Page 50 of The Pursuit of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

“Good Lord.” She gripped his arm more tightly. Her gaze searched his face. “Was anyone hurt?”

He shook his head. “No. The damage was all to the new work.” Hearing his own words gave him pause. He frowned.

“Did whoever it was steal much?” Sylvia asked.

“No.” He blinked. “Nothing at all. And yes, that strikes me as strange.”

They stepped down off the drawbridge and, wending through knots of people, made their way into Clare Street. Once they were pacing steadily again, Kit went on, “That said, we’ve already put the incident behind us and forged on. Our carpenters have started setting in the ribs of the hull.”

Sylvia listened as he described the current state of the hull, struggling to mute her smile as enthusiasm flowed through his tone and lit his face. He sounded so much like the students—very much a case of “boys will be boys.”

When they crossed into Corn Street and he reached the end of his description with a “That’s how it stands as of today,” she remarked, “I admit I’m having trouble imagining the old warehouse being such a hive of activity—it always seemed such a cavernous space.”

“Oh, we’ve changed things—altered it to suit our needs.” He described the new offices, the gantry, and the huge tool racks.

She stared in unfeigned amazement. “You and your men have certainly been busy.”

He grinned at her. “We have.”

There was a wealth of sincere satisfaction in his expression; she studied it in something close to wonder. Had anyone told her—even a month ago—that Lord Kit Cavanaugh would find this degree of pleasure and joy in such work, she would have scoffed.

Yet hadn’t she already accepted that the man she’d believed him to be didn’t exist? That the man on whose arm she was entirely contentedly strolling was someone else entirely?

She looked ahead. It was nearly five o’clock, and the pavements were increasingly crowded with people heading home. They reached the intersection of Small and Corn Streets and were about to turn right when someone behind them stumbled, and the resulting jostling shoved her forward.

Kit caught her, steadied her, then, drawing her closer and linking her arm with his, using his larger frame to shield her, he quickly steered her around the corner.

Within a few paces, the press of bodies eased. She drew in a tight breath. “Thank you.”

He flashed her a smile—a genuine one, not the charming gesture she’d seen him deploy in ballrooms. “My pleasure.”

She knew he meant the words, too. He honestly liked protecting people, ladies especially. She now understood that had nothing to do with his rakish reputation but was simply an expression of the sort of man he was.

The man he truly was—the real man she was coming to know.

She looked ahead as they continued strolling, still close with her arm linked with his, their clothes lightly brushing with each stride as they progressed down the street.

The Lord Kit Cavanaugh she was coming to know was so unlike the man his reputation and her own observations-from-a-distance had led her to think he was—had convinced her he was—that it was almost as if he was a completely different, unrelated man.

The sort of lord she’d thought he was would never have devoted himself to a project such as Cavanaugh Yachts, would certainly never have bethought himself to aid the school in finding a new venue—and the thought of that imagined lordling bestirring himself over the plight of Johnson and Ned was simply laughable.

Yet the real Kit Cavanaugh, the man walking by her side, had done all those things, freely and willingly.

They—his actions—were the true measure of the man he was.

There was no denying that, to her, the real Kit Cavanaugh was far more attractive than the ton version had ever been. Even though, in that ton version, for more than five years he had been her romantic ideal—her fantasy gentleman—that status had been based purely on his physical attributes; she’d never liked or approved of his character—the character she and the ton had been led to believe was his.

Although she’d reined in her senses as tightly as she could, she remained excruciatingly aware of him walking close beside her; his strength, the controlled grace investing his powerful frame, and the sheer physicality of his presence impinged on her nerves, made her lungs constrict, and set her heart to beating just a soupçon faster.

He drew her—lured her—as no other man ever had.

As she’d discovered at the wedding, when it came to him, no amount of denial—not even imagined deficits of character—made the slightest difference to that intrinsic, instinctive attraction.

In an effort to stop dwelling on her reaction to him—at least not while he was so close—she searched for distraction… “This other boy—the one you call Jack the Lad. How old is he?”

“Thirteen, I believe.” He met her eyes. “I gather he’s known up and down the docks by that moniker.” Without her having to further prompt, he told her of Jack’s story and of how he came to be an apprentice at Cavanaugh Yachts.

Watching his face as he related what she realized were merely the bald facts, Sylvia felt her heart soften even further. He was a good man, although she doubted he thought of himself in such terms. He was focused on marching toward his goal, and, she suspected, he viewed his acts of kindness and generosity as very much incidental—in one way or another supporting his efforts to reach said goal. He could help, so he did, and in his eyes, that simply made his path easier.