Her eyes wider than she would have liked, she managed to smile with reasonable composure and wave him back to his chair. “Good morning, my lord.” I didn’t expect to see you before noon. “I trust you slept well?” She headed for the sideboard.
“I did, thank you.” He resumed his seat. “The bed was
comfortable, and after the constant noise of the capital, the silence of the country at night is a welcome relief.”
She glanced briefly his way. “You live in Mayfair?” Why had she asked that? She didn’t need to know. She gave him her back and concentrated on helping herself to a portion of kedgeree—and tried to drag her wits away from their sudden obsession with whether her bodice was straight and her hair properly pinned.
“I have lodgings in Jermyn Street.”
Of course he did. The street inhabited by all the most fashionable bachelors.
“That said, I spend most of my time in my office in the City.”
Turning, she approached the place opposite him. Johnson arrived with a teapot and a fresh rack of toast; he quickly set them down and pulled out and held her chair for her. She thanked him with a smile, sat, then glanced again at Cavanaugh. “I suppose you have to meet and discuss projects with your investors.”
He lowered his gaze to his plate of ham and eggs. “That, and meet with my contacts so that I hear of any new inventions looking for funding.” He raised his gaze and, across the table, met her eyes. “That takes more hours than I like, but it’s essential to keep on top of the field. Inventions arise more or less unheralded—one has to keep one’s ear to the ground.”
She nodded and, fixing her gaze on her plate, sampled the kedgeree, then settled to consume it. To her irritation, she was keenly aware of her every movement. Was there a bit of herring on her lip? She must be careful not to overload her fork.
Such thoughts—such awareness of her appearance and how a gentleman might be seeing her—were so alien, they jarred.
What was the matter with her?
Whatever it was—whatever affliction Cavanaugh had inflicted on her—she needed to ignore it.
Feeling his gaze on her, she very nearly squirmed.
“You know,” William John said, “I think you’re correct.” He leaned across to show Cavanaugh a diagram. “If I move the inlet valve to here, then the gauge should be more sensitive to the changes in pressure.” William John frowned. “Theoretically, anyway.”
Cavanaugh shrugged. “At times, one simply has to try things and see if they work.”
Slowly, still frowning, William John nodded. “Once we have the workshop cleared and the boiler replaced, we’ll try it. That, however, won’t be the only change we’ll need to make.”
Accustomed to her brother’s ramblings, Felicia, nevertheless, pricked up her ears at his use of “we.” Ever since their father’s death, with respect to the steam engine, William John had always spoken in the singular.
She continued to eat her kedgeree and sip her tea, and surreptitiously watched as Cavanaugh made another suggestion, and William John readily discussed the pros and cons...freely, without the slightest reservation.
In less than twenty-four hours, Cavanaugh had won her brother’s confidence, something she knew was not easy to do.
Clearly, she would be wise not to make assumptions about Lord Randolph Cavanaugh. It wasn’t yet nine o’clock, and already, he’d surprised her twice.
She was surprised again when Cavanaugh turned to her and asked if William John’s proposal to commandeer the footmen and gardener for cleanup duties in the workshop would inconvenience her.
She was tempted to say it would, but she’d promised to assist as she and the household could. She shook her head. “There’s nothing on their plates this morning that they can’t do later, once they’ve finished in the workshop.”
Cavanaugh turned back to William John and continued—artfully, gently, almost imperceptibly—to steer her brother, again and again drawing his peripatetic mind back to the issue at hand and keeping him firmly on the shortest path to completing the necessary modifications to the engine.
Felicia had to be grateful for that; if left to himself, William John had a tendency to follow whatever vague notion popped into his brain. From comments he’d let fall, she’d long ago formed the opinion that her brother’s brain was literally awhirl with thoughts, even more so than their father’s had been.
Now Cavanaugh had won William John’s trust, Cavanaugh was in a position to harness William John’s undoubtedly able mind and keep it focused on fixing the engine.
Watching the pair, for the first time since learning of the true nature of what faced them all, she felt a smidgen of hope.
With Cavanaugh at the helm, they might just win through.
Finally, William John slapped his palm on his pile of diagrams. “Right, then!” He looked at Felicia for the first time since she’d entered the room and grinned. “It’s time we got working.”
The enthusiasm in his eyes...she hadn’t seen that for quite some time. She found herself smiling back, then she set down her empty teacup, pushed back her chair, and rose as both men came to their feet.