Felicia set down her empty cup and returned his steady regard while her mind raced. He might be an agent acting for some other inventor with the intent to sabotage the engine. Against that notion, he wasn’t asking to sketch inside the house. Seeking to confirm that, she said, “Different views of the house from different spots outside?”
He nodded. “Yes. Exactly.”
How could he possibly threaten the engine? He’d be a hundred or more yards from the house at all times.
She still wasn’t sure—and wasn’t sure why that was so. At no time had Mayhew, by word or deed, given her cause to suspect him.
The timing—the coincidences surrounding his initial appearance in the village—had sparked both her and Rand’s suspicions, and his reappearance at such a critical juncture would only further feed their wariness. And although there was nothing more substantial than coincidence to support their suspicions, at least in her case, despite Mayhew’s charm and all the evidence of his undeniable talent, her suspicions showed no signs of abating.
Yet if he was a sneaky gentleman intent on harming the invention, she would really rather keep him in view—stuck behind his easel on the lawn.
She stirred. “Perhaps if you come to tea this afternoon and discuss your request with Mrs. Makepeace and me, we might see our way to granting it.” She smiled to soften her refusal to immediately agree; she wanted a few hours to think—and to consult Rand.
She pushed back from the table, and Mayhew hurriedly got to his feet and assisted her to hers. She smiled easily in thanks. “If you will call at three o’clock?”
“I’ll be there.” His charming smile was very much in evidence as he picked up her basket and insisted on escorting her back to the street.
On the corner, she claimed her basket and was firm in declining his escort along the lane and down the woodland path. “It’s not far, and I know these woods like the back of my hand.”
With a last nod from her and a half bow from him, they parted—both still smiling.
As she walked down the lane to where the path from the house joined it, Felicia had to wonder if Mayhew’s smile was as much a façade as hers.
* * *
Rand had been loitering in the doorway of the forge, waiting for Ferguson to refine the curve on a brace that would anchor the engine into the carriage and, meanwhile, idly scanning the village street, when he saw Felicia exit the inn on the artist’s arm.
“Damn it—he’s back.” Eyes narrowing, Rand had pushed away from the archway against which he’d been leaning. His hands gripping his hips, he’d watched as, at the far end of the street, Felicia had firmly dismissed Mayhew and, parting from him, had continued on alone, walking with her usual free stride along the lane in the direction of the Hall.
She hadn’t seemed distressed in any way. As for Mayhew, he seemed pleased. Rubbing his hands together, the artist was smiling as he turned toward the inn.
Rand watched Mayhew walk back to the inn and disappear inside.
A litany of possible actions—reactions—scrolled through Rand’s mind. In the end, the considerations that stopped him from marching down the street, into the inn, and making it indisputably clear to Mayhew that Felicia Throgmorton was spoken for were twofold.
The first—and most telling with respect to protecting the invention—was that as Rand had led Mayhew to believe he was a family friend passing through, Mayhew would not be expecting Rand to still be at Throgmorton Hall. Mayhew, Rand judged, came from a circle only slightly below his own; he knew how Mayhew would have interpreted his words—he would have assumed that, seven days on, Rand would be gone by now.
That raised the interesting question of whether Mayhew had retreated for a week, waiting until he assumed Rand would have left in order to ensure a clear run at the Hall. Simply by asking around in the village, Mayhew could have learned that, other than the absentminded brother who toiled away in the workshop every day, occasionally blowing things up, there was no true male protector residing at the house.
The more Rand thought of it, the more he felt that it would be wise to allow Mayhew to remain unaware of Rand’s continuing presence. Unless Mayhew thought to ask Ferguson, he was unlikely to learn that Rand was still about.
The second consideration that held him back from confronting Mayhew was more personal. Felicia herself might not—yet—understand where she stood vis-à-vis Rand. They hadn’t yet progressed to the point of a declaration.
To his mind, the kiss they’d shared last night had certainly raised the prospect, but he hadn’t spoken.
Once again, he debated that decision, but waiting until after the exhibition, when there would be no urgent business-related pressure hanging over their heads—no possible consideration that might impinge on her decision to accept him, or that she might imagine had influenced his decision to ask for her hand—still seemed the best way forward.
Waiting to speak remained the better option.
The niggling understanding that he was uncertain enough of her—of his appeal to her—to want more time to convince her to be his, he pushed to the back of his mind.
“M’lord.”
Rand lowered his arms and turned as Ferguson came walking out from the depths of the forge, waving the re-formed brace.
“This is ready now. Good and strong—should do the job.”
Rand accepted the curved length of solid iron. “Put it on the Throgmorton tab.”
Ferguson nodded genially. “Aye. I’ll do that.” Rand had already assured the man he would stand guarantor for William John.
Rand had tied the horse he’d ridden from the Hall to the ring beside the forge door. He moved around the bay and stowed the brace in the saddlebag. Then, over the horse’s back, he looked at Ferguson, who had remained in the doorway. “I want to give this fellow a run. Is there a way I can circle around”—he tipped his head—“to the west, preferably, that will eventually take me back to the Hall?”
“Oh aye. There’s a good run down the edge of Farmer Highgate’s fields. If you go that way”—Ferguson pointed away from the village—“then turn left and left again, you’ll come to it—a bridle path, it is. You won’t miss it.”
Rand thanked the blacksmith, then swung up to the bay’s broad back. He rode out of the yard, turned north, then, as directed, west. True to Ferguson’s word, Rand found the bridle path easily enough and took the circuitous route back to the Hall, giving the inn a very wide berth.
* * *
By the time he’d reached the Hall’s stables, Rand had started to question just why Felicia had, to all appearances, encouraged Mayhew. She’d gone into the inn with him; however innocent their meeting, Rand had to wonder why she’d agreed to it.
After leaving the bay in Shields’s capable hands along with orders to deliver the brace to the workshop, Rand strode across the lawn to the house with uncertainty itching just beneath his skin. He didn’t know Felicia that well; he’d never seen her in society. Perhaps the artist, charming to his toes, was more to her taste than a gentleman who thought investments were exciting...
Abruptly, he halted, drew in a deep breath, then exhaled and, struggling not to clench his jaw, walked on.
There was that kiss in the dark last night. He shouldn’t—couldn’t—forget that. She’d responded. She’d been as intrigued as he with the prospects—with the promise.
He shouldn’t doubt her.
Not without evidence to the contrary.
Just because he didn’t trust women, especially not those clever enough to be manipulative, that didn’t mean he couldn’t trust her.
He reached the house, opened the side door, and stalked inside. Even as his long strides ate the carpet, at the back of his mind was the realization of what his present state—his churning thoughts—portended.
He knew how irrationally Ryder acted over Mary, and his big brother was the epitome
of calm reason. This morass of uncertainty was, apparently, an unavoidable outcome of allowing oneself to fix on a particular lady, to place her above all others.
He’d already reached the point where Felicia was that for him—the lady he’d placed on his pedestal, the one lady he wanted for his own.
Johnson was crossing the front hall as Rand walked onto the tiles.
“Ah—Johnson. Do you happen to know where Miss Felicia is?”
“Indeed, my lord. She’s in the garden hall.” Johnson pointed past the breakfast parlor. “It’s toward the end of the corridor, my lord.”
“Thank you.” Rand drew in a breath, reminded himself to be calm—that he’d as yet said nothing to Felicia about her being his—then strode in search of her.
She was arranging peonies in a bowl when he walked into the narrow garden hall.
She looked up at him and smiled. “Has William John and his incessant muttering driven you upstairs?”
“No.” He leaned back against the bench alongside where she was working and crossed his arms. “I went into the village to have a brace reforged. I was waiting outside the blacksmith’s and saw you with that artist.”
Her gaze on her hands as she cupped and shifted blooms in the bowl, she nodded. “Yes. Mayhew is back. He met me as I was coming out of the general store. He invited me to tea so he could impress me with the sketches he’s done over the last days.” She paused, then glanced at Rand, briefly meeting his eyes. “He must have been hard at work to have produced so many in just seven days. They were as good as his sketches of the Hall. I recognized some scenes from a hamlet near Basildon, so he must have traveled up there.”
He frowned. “So his story of having to do more sketches for the London News rings true?”
“So it seems.”
To his ears, she sounded equivocal, possibly unconvinced, but at the very least unimpressed.
“The reason he wanted to make a point of the quality of his work was to pave the way for him to request permission to return here and do more sketches of the house.”
He stiffened, muscles throughout his body hardening.
Before he could say anything, she straightened and, dusting her hands, faced him and met his eyes. “I suggested he come for afternoon tea and speak with me and Flora about it. I know there’s no chance of winkling William John from the workshop—and we need him to finish the last adjustments as soon as possible, so better he isn’t distracted—but would you care to join us?” She tipped her head, her eyes still on his. “We could see what you make of Mayhew and his return.”
Her last comment, especially her use of “we,” shifted Rand’s perspective. He studied her expression, but wasn’t sure what he sensed. “You don’t believe him?”
She humphed and turned to lean back against the bench beside him. “I believe him about his ability to sketch—that’s beyond doubt. But as for the rest... I have to admit I’m not inclined to trust any charming gentleman who comes waltzing up our drive.”
Rand turned his head and stared at her.
Eventually feeling his gaze, she glanced at him, then her lips twitched and she faced forward again. “I trust you, but that’s for a lot of other reasons, and you’ve never tried to charm me, which in my book is a very large point in your favor.”
Faintly, he arched his brows. “Duly noted,” he murmured.
Belatedly, Felicia realized that this was the first time he and she had been alone since that amazingly distracting kiss in the night, yet rather than suffering from any feeling of awkwardness, she felt comfortable, at ease, and, yes, relieved. Relieved he was there to share her concern over Mayhew and what his reappearance might mean.
“Is having Mayhew back, even for afternoon tea, a wise idea?”
She glanced at Rand. “I can’t see any way of being sure. And while I could easily have put him off, at least until after the exhibition, it occurred to me that if he is the agent of some other inventor—or some other person who wants our engine to fail—then keeping him in plain sight might be a better option than refusing his request. Consider”—she gestured toward the French door that gave access to the lawn at the rear of the house—“the very thing about this house that makes it so attractive for him to sketch, or so he claims, also makes it terribly easy for him to approach quite close without us knowing. He could hide in the wood and watch us fit the engine to the carriage and so on.”
Facing forward, she paused, then went on, “There’s also the fact that if Mayhew is an agent working against our interests, then I, for one, would like to know who he’s working for.” She glanced sidelong at Rand and caught his eyes. “Wouldn’t you?”
He stared at her for a full minute, then grimaced. He faced forward and blew out a breath. “What—exactly—did he say?”
She told him. “He didn’t ask to be shown around inside or to sketch inside the house.”
After a moment, he demanded, “Has he ever asked about the workshop or about what your brother does?”
“No.” She hesitated, then admitted, “The only things he’s shown any interest in are those that affect his sketching.”
“Hmm.” After another significantly more brooding silence, Rand said, “I assume you hope to give him enough rope to hang himself, so to speak.”
She nodded. “For him to at least show his true colors.”
“How, exactly, do you see his next visit and his next round of sketching leading to that end?”
She grimaced. “I don’t know. But he has returned, and he wants to come here and sketch. Presumably, he has a reason for that. Given we’re on guard against him—and with him back in the neighborhood, I assume we’ll be maintaining our night and day watches with even greater stringency—”
“I’ll be rearranging the watches so that during the night, there’ll be three men awake and alert at all times.”
“—then I propose we give Mayhew the opportunity to ask questions about the workshop, or about William John’s occupation, or even to attempt to see the workshop or speak with William John.” She frowned. “If we’re right in thinking that he’s not just an artist but also a would-be saboteur, then with only a week to go before the exhibition, he’ll be wanting to make some definite move to achieve his ends very soon.”
A sudden thought occurred, and she turned to Rand. “You said we’d have to leave here on Thursday morning to get to Birmingham in time. If Mayhew fails in his task while here, but gives us no reason to have him arrested, then surely damaging the invention while it’s on the road to the exhibition will be his next cast. We’ll need to organize more guards.”
“That won’t be hard—you can leave that to me.”
To his discomfort, Felicia’s proposed interaction with Mayhew left Rand prey to contradictory impulses.
His protective, possessive self didn’t want her anywhere near Mayhew—a charming gentleman-artist who Rand had yet to inform of his interest in the delectable Miss Throgmorton. Against that...he could appreciate her reasoning, and if it hadn’t been her but some other lady involved, he would probably have readily agreed with her suggested way forward. More, the sense of camaraderie that in the last twenty minutes had deepened between them was...seductive. He liked the feeling of working closely together, even when their goal was to expose Mayhew and whoever he worked for.
Apparently taking his silence for acquiescence, she asked, “So will you take tea with us this afternoon?”
“No.” He met her eyes. “When I spoke with Mayhew last time he was here, I told him I was a friend of the family visiting for a few days. I suspect he’ll imagine I’ve left by now, and if he’s a villain, it’ll be to our advantage for me to play least in sight.” He paused for a heartbeat, then went on, “However, that doesn’t mean I can’t watch, and while you’re serving him tea, I’ll hover close enough to hear all that’s said.”
She frowned. “Perhaps that wa
s why he was away for barely a week—because he knew you were here and thought it wiser to wait until you were gone.”
“Very possibly. If you recall, he intimated to me that he would be away for longer—a few weeks—yet in barely a week, he’s back.”
“Hmm. Despite his charm and innocuous appearance, it’s little things like that that keep me wondering about him.” Felicia paused. She was quite pleased with the way the discussion had unfolded; for a minute, when Rand had first come striding in and she’d told him about meeting Mayhew and inviting him to tea, she’d feared that Rand was going to convert to some overbearing, arrogant, and pompous male, but he’d throttled any such impulse, and the discussion had proceeded on a sensible, rational plane. She straightened away from the bench. “For now, let’s see what direction he takes when he comes for tea at three o’clock. Flora will be with me, of course.”
Rand caught her gaze and held it for a second, then he, too, pushed away from the bench and straightened to his full height. She raised her gaze to his face, and he looked down at hers. Then he nodded. “All right.”
He half turned to leave, but then swung back—and she found herself swept into his arms.
She looked up in surprise as he bent his head, then his lips found hers, and her lids fell, and with a fleeting inner smile, she gave herself over to returning the caress.
His lips were firm, masterful; at their command, she parted hers and almost shivered with delight as his tongue slipped past the slick curves to claim her mouth, to stroke and tempt.
She leaned into him, pressed her hands to his chest, and stretched up, the better to meet him. Through the kiss, through the pressure of his lips, she sensed his approval.
His encouragement.
She seized the opportunity and pressed her own kiss on him, and he let her. Let her explore the communion of their mouths, the simple, unalloyed pleasure of such caresses.
He’d splayed his hands on her back; now, they moved in long, slow strokes, up, then down, urging her closer, molding her slighter frame to his much larger one. Her breasts swelled, the peaks tightening almost to the point of discomfort. That he knew what he was doing—how each touch, each increment of pressure, affected her—was never in any doubt, but that he allowed her to play, too, thrilled her. Drove her to push her hands up, over his shoulders. She sank her fingertips into the broad muscles of his upper back, testing their resilience, then gripping and claiming them as, in response, he angled his head, and the kiss heated by several degrees...