Page 68 of The Pursuit of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

Kit joined him there, finding Wayland perched on one of the pair of stools; Kit pulled up the other and sat.

With no light, they couldn’t see the drawings well enough to work on them; they could barely see each other.

“I predict we’re in for a long, boring night,” Wayland murmured. After a moment, he said, “Do you think we’re being paranoid imagining some blighter is going to break in and try to damage the keel again?”

Kit took a moment to consider the point, then replied, “No, I don’t. I think he’ll be back. He’s already been back a second time and couldn’t get in. There’s nothing to stop him from returning with lock picks or even a sharp file and forcing the padlock.”

“But…” Wayland raked a hand through his hair, the gesture only just detectable in the gloom. “Why?” He shook his head. “I just don’t understand it—or him, whoever he is.”

“No more do I,” Kit said. “But the fact he came back a second time makes it clear he’s not finished with us. And if you think about it, although he succeeded in damaging our work up to Monday, given we’d only just started, the impact wasn’t all that severe—we got over it quickly, and we’ve forged on. That can’t have been the result he hoped for.”

As if feeling his way, Wayland said, “You think he wants to seriously damage our business? Not just cause damage for damage’s sake but to actually bring us down?”

“We can’t afford to take the chance.” Kit paused, then went on, “He doesn’t have to completely destroy the work to have a serious impact on the business. Just think how the men will feel if the new keel is wrecked again. We’ve inspired them to believe in their skills anew and to apply them in working on the keel—you know as well as I do that not only is the work advancing at a rapid pace but the quality’s also exceptional. Which is just what we want to set Cavanaugh Yachts above all other yacht manufacturers.

“Yet despite all that, at this moment, our enterprise is young. We’re in the process of building the reputation we want, but right now, we’re vulnerable. We don’t need any questions being raised about us having some ongoing feud with someone who is determined to wreck anything we build. You know how rumors fly around a waterfront. If our saboteur succeeds in damaging the keel again, the news will get out, and we’ll find not just other people but even our men getting cold feet—just when we need their commitment the most.”

Wayland huffed. “When you put it like that…” After a moment, he shrugged. “You’re right, but I still predict he won’t show—not tonight and not tomorrow night—simply because we’re here, and Fate likes to play us mortals for fools.”

Kit laughed and rose from the stool. “I was up late last night—I’m going to turn in.”

Wayland grunted. “It’s too dark even to play dice with myself.” He rose and, turning to where his hammock was slung across the end of his office, waved Kit off. “Sleep tight.”

Smiling, Kit ambled into the workshop. His eyes had adjusted and rendered the scene in shades of gray. The keel taking proud shape in the nearest of the three bays sat still and silent. Throughout the workspace, nothing moved, nothing stirred.

Satisfied, he went into the front office, picked up his blanket, and rolled himself into his hammock.

They’d checked and established that quiet sounds inside the workshop didn’t carry outside. As Kit settled to stare up at the ceiling, he heard Wayland murmur, “I feel like we’re boys again, out on some silly adventure-cum-lark.”

Kit grinned. “I can’t recall any of our larks involving sleeping in hammocks.”

“Much less in a cold and drafty workshop. Even as boys, we had better sense.”

Kit chuckled. As silence descended, he realized that, despite his earlier words, he wasn’t sleepy. Although he hadn’t said so, he felt that as their would-be saboteur hadn’t come last night, then it was more likely he would wait until Sunday night, when this area of the city was even quieter, even more certainly deserted. Faced with the prospect of a wasted evening and night, Kit decided he might as well use the time to think of other things.

Out of the darkness, Wayland murmured, “It occurs to me that, over the past weeks of non-stop discussions about what we want our business to be, the one topic we haven’t touched on is how we see our wider lives developing once the business is established.” He paused, then went on, “I suppose I mean what else we want in our lives besides the business.”

As that was precisely the direction in which Kit’s mind had gone, the subject he’d been wrestling with over the past week, he bit the proverbial bullet and volunteered, “I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit in recent days.”

“Have you? Do tell.” Amusement rode beneath Wayland’s words.

Kit smiled into the dark. “You might have noticed that, over the past weeks, I’ve had other calls on my time, namely the school and the lady who manages it—a Miss Sylvia Buckleberry.”

“I had noticed that,” Wayland drily replied.

Kit went on, “I’d met Miss Buckleberry before—a month or so ago. She was a bridesmaid at Rand and Felicia’s wedding, and being a groomsman, I was partnered with her throughout the event.”

“And?”

“She treated me as if I was…someone she definitely didn’t want to know.” If he was brutally honest, he’d been fascinated by her from the instant he’d laid eyes on her—as she’d walked up the aisle ahead of Mary and Felicia. But that attraction had been immediately quashed by the downright chilly way she’d responded to him.

He’d written her off as a lost cause—as a spinster too strait-laced to bother with. One he should forget as soon as he possibly could.

Instead, a bare month later, she’d stormed into his office and shown him a completely different side of her—a vibrant, passionate lady—and his initial attraction had roared back to life, stronger, more powerful. More insistent.

“What?” Pure puzzlement on Wayland’s part.

“Indeed. To this day, I have no idea what caused her to behave as she did, but suffice it to say that, since we met again here and have been working together to resolve various issues at the school, she’s altered her view of my poor self.” Given their kiss last night, he decided he could feel assured of that.