“No,” they chorused.
The pair exchanged a look, then the one in Smiggs’s grip said, “We never thought of that.”
“Don’t,” Kit advised, his tone promising instant and terrible retribution. He caught first one, then the other boy’s eyes. “In fact,” he went on, in that same chilling tone, “I would strongly recommend that you both give everything and everybody associated with the school a very wide berth. That includes the teachers, the pupils, and anyone who visits. Should I find you’ve approached or interfered in any way—caused any problem at all, even from a distance—I’ll be back, and next time, I’ll bring the constable with me.” He’d kept his voice low throughout. He paused, then demanded, “Is that clear?”
The boys swallowed, bobbed their heads, and chorused, “Yes, sir. Quite clear.”
It seemed neither boy had realized who, exactly, had bailed them up. Kit wasn’t about to enlighten them. He released his hold on the collar of the youth he’d held, and Smiggs did the same with his brother.
“I suggest you get inside,” Kit murmured, and both boys fled down the runnel.
Kit met Smiggs’s gaze and tipped his head toward the street. He followed Smiggs out of the confined space, and they started walking toward the river.
Eventually, Smiggs offered, “It wasn’t them—not at your workshop and not following the lady.”
“No.” Kit had really hoped that the Stenshaws were responsible, that the reasons behind the sudden rash of problems would be that obvious and easy to deal with. Now...
They reached the Butts and found a hackney forlornly idling. Smiggs hailed it, and they climbed up and slumped on the seat as the carriage rattled slowly north and west toward Kit’s house on Queen’s Parade.
He stared unseeing at the passing streetscapes. If not the Stenshaw lads, then who?
Who for the warehouse? Who for stalking Sylvia?
Two separate people? Or were the two actions parts of one man’s plan?
Kit turned those questions over in his mind, but could discern no route via which to learn the answers.
Stymied, he shifted to considering why—what reason could anyone have for either action?
No answer to that shone in his mind, either, but the realization that, as far as he knew, he was the only link between the workshop and Sylvia left him with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
The thought that he might be the reason she was being stalked chilled him. Yet he couldn’t for the life of him think of anyone who wished him ill—not to the extent of damaging a build and stalking an innocent lady simply because he’d been seen with her.
When it came to it, he didn’t have business competitors, not in Bristol and not even in England, not for the type of yachts he and Wayland were building. If they’d been in France, it would be a different matter, but this was Bristol, not Le Havre or Marseilles.
As the hackney rattled on through the night, Kit found himself facing the single fact that most contributed to his welling uneasiness. Regarding the break-in at the warehouse and Sylvia being stalked, he didn’t know what to think—and, therefore, had no clue how to act.
For someone of his temperament, that was worse than wearing a hair shirt.
* * *
The next morning, Kit forced himself not to hunt down Sylvia—he had no reason to; what excuse could he give?—and, instead, turned up at the workshop, hoping to lose himself in helping with the work, enough, at least, to get his mind off the futile track it had been treading for the better part of the night.
The men were already busy adding the ribs of the hull to the solid structure that now surrounded the bilge board. Before Kit could join them, Wayland hailed him and beckoned him to join him in the new design office.
Kit found his friend ears deep in sketches.
For the next several hours, he worked alongside Wayland in selecting those design elements they felt would best serve to set the yachts they built apart from all others.
“As our aim is to make ocean-going yachts people will beat a path to our door to purchase, we need to make them special,” Wayland said, repeating the mantra they’d decided on when he’d agreed to come back to England and become a partner in Cavanaugh Yachts.
Wayland proceeded to present his next amazing idea—which Kit pointed out would surely make the ship too heavy and unbalanced as well.
“Ah.” Wayland stared at his diagram for several silent moments, then set it aside and picked up the next.
They’d always worked like this, with Wayland spouting ideas left and right, and Kit picking those that might work and cutting and trimming them to fit.
Hours passed. It was late morning when Mulligan propped his bulk in the doorway of the design office. When Kit and Wayland looked up, directing inquiring looks Mulligan’s way, he nodded at Kit. “Man here to see you.”