She managed not to react—to turn and stare—but Mayhew had blinked and was now staring at the house.
“It’s just another pipe.” It wasn’t—this time it was something even more troublesome than a valve. Mayhew glanced at her, and she waved dismissively. “The staff will take care of it.”
Mayhew hesitated, then settled to his sketching again, although Felicia noted he glanced toward the house—toward its rear—more frequently than before.
She could only pray that the workshop door hadn’t blown open and that clouds of steam weren’t gushing forth.
That morning, she’d worked with William John to solve what they had hoped was the last little glitch that had kept the engine from running perfectly; they’d been so pleased and heartened—buoyed by a sense of impending success. Now...
Damn it! We haven’t all that many days left.
Mayhew looked at her sharply. Briefly, she smiled, erasing her frown, and schooled her features back into her pose of bucolic serenity.
* * *
Rand was steadily and stealthily making his way back toward the house. Mayhew was all artist, at least at that moment, and given how near to completion the engine was and how close the exhibition, Rand felt compelled to see what had gone wrong—what had blown now.
This time, it hadn’t been anything he and William John had arranged.
As Rand retreated, he glanced back frequently, but Mayhew and Felicia remained seated as they had been, at the far end of the lawn. From all Rand had seen, he suspected Felicia would, indeed, need to tempt Mayhew to test the man’s interest in the engine. Rand had to admit he was increasingly feeling his and her suspicions regarding Mayhew owed more to paranoia than reality.
He was still some way from the house, following a deer trail through the wood, when, after checking on Mayhew and Felicia yet again, he noticed Flora, who in her role as chaperon had been seated prominently on the terrace, had quit her post and, presumably, gone into the house.
That suggested the explosion was serious.
His heart sinking, Rand increased his pace.
He plotted his course. He would make for the part of the wood nearest the kitchen garden, then risk crossing the lawn to the wall; the wall was taller than he was and would allow him to reach the workshop with little chance of Mayhew spotting him.
Again, he glanced back. Mayhew was still sketching, and Felicia was still posing; neither had altered their position.
Rand faced forward, lengthened his stride, and headed for the workshop.
* * *
Felicia remained all but boneless in the chair. Her mind, however, was elsewhere, focused on the engine in the workshop. Trying to imagine what had caused the noise, she turned her thoughts to the diagrams on the board. What had she missed? Where among the pipes, pistons, and tubes could an excess of pressure have built up?
She was engrossed in reviewing the design of the engine when Mayhew looked at her, then rose from his stool.
Felicia blinked. Was it the shifting shadows of the oak beneath which he sat, or had his features hardened?
But then he smiled. “This is truly excellent. It’ll be one of my best works to date. I just need you to hold that pose for a few minutes more.” He stepped around the easel and, with one hand, indicated his satchel, which he’d left leaning against the rear corner of the armchair. “I need a different pencil for the final strokes.”
Felicia faintly smiled and obediently held her pose, her chin at the required angle and her gaze on the trees at the end of the lawn to her left.
Mayhew approached and crouched down beside the chair. She heard him open the satchel, heard the rustle of paper as he searched inside.
After a moment, she sensed him straighten.
* * *
Still in the wood, Rand drew level with the wall enclosing the kitchen garden. He pushed through the undergrowth to the edge of the lawn. Pausing just inside the wood, before walking into the open and across to the screening wall, he looked down the lawn, intending to time his emergence to a moment when Mayhew looked down at his sketch—
The artist was no longer behind his easel.
Felicia wasn’t in the chair.
Her parasol lay to one side, discarded.