Page 60 of The Designs of Lord Randolph Cavanaugh

They reached the edge of the woods and walked onto the lawn.

Felicia waved at the jumble of items strewn on the grass. “He even left his things—his satchel, easel, and stool.”

Rand halted and considered the sight. “Those are his tools of trade. He must have wanted very badly to stop the invention succeeding.”

“I’ll send one of the footmen to gather them up. Who knows? If we ever catch up with Mayhew, they might prove useful in some way.”

He saw no reason to argue. In his experience, artists were protective of their equipment. If they did catch up with Mayhew, his well-used easel, stool, and satchel might help to pry loose the name of whoever had hired him.

They started up the long slope of the south lawn. Looking ahead, Felicia heaved a resigned sigh. “I suppose we’d better go and see what William John blew up this time.”

Rand nodded because she expected him to. In reality, the Throgmorton engine and William John’s endeavors had sunk low in the scale of what was important to him; they now rode well below the lady whose hand he held firmly in his grasp.

The lady his inner self had already decided he should never, ever, let go.

CHAPTER 11

The moon was riding high in a black and cloudless sky as Rand slowly paced the terrace. Night had fallen hours before, but the emotions roiling inside him, along with the inevitable conjectures—the what-ifs that rose to plague him—hadn’t yet settled enough to allow him to relax, much less sleep.

His hands clasped behind his back, his gaze fixed unseeing on the flagstones before his feet, he slowly walked the balustraded expanse; at least he’d stopped pausing to stare through the darkness at the far end of the lawn.

Beyond a bruise or two, Felicia had suffered no hurt—or so she’d assured him and Flora. They’d shared what had happened with the older lady, as well as with Shields, Johnson, and the rest of the staff; by mutual agreement, they’d decided not to distract William John with news of the attack on his sister. Although, on several occasions, he’d been present when Felicia, Rand, and Flora had discussed the artist, they seriously doubted he’d paid attention enough to remember, and the explosion that had distracted Rand and Flora and given Mayhew the chance to seize Felicia had ruptured several pipes and a gasket. William John needed to keep his mind on the engine; all final testing would have to be successfully completed by Tuesday evening—forty-eight hours from now. They were running out of time

Unsurprisingly, Mayhew had vanished. On returning to the house, Rand had dispatched Shields and Struthers to the Norreys Arms in the vain hope Mayhew had returned there. Instead, they’d learned that the artist hadn’t been putting up at the inn. Presumably, since returning to the area, he’d been staying at the cottage he’d hired to hold Felicia. That suggested the cottage would not be easy to find.

Given the circumstances—given the timing—there was no sense in attempting to pursue Mayhew. Not at this time. Later, Rand vowed, there would be a reckoning, but for now, he had to let the artist go.

By the time Shields and Struthers had returned with their report, Rand had had a letter for Ryder waiting. He’d sent Shields to Raventhorne to deliver the missive. By horse, the Abbey was only about three hours away.

To Rand’s surprise, the knowledge that Ryder would have received Rand’s request by now, and the safety of both Felicia and the invention on the way to and at the exhibition was thus assured, hadn’t calmed him as much as he’d expected.

Hadn’t eased the tension gripping him to any noticeable degree.

He knew what had caused that tension to rise, accepted it as inevitable—an unavoidable consequence of the connection that had come to be—yet acceptance didn’t make the inner turmoil, the primitive and potent passions roiling in his gut, any easier to subdue.

He paced on. With those primal emotions still churning within him, he felt like he imagined a caged tiger would—poised on the edge of dangerous violence.

The faint scrape of a sole on stone had him whirling—to see Felicia step out of the drawing room into the moonlit night.

Like him, she was still dressed as she had been at dinner; the pale green of her silk gown, its lines clinging to her slender figure, converted to a more silvery hue in the moon’s argent light.

He’d halted. Her gaze had been on him from the first. Slowly, she glided to meet him.

To his eyes, she was his goddess—the one he worshipped. His senses locked on her, and her nearness reached for him like a physical caress and set his nerves flickering.

Waiting.

Strung out and aching.

Through the long windows, Felicia had seen Rand pacing implacably, the long planes of his face hard, chiseled, his expression almost forbidding. Something inside her had responded to the sight; as she neared, she sensed that the restless, turbulent compulsion that had driven her downstairs, that had intensified in the instant she’d seen him, pressing her to go to him, to soothe him and seek her own solace with him, was of a piece with the powerful feelings transparently gripping him.

She didn’t stop until she stood before him, close enough that, even through the shadows, she could read his eyes, his face.

Deliberately, in a gesture akin to a gentle challenge, she steadily held his gaze and let her lips lightly curve. “I couldn’t sleep, either.” She’d pitched her voice low, her tone suggesting she viewed her state—and his, too—as inevitable, a truth she’d only just realized.

She turned her head and looked down the lawn—to where Mayhew had seized her and dragged her into the woods. For a moment, she remained silent, marshaling her thoughts and her words, then she drew in a deep breath and said, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but I want to—indeed, I need to—thank you. Properly.”

Since returning to the house, she’d attempted to thank him several times, but every time, he’d managed to adroitly sidestep and divert the conversation.