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.
In the cool of the night, she wasn’t about to be gainsaid. Evenly, she continued, “If you hadn’t been watching—hadn’t cared enough to spend your afternoon loitering in the woods being supremely bored—if you hadn’t been there to see and come racing after me, I wouldn’t have escaped Mayhew. He would have caught up with me and seized me again. Then he would have carted me off and done as he’d said, and the Throgmorton engine would have remained at the Hall and not been presented at the exhibition.”
She drew in a deeper breath and faced him, her gaz
e steady on his face. “The invention would have failed. You and your investors would have lost your funds. Your reputation would have been severely damaged. William John would have been ruined and any hope he has of becoming an established inventor would have vanished. The household would have been ruined, too—we would have had to sell up. The workshop would be lost, my family as it has been would cease to be, and I...” She focused relentlessly on his shadowed caramel eyes. “I would have been damaged goods. There would have been no future for me, and if William John and I managed to avoid ending destitute, it would only be by the charity of others.”
His jaw tightened as if he was holding back words—a dismissal he knew she wouldn’t accept. Her own expression firming, determined to say all she felt she must, she went on, “So hear me, Rand Cavanaugh, and know that, from the bottom of my heart, I thank you for being there when I needed you to be.”
Even as the words fell from her lips, she realized that was, for her, the critical and most fundamental point. He was the first and only man in her life to have shown her such simple yet steadfast loyalty. No matter they’d known each other for mere weeks, she knew beyond question that he would always be there if she needed him, that she could rely on him as she had never been able to rely on any other.
The insight left her feeling both vulnerable and invincible.
Rand looked down at her, into pretty green eyes, silver-pale in the moonlight, his self, his senses, locked on her while he fought to keep back the words he felt he could not yet—did not yet have the right to—say. She and William John and the household at the Hall would never be destitute; he wouldn’t allow it.
Yet while he battled to suppress those words, others—fueled by a source even more powerful—rose to his tongue. “I don’t want your thanks. I don’t want your gratitude.” Even to his ears, the words sounded gravelly and dark. Belatedly, he tried to rein himself—his true inner self—back, but it was too late. Far too late. He held her gaze and succinctly stated, “I just want you.”
Her eyes widened. Then she blinked and tipped her head, regarding him with a frown slowly investing her eyes and her expression.
He suddenly realized she might misconstrue; the possibility horrified, and he hurried to clarify... For a moment, he was lost, then, as if a dam broke, words rushed to his tongue. “That kiss in the woods today—and the one before. In neither case did I kiss you because I intended to seduce you...or rather, I do hope to seduce you, but not in any way to your detriment.” The more rational part of him wondered where the hell he was going with this, yet her expression said she was listening, and the words kept flowing. “I said we should leave dealing with whatever was between us until later—until this business with the engine was over and done with, and we would be free to think of ourselves.” His eyes locked with hers, he shook his head. “This afternoon, when I thought I’d lost you, my world came crashing down. I had thought other things”—his wave encompassed the world beyond the lawn—“were more important—or, at least, equally important—but in that, I was wrong. This afternoon taught me exactly how wrong.”
All of him—all he was, every last particle of his being—was focused on her. Blindly, he reached for her hands, gathered her fingers in his, and gently squeezed. “Regardless of the brevity of our acquaintance, something in me knew you for what you were in the first instant I saw you. You are the most critical thing—far and away the most important thing—to me. To my life, to my future—to the future I want to have.”