Felicia stifled a sigh. She was already well and truly bored. Before she’d struck her pose, she’d glimpsed Rand in the dappled shadows of the wood—not behind Mayhew but to her left. The last glimpse she’d had of him, he’d been leaning with one shoulder propped against a bole, arms crossed, his gaze undeviatingly fixed on her and Mayhew.
For his part, Mayhew had been so focused on the view he’d intended to sketch, he’d spared not a glance for the woods; she would wager her mother’s pearls he was utterly oblivious to their watcher beneath the trees.
Even if Mayhew did look searchingly around, she doubted he would spot Rand; that helpful bole would largely screen him from Mayhew’s sight.
Without shifting position, she studied Mayhew. He was seated on his folding stool, his attention wholly on his sketch. He was using several pencils, one, then another, gripping those not in use in his left hand while his right hand moved swiftly across the paper. He didn’t seem to even look to decide which pencil was which; his fingers seemed to know them by feel.
Again, the proof that Mayhew truly was an artist was displayed for anyone to see.
Felicia inwardly sighed and started composing a suitable incidental comment with which to allude to inventions and inventors.
She’d almost crafted a workable sentence when a massive bang! exploded from the house—from the workshop.
She managed not to react—to turn and stare—but Mayhew had blinked and was now staring at the house.
“It’s just another pipe.” It wasn’t—this time it was something even more troublesome than a valve. Mayhew glanced at her, and she waved dismissively. “The staff will take care of it.”
Mayhew hesitated, then settled to his sketching again, although Felicia noted he glanced toward the house—toward its rear—more frequently than before.
She could only pray that the workshop door hadn’t blown open and that clouds of steam weren’t gushing forth.
That morning, she’d worked with William John to solve what they had hoped was the last little glitch that had kept the engine from running perfectly; they’d been so pleased and heartened—buoyed by a sense of impending success. Now...
Damn it! We haven’t all that many days left.
Mayhew looked at her sharply. Briefly, she smiled, erasing her frown, and schooled her features back into her pose of bucolic serenity.
* * *
Rand was steadily and stealthily making his way back toward the house. Mayhew was all artist, at least at that moment, and given how near to completion the engine was and how close the exhibition, Rand felt compelled to see what had gone wrong—what had blown now.
This time, it hadn’t been anything he and William John had arranged.
As Rand retreated, he glanced back frequently, but Mayhew and Felicia remained seated as they had been, at the far end of the lawn. From all Rand had seen, he suspected Felicia would, indeed, need to tempt Mayhew to test the man’s interest in the engine. Rand had to admit he was increasingly feeling his and her suspicions regarding Mayhew owed more to paranoia than reality.
He was still some way from the house, following a deer trail through the wood, when, after checking on Mayhew and Felicia yet again, he noticed Flora, who in her role as chaperon had been seated prominently on the terrace, had quit her post and, presumably, gone into the house.
That suggested the explosion was serious.
His heart sinking, Rand increased his pace.
He plotted his course. He would make for the part of the wood nearest the kitchen garden, then risk crossing the lawn to the wall; the wall was taller than he was and would allow him to reach the workshop with little chance of Mayhew spotting him.
Again, he glanced back. Mayhew was still sketching, and Felicia was still posing; neither had altered their position.
Rand faced forward, lengthened his stride, and headed for the workshop.
* * *
Felicia remained all but boneless in the chair. Her mind, however, was elsewhere, focused on the engine in the workshop. Trying to imagine what had caused the noise, she turned her thoughts to the diagrams on the board. What had she missed? Where among the pipes, pistons, and tubes could an excess of pressure have built up?
She was engrossed in reviewing the design of the engine when Mayhew looked at her, then rose from his stool.
Felicia blinked. Was it the shifting shadows of the oak beneath which he sat, or had his features hardened?
But then he smiled. “This is truly excellent. It’ll be one of my best works to date. I just need you to hold that pose for a few minutes more.” He stepped around the easel and, with one hand, indicated his satchel, which he’d left leaning against the rear corner of the armchair. “I need a different pencil for the final strokes.”
Felicia faintly smiled and obediently held her pose, her chin at the required angle and her gaze on the trees at the end of the lawn to her left.
Mayhew approached and crouched down beside the chair. She heard him open the satchel, heard the rustle of paper as he searched inside.
After a moment, she sensed him straighten.
* * *
Still in the wood, Rand drew level with the wall enclosing the kitchen garden. He pushed through the undergrowth to the edge of the lawn. Pausing just inside the wood, before walking into the open and across to the screening wall, he looked down the lawn, intending to time his emergence to a moment when Mayhew looked down at his sketch—
The artist was no longer behind his easel.
Felicia wasn’t in the chair.
Her parasol lay to one side, discarded.
Rand swore. He burst from the undergrowth and raced onto the lawn. He ran full tilt down the slope and on, toward where Felicia had been.
His thoughts churned like a raging river, then abruptly cleared.
He and Felicia had been right—Mayhew was their villain.
Mayhew hadn’t seen any way of getting to the invention to sabotage it, so had taken Felicia instead.
Mayhew intended to use her as a hostage to ensure the Throgmorton engine never made it to the exhibition.
Rand swore between his teeth and ran faster.
For a host of desperate reasons—of which the invention was the least—he had to catch them.
He had to reach Felicia and seize her back.
* * *
Deep in the wood beyond the end of the south lawn, Felicia struggled and fought, but Mayhew’s hold seemed unbreakable.
Instead of fetching any pencil, he’d come up behind her, and before she’d had a chance to react—to turn her head and look at him—he’d clapped a hand over her mouth, seized her arm with his other hand, and hauled her out of the chair.
Then he’d propelled her straight into the wood—onto this path that led more or less directly away from the Hall.
He held her with her back to his chest, one hand still wrapped across her face, immobilizing her head and holding it hard against his shoulder. His other arm was cinched tightly across her waist, allowing him to force her to walk ahead of him, step after step.
She knew all the paths through these woods. This one eventually led to a track along which it was possible to drive a gig.
She’d been in the drawing room when Mayhew had arrived, but—now she thought of it—she hadn’t heard the sound of wheels on gravel; she would wager a considerable sum that his gig would be waiting on the track at the end of the path.
Frantically, she struggled against his hold, but he was far stronger than she and continued to force her along the path.
She’d agreed to sit for him to learn whether he was a saboteur or not, to prick him into revealing himself as either innocent artist or dangerous threat, but at no point had she imagined this. The damned villain was kidnapping her!
She locked her knees and tried to keep her feet from moving, to make every
step a battle, yet no matter how she stumbled and staggered, he still succeeded in pushing her on.
“You blackguard!” Her imprecation was all but smothered behind his hand.
Being unable to scream only made her feel more helpless.
In mounting fury, she wrestled, tipping side to side, trying to overbalance him, but he only cursed and tightened his grip about her waist until she could barely breathe.
She desisted, hauled in as deep a breath as she could, and fought to focus her wits. She couldn’t win free of Mayhew by main force. She had to use her brains.
Rand would be coming...if that unplanned explosion hadn’t drawn him back to the house. Nothing had been happening with Mayhew, after all.
She knew Rand would follow as soon as he realized they’d gone, but until he saw they’d vanished...
Her lungs expanded as she drew in a huge breath. If she wanted to escape Mayhew, she would need to save herself.
Think!
She couldn’t believe this was happening—not to her.
A spurt of pure fury seared through her, and, lips and chin setting, she threw herself violently against Mayhew’s hold.
He swore again, this time more ferociously, and halted. In grim silence, he gripped hard, then harder, waiting for her to give up.
Eventually, she did, momentarily slumping.
Ruthlessly, he thrust her onward.
As she staggered before him—still resisting every step of the way—he lowered his head and spoke by her ear. “Stop struggling, you little fool.” His words were clipped, his tone beyond tense. “I don’t want to hurt you. I just need you for leverage to ensure your damned brother doesn’t finish his steam engine and get it to Birmingham. I’m sure once he realizes you’re missing and gets the note I’ll have delivered, he’ll see the sense in doing as he’s told. Once the day of the exhibition rolls around and the Throgmorton engine fails to make an appearance, I’ll let you go.”
She was accustomed to people with one-track minds. “And until then?” She managed to make the words intelligible despite speaking around his palm.
“I’ve rented a cottage—you and I will be safe enough there.”
Safe? All he was worried about was physical safety?
What about my reputation?
She didn’t bother wasting breath wailing the words. He was an artist, right enough. She’d already noted how like inventors the species was, and this only proved it. Their world revolved about themselves, and they never even thought to consider the welfare of anyone else.
Anyone else affected by their plans, by their actions.
A thought struck. She shoved her head back into his shoulder and managed to mumble, “Mrs. Makepeace and the staff—they know who you are.”
Mayhew softly snorted. “They won’t raise any hue and cry—not with your reputation at stake. And they won’t make any fuss later, either. Once you return home, everyone—you included—will consider the incident best buried and never mentioned.”
So he’d thought of her reputation in that regard—as a threat to ensure his subsequent safety.
He didn’t know about Rand. About her and Rand.
If she was locked away with Mayhew for days, when he released her, her reputation would be effectively nonexistent among those who knew. That included Rand. And while she might hope that he would still wish to pursue his “later” with her—she was fairly certain he would trust her word regarding her virginity and, after all, she could prove it—he was a man who had reason to distrust women; this wouldn’t help. And then there was Rand’s brother, the marquess, let alone his sister-in-law! Rand hailed from the upper nobility. If his family ever found out about her sojourn in a cottage with an artist—and she had no faith the incident would remain buried for all time—she would be ostracized.
Even if Rand married her, she would still be looked down on and sneered at, and any children they had...
She couldn’t let that happen—not to her or to him.
She felt her resolve harden, like steel infusing her spine.
There’d been no sound of pursuit. It was up to her to get herself out of this.
Her first step had to be breaking from Mayhew’s hold.
Drawing every bit of determination she possessed to her, she focused her mind on the path. She traced it in her memory.
Thus far, the path had been more or less level, but not far ahead, there was a left turn where the lie of the land was deceptive. Beyond the turn, the path sloped steeply downward. And at the lower end of the incline, where the path swung right, a huge beech, standing above the path to the left, had spread a tangle of roots over and across the path. The roots were usually at least half buried by leaf mold, but the hard, contorted lumps were there, just below the loose surface.
If she could manage to unbalance Mayhew just there...
She held herself back, conserving her strength, yet she didn’t cease her ineffectual resistance. Didn’t make his task any easier. If she had, he might have started to suspect she was planning something, so she still pushed back against him, forcing him to exert his strength to keep her staggering and stumbling on before him.
The crucial bend in the path drew nearer. She strained her ears, but could still detect no hint of pursuit.
They reached the turn. She drew breath and dug in her heels, balking for all she was worth—Mayhew hissed through his teeth and shoved her on, following close on her heels.
As she’d hoped, the incline caught him by surprise.
Instinctively, his feet moved faster as he tried to catch his balance. She added to their momentum by forging ahead herself, pulling him further off balance, until they were rushing toward the end of the incline and the looming beech.
In a skidding swoosh of dead leaves, they reached the crucial spot beside the beech.
The instant she felt the hardness of a root beneath the leaves, she wrenched to the side, flinging all her remaining strength into twisting from Mayhew’s hold.
He didn’t let go. He clutched her tighter.
His boot soles skidded on the buried roots, and he fell.
Felicia fell on top of him. One of her elbows drove deep into his midsection, her knee came down between his legs, and he gasped and hawed.
Then his hands were desperately pushing her up and off him.
She grabbed up her skirts, scrambled to her feet, and fled.
Back up the incline, back onto the flat, then she was racing along the path toward the Hall.
Behind, she heard a furious, if gasping, bellow, and then, far too soon, Mayhew was pounding after her.
Desperately clutching her skirts high, she raced across a clearing and on along the path. Her lead over Mayhew wasn’t enough. After struggling with him for so long, her strength was gone; she was already flagging. He would catch her before she could break free of the woods.
Was there anywhere she could hide?
She frantically searched her memories, but couldn’t think of any place safe enough.
A stitch in her side jabbed painfully. Panting, she flung herself across another clearing and raced blindly into the next bend—and ran headlong into Rand.
He staggered under the impact, but his hands clapped about her shoulders, and he caught her. Held her.
“Thank God! Are you all right?” Relief nearly drove Rand to his knees. Inanely, he blurted out, “I thought I’d lost you.”
Felicia was gasping, swaying between his hands. She shook her head. One hand at her breast, she managed to gasp, “Mayhew.” She swung and pointed. “He’s coming.”
Their collision had pushed her back around the bend. Rand looked in the direction she pointed—across the clearing she’d just traversed—as Mayhew skidded to a halt on the far side.
For a second, Mayhew stared at them—at Rand. Mayhew’s expression blanked. Then he turned and fl
ed.
Rand tensed to give chase, but he glanced at Felicia, and his feet didn’t move.
He thought he’d lost her, but she’d found him—she’d fought and striven to run back to him—and he had her beside him again.
He wasn’t going to—couldn’t make himself—quit her side.
Not again.
Not so soon.
She stared at him, then, as if understanding his dilemma, she slipped one hand into his.
He gripped her fingers tightly—and she gripped back—then she turned and tugged. “Come on. Let’s at least see where he goes.”
She ran as best she could, gamely pushing on, and he held himself back to keep pace with her.
She warned him about the tricky incline. At the bottom of the descent, she pointed to where the carpet of leaves was scuffed. “That’s where I managed to make him fall and broke free.”
They continued on as the path narrowed, and the trees closed in.
Then from some way ahead of them, they heard the muted rattle of wheels and the quick clop of a horse’s hooves.
Felicia slowed, then halted. She sighed. “He’s got away.”
Rand halted beside her. He looked at her, felt her fingers warm and real beneath his. Then he tightened his grip and pulled her into his arms.
Crushing her close, he bent his head and kissed her.
Hard, sure, with every iota of passion in his possessively protective soul.
And she seized him in return; sinking her fingers into his hair, she held him to her.
To their kiss as it raged, fueled by emotions neither could control. That neither had yet even had a chance to own.
Need and want combined to give birth to a ravenous hunger.
Desire swelled, and passion surged.
But they were too exposed—too much at risk—there in the depths of the wood.
Rand broke from the kiss and, with his gaze, raked their surroundings. Nothing disturbed the stillness around them.
He looked back at Felicia as she drew in a steadying breath. Their eyes met, and their gazes held.