Chapter 7 #4
As he walked, he glanced to the side, into the wood.
The trees grew thickly in that area, directly behind the house, and the undergrowth clogged the spaces between.
Although it seemed the closest concealed approach to the workshop doors, the area was near impassable; the man he’d seen fleeing after the attempted break-in had raced away to the northeast and plunged into the woods that presently lay ahead on Rand’s right.
He’d gone searching on the morning after the scare.
He’d found the path the man must have taken, but with the ground summer hard, there’d been no sign to mark the man’s passing.
That path twisted through the woods to eventually join the lane a little way from where the village street ran off it.
Anyone from the village, including a guest of the Norreys Arms, would have had an easy run home.
Admittedly, the would-be burglar could just as easily have come from farther afield; at that hour, a gig or horse left in the lane wouldn’t have been seen by anyone.
And in the small hours of the morning, no one would have seen the man returning to his lair.
Given that, Rand had jettisoned any notion of pursuing their man by tracking him.
His gaze on the grass before his feet, he passed the kitchen garden and continued up the slope toward the rose garden. The combined scents from the blooms wafted past on a faint breeze, teasing his senses—reminding them of the fascinating, enigmatic, and intriguing lady who tended the bushes.
He knew himself well enough to acknowledge that he was—to his mind, surprisingly—attracted to her. Not just physically, but intellectually, emotionally, and even by dint of his business. To him, she was a lure of many facets.
After his experience of and his consequent antipathy toward ladies clever enough to manipulate him, he’d assumed that the last lady he would feel drawn to would be one who, in his estimation, possessed a mind capable of running rings around his.
Felicia Throgmorton definitely possessed such a brain. She might hide it, disregard it, yet he, at least, couldn’t overlook it, not after her recent and undeniably critical contributions to the Throgmorton project.
What surprised him was that knowing she possessed such a mind in no way dampened her allure. If anything, that she could and clearly did understand inventing at a fundamental level had only increased his interest in her.
Increased the sense that she—and she alone of all the ladies he’d ever met—somehow fitted.
Fitted him, his life, and the aspirations and private goals he hadn’t—until the last days—thought much about.
His attraction to her—recognition of what sort of attraction it was, its depth and escalating strength, and what, at some point, it would push him to do—had prodded him to focus on those until-now nebulous goals.
He wanted to marry. He wanted a family. He definitely wanted a hearth and a home and a wife to share both with.
In short, he wanted everything Ryder had found with his Mary.
The family at Raventhorne figured in Rand’s mind as the shining epitome of his ultimate desire.
That was what he wanted his life to contain.
Up to now, he’d kept his attention firmly fixed on accomplishing his business goals, telling himself that even defining his more private goals could wait. He was only thirty years old, after all.
Yet the instant he’d seen Felicia Throgmorton on the Hall’s front steps—his virago with rose-gold hair—his senses had focused on her in a way they never had with any other lady and taken his emotions and a good part of his wits with them.
Everything that had happened since—his reactions to Mayhew and the incident of the break-in to the growing ease and understated understanding between Felicia and himself—had only further entrenched his feelings, until, now, they shone as an inner certainty.
The only consideration stopping him from pursuing her openly was the Throgmorton steam engine.
If she didn’t view him in a complementary way, then pressing his suit before the project was successfully completed would make working together on the engine awkward.
More, he didn’t know how she might react to a declaration from him; she might even back away from helping William John altogether, and that, he simply could not risk.
There were too many people relying on them delivering the project on time.
With her help, he was confident they would succeed. Without her help, he was no longer so sure. All he’d seen to that point seemed to prove that William John’s strengths alone wouldn’t be enough.
So he would wait until they had the engine working and presented it at the exhibition. Then he would ask for her hand.
He nodded to himself, pleased to have thought his way to that clear and unequivocal stance.
Of course, waiting didn’t mean he couldn’t use the time to learn more of her. Indeed, for any number of reasons, it would be wise to gain some understanding of her complicated and convoluted relationship with inventors and inventing.
They’d managed—entirely by chance—to get her into the workshop long enough for her to respond to their need and demonstrate her understanding.
They’d opened a door they hadn’t known existed, and today, they’d managed to wedge that door open.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t slam it shut.
Today’s advance was no guarantee that he or William John wouldn’t, in some way, unintentionally step on her toes and prompt her to step back.
She’d agreed to help them and clearly understood both why she needed to and what was at stake. But ladies could always change their minds.
When it came to her and inventing, he felt like he was blundering in the dark—a feeling he didn’t appreciate.
He’d started plotting a campaign to tease more insights from her when the soft swish of silk reached his ears.
Surprised, he looked up—and realized that his wandering feet had set him on course for the entrance to the rose garden.
Even as, blinking, he focused on the heavily shadowed arched entrance, now a mere yard away, Felicia, her eyes on the ground, walked purposefully out, under the arch.
She walked directly into him.
“Oh!”
He’d had a second to halt and brace himself.
She all but bounced off him.
Before she could stagger back, he grasped her upper arms and steadied her.
She sucked in a breath, and tension streaked through her.
Ignoring the rush of physical awareness that raced over him, he ducked his head and looked into her face. “It’s all right. It’s only me—Rand.”
She blinked at him, her eyes luminous in the semi-dark; the unexpected collision had affected her, too—in her wide eyes, he saw the same awareness that was prickling under his skin.
Then she let out the breath she’d held in a soft exhalation; the line of her shoulders eased, and she raised a slim hand to her throat. She looked into his eyes with transparent relief. “My apologies. I wasn’t looking.”
“No need to apologize. I didn’t see you coming, either.” Yet he’d realized in time that, had he wished to, he could have avoided the collision, but that was something he saw no reason to mention.
“Well, then. Thank you.” She sounded faintly breathless.
She stepped back, and, reluctantly, he released her and lowered his arms.
She stared at him for a second; he cursed the shadows that fell over her face and prevented him from reading her expression.
Then she tensed a touch and shifted as if intending to step past him.
Before she could bid him goodnight and leave, he reached out, looped her arm with his, and smoothly turned her around, effectively anchoring her beside him as he stepped toward the rose garden.
“Please—walk with me.” Pausing under the arch, he gestured down the flagstone walk.
“It’s a beautiful night, and your roses are in bloom. ”
Short of wrestling free—something he felt fairly certain she wouldn’t do—she had little option but to fall in by his side. She humphed and dryly replied, “So I’ve noticed.”
But her feet obligingly followed his.
“Have you been strolling long?” he asked.
“No. My room was stuffy, so I came out to get some air.”
Greatly daring, he loosened the guard on his tongue. “Am I allowed to say I’m glad?”
She looked down, then, in a plainly curious tone, asked, “Why?”
His face shrouded by the deepening shadows, he grinned and gave her half the answer.
“Because I’m curious. After our previous discussion in this garden, having learned of your antipathy to inventing and inventors and your very sound reasons for that, I was…
shall we say, taken aback?…to realize that, regardless of your stance, you are very definitely an inventor, too.
” He paused, his senses confirming she was listening, and that although she’d stiffened slightly at his reference to her talent, she hadn’t tried to halt or pull away.
His voice even, his tone intrigued but not demanding, he went on, “If you’ll consent to sharing your thoughts with me, what I would particularly like to know is why you have, apparently doggedly, kept yourself out of the workshop and away from all inventing until now. ”
That afternoon, while they’d been working on the modifications to the pistons’ feed lines, William John had confirmed that he hadn’t known of his sister’s abilities, and that as far as he could remember, she’d never been a collaborator in any of his or his father’s inventions in even the smallest way—indeed, that she’d never previously shown the slightest interest in any invention whatsoever.
Felicia narrowed her eyes, but as she kept her head bent and her gaze directed at the path before their feet, the gesture had no effect on the gentleman who had so adroitly claimed her company.
Her senses, thrown into disarray by their collision, hadn’t yet completely settled.
Her nerves were still flickering, all too aware of his powerful, very male presence so close beside her.
She shouldn’t have acquiesced, but her silly feet had followed his lead…just as her thoughts were now following his.