Lips setting, he opened the door through which Felicia had gone, stepped inside, then snibbed the lock. He checked the second pair of French doors and found them already locked. Satisfied that he could trust Johnson to have seen to the rest of the house—the butler must have glimpsed Rand and Felicia outside and left the French doors, the pair most often used by his mistress to go outside, unlocked—Rand followed Felicia’s trail across the darkened room and up the stairs.
Her room lay opposite his, her door a few paces farther down the corridor. He hesitated, vacillating in the darkness between his door and hers; on hearing no sounds from her room, he turned and entered his.
He hadn’t bothered to leave a light burning. After shutting the door, he crossed to the uncurtained window and stood looking, unseeing, at the dark shapes of the trees in the woods.
In retrospect, he’d been a coward to allow that moment on the terrace to pass. He should have seized the chance when it offered and trusted to Fate to see him right.
At least it was only a step forward he hadn’t taken; he hadn’t lost any ground. He would continue onward—and hope his moment of strategic caution wouldn’t be one he would come to regret.
CHAPTER 8
Two mornings later, Felicia entered the breakfast parlor at eight o’clock to find William John and Rand already at the table.
Both were frowning.
They raised their heads and nodded a reply to her cheery “Good morning.” In William John’s case, his gaze remained unfocused and his nod absentminded, but Rand’s attention locked on her. His gaze, intent, swept her, then rose, and he met her eyes. He smiled fleetingly and inclined his head, then he glanced at William John and his frown returned.
She helped herself from the sideboard, then joined them at the table, sliding into her usual chair opposite Rand, with William John to her right.
As she poured herself a cup of tea, William John muttered something, then more volubly grumbled, “I just don’t understand it. It should work perfectly, but it’s not.”
She told herself it wasn’t any of her business—except, of course, now it was. She’d agreed to help, even if she remained uncertain of the wisdom of doing so. If she grew to enjoy the pastime and fell victim to its lure, what then? She was a lady, a female, and nothing could change that. She took a bite of the slice of toast she’d liberally slathered with raspberry jam, then glanced at Rand.
He was waiting to catch her eye. “As you can hear, William John’s stumped.”
Her brother turned to her and eagerly explained, “It’s something to do with the drive mechanism. Now everything else is working perfectly, it’s somehow getting out of kilter. I think we need an adjustment to the gears, but I can’t see where. And there’s some other wrinkle in the pressure in the lines. Not major, but I suspect if we don’t get it perfectly correct, the engine will work for only a relatively short time before...” He raised his hands in a “who knows?” gesture. “It’ll probably blow a gasket or something and come to a shuddering halt.”
Rand’s gaze hadn’t left her face. “We were wondering if you would take a look at the problems. You might see something William John has missed.”
She glanced at William John, only to have her brother fix her with a pleading look and reach across and grasp her hand. “Please, Felicia.” He squeezed her fingers. “I know it’s not something you expected to have to do, but any insights you have—any hints you can give me—would be greatly appreciated.” He held her gaze, then quietly stated, “I need your mind to work my way through this.”
She heard the sincerity of his plea and saw it in his eyes. Inside, a stone wall of resistance, built through years of enforced disinterest and bolstered by self-protective caution, wavered, then crumbled and fell. She felt herself nod. “All right.” She glanced at her plate. “Just let me finish my toast and let Mrs. Reilly know I’ll meet with her later, and I’ll come down and see...what I can see.”
They hovered, both of them, as if despite having gained her agreement to assist, they thought she might change her mind or be distracted by the household. She had to smother a cynical snort.
Less than fifteen minutes later, the pair all but shepherded her down the stone stairs, William John leading the way, with Rand following behind her. On reaching the workshop floor, William John went straight to the engine, suspended within its special frame.
To her eyes, the engine seemed to have grown.
&nbs
p; William John saw her taking note of all the extra pipes and tubes. “I’ve added the connections to the levers the driver manipulates.” He pointed to a board clipped to one side of the frame. “That slots into the front wall of the carriage in front of the driver’s seat.”
“Ah. I see.” She promptly ignored the extra pipes and tubes and focused on the engine beneath.
William John pointed, directing her attention to a complex set of gears that lay between the pistons and the twin drive shafts. “When I start it up, all runs smoothly. I can increase the power and therefore the speed and all is well. With the throttle fully open, everything powers along. The instant I start to throttle back, the gears start to grind. I’m sure if I let the machine continue to run, they would eventually jam, which would be disastrous.”
“Hmm.” After a moment of frowning at the interlocking cogs, Felicia turned to the board on which the diagrams were displayed. She went to stand and stare at the drawings. After a minute in which both men remained utterly silent and watched her—she could feel their gazes on her back—she reached out and, with one finger, circled the set of cogs, levers, and rods that made up the gears. “The issue lies here, and, again, it’s because you’ve increased power to such an extent, everything downstream has to be readjusted.”
She glanced at William John. “You’re not going to do anything to further increase the power output, are you?”
He moved to join her before the board. “No. We’ve more than doubled the output of Trevithick’s engine. We don’t need more power—at least, not at this point.”
“Good.” She eyed the board, almost surprised at the way her mind was already juggling options. It hadn’t required conscious thought—a conscious instruction to her mind to solve the problem—but rather a deliberate direction to her higher mind to get out of the way of an ability that was instinctive and intuitive.
After another minute, she pointed to the largest of the cogs. “Can you make this bigger? Or is there some other way to...expand the capacity? That’s what we need to do—you’ve increased the power, so now you need to compensate and expand the control to handle the extra power.”
William John stared at the cog in question, then pulled a face. “I’m not sure we can make it any bigger, but what if—”
Rand slid onto a high stool on the other side of the heavy frame and watched brother and sister discuss and debate their options. And gave thanks to whatever deity was watching over him and this project. If they hadn’t stumbled on Felicia’s unexpected talent, they would have already run aground. Instead...as he watched Felicia and William John standing shoulder to shoulder before the board, their attentions fixed unwaveringly on the diagrams, both entirely sunk into the workings of the Throgmorton engine, Rand felt quiet confidence well and solidify.
In common with many of the more productive inventors, William John didn’t care where ideas for improvement came from. That the ideas he was, even now, eagerly seizing on and working to find ways to implement were coming from his younger sister didn’t even impinge on his ever-grasping mind.
As for Felicia, the more Rand heard of her and William John’s increasingly quick-fire exchanges, the more he realized she had an instinctive feel for where her skills ended and William John’s began. Again and again, she seemed to mentally walk to some definable edge and then turn to her brother.
And unfailingly, without so much as a pause, William John would pick up the inventive baton and carry it on.
It took the pair the better part of an hour for William John to reach the point where he was smiling again and, fired by confidence, declared that he would soon have the problem with the gears resolved.
Another hour passed as the pair investigated the problem with the control levers. They ultimately came to an agreement on the best way to rework the settings—“It’s the sensitivity of the movement that’s at fault,” Felicia had said—but agreed to leave that adjustment until after all else was working correctly.
Accepting that verdict, William John set about dismantling the control panel from the engine.
Felicia watched him work for a moment, then glanced at Rand and stepped away from the engine and the board of diagrams. “Mrs. Reilly will be waiting. I should go up.”
Engrossed in his task, William John merely grunted.
Rand watched as Felicia plainly battled an impulse to remain and, perhaps, even tinker herself, but then she straightened her spine and took another step toward the stairs. She caught his eye. He smiled and inclined his head. “Both William John and I are more grateful than we can say for your assistance.”
“Yes, well...” Her eyes were drawn to the engine. Then she murmured, “I suppose, now, that it’s partly my responsibility, too.”
After another second, she drew breath, determinedly turned away from the engine, and, with a brief nod his way, headed for the stairs.
Felicia climbed the stairs to the front hall—and, with every step, felt as if she was having to physically pull herself away.
As she’d suspected, the ineluctable thrill of solving William John’s puzzles—of meeting the challenges—was well-nigh addictive.
On reaching the front hall, she paused and drew in a deep—very deep—breath.
As she exhaled, Mrs. Reilly looked around the green-baize-covered door at the rear of the hall.
On sighting Felicia, the housekeeper’s face lit. “There you are, Miss Felicia. Are you ready to go over the menus, miss?”
“Yes, indeed. You’ve timed it well.” She needed to get her mind back into its usual rut—no, it wasn’t a rut. Dealing with the household was her normal and rightful occupation. Poking at inventions in the workshop was merely a temporary, if necessary, distraction and would never amount to anything more. “Come to the sitting room.” She gestured to the door across the hall and led the way.
She and Mrs. Reilly settled in the sitting room and spent a comfortable half hour discussing menus and recipes. Somewhat to her surprise, Felicia found her mind drifting... Disconcerted, she hauled it back and focused firmly on the task before her.
Subsequently, determined to keep her mind on matters domestic, she went down to the kitchen to check with Cook regarding the bounty currently issuing from the kitchen garden and was taken by that worthy on an inspection of the beds burgeoning with summer vegetables.
They returned to the house with just half an hour to spare before luncheon. Felicia spent the minutes with Flora in the drawing room, idly sharing views on the information Flora’s wide-ranging correspondents had recently reported, while inwardly, Felicia wondered how matters were progressing below stairs.
Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, Rand and William John responded to the first striking of the luncheon gong. They ambled in, smiles on their faces—and Felicia found herself smiling back.
William John dropped into his chair and beamed at her. “Putting in those extra cogs has done the trick!” He included Rand with his gaze. “We’re nearly there!”
“Don’t get too excited yet,” Rand advised, but he continued to smile. As he took his seat, he said to Felicia, “As you suggested, William John has concentrated on making the gears work properly first, before he endeavors to adjust the controls.”
“Mind you,” William John said, helping himself to the platter of pickled vegetables Felicia had handed him, “I’m increasingly certain we’ll have yet more to do to get the controls to precisely how we want them—we’ll see once I put the modifications we discussed in place. However”—his beaming smile returned—“I still say we’re almost there.” He met Felicia’s eyes, then looked at Rand. “We will get everything done in time.”
Her expression mild, Flora glanced from one to the other. “How many days remain before this exhibition you and the invention have to be at?”
Rand replied, “We have ten days until the day of the exhibition. However, we’ll lose two of those traveling t
o Birmingham.” He paused, then, his gaze meeting Felicia’s, said, “We have until the morning of next Thursday to have the Throgmorton Steam-Powered Horseless Carriage assembled and running perfectly. That reminds me.” He looked at William John. “What about the carriage itself?”
William John swallowed and waved toward the stable. “It’s deep in the stable and properly covered. We can wheel it out when we’re ready.”
Rand paused.
Imagining what he was thinking, Felicia inquired, “How long is it since you’ve cleaned the carriage?”
William John frowned. “A few months...” After a moment, he grimaced. “Six months at least.”
“Hmm. I believe we should have the covers off, and I can send the Reilly girls”—to Rand, she explained—“our maids, to clean and polish it.” She refocused on William John. “Are there any moving parts they need to be wary of?”
He shook his head. “No, just the wheels, and the brake will be on. They can wipe and polish to their hearts’ content. Once they have the covers off, I’ll come and take a look, just to be certain there’s nothing amiss.” He glanced at Rand. “You’ll want to see it, too.”
Rand nodded. “If there’s anything that needs fixing or adjusting to get the carriage ready for the exhibition, we should get that done.”
William John grinned. “All the better to have everything ready to go the instant we have the engine fully adjusted and working perfectly.” He smiled at them all. “I can feel it in my bones—we’re nearly done!”
To her surprise, Felicia felt herself react to her brother’s rousing words—felt her heart surge with anticipation and pride.
Inventing was proving even more addictive than she’d thought it would be.
With the others, she pushed back from the table and rose. At last, Papa, I understand.
* * *
The following days passed in a blur of activity. Felicia moved her meetings with Mrs. Reilly to later in the morning to accommodate William John and Rand’s continuing requests for her assistance in the workshop—their urgings for her to bring her mind downstairs and apply it to the latest glitch in the engine’s systems.