Felicia frowned. “I thought I saw someone lurking in the wood, but...” With a sigh, she sat back and faced forward. “When I looked again, there was no one there. I must have imagined it.”
“Shall I tell Ryder?” Mary asked. “He’ll stop, and he and the guards can search.”
Felicia thought for a moment, then shook her head. “It might have been a curious farmworker or some such person, and it doesn’t matter now—we’re on our way.” She glanced at Mary and smiled. “Besides, we should keep as close as possible behind the steam carriage—we don’t want anyone slipping in between.”
“True.” Mary settled against the seat. “If anyone wants to sabotage the engine, they’ll have to catch us first and then go through the guards.” Her smile turned edged. “They’ll never manage that, so, I believe, we can relax on that score.”
After seeing the men Ryder had brought as guards, Felicia had to admit that was a reasonable assessment and conclusion.
As they rolled out of the drive and turned onto the lane leading away from the village, then almost immediately turned right onto the lane heading north toward Oxford and Banbury beyond, she imagined how their cavalcade would appear to all those they passed.
Imagined how the Throgmorton Steam-Powered Horseless Carriage would look to others—like a fantastical machine from the future.
As she swayed with the motion of the carriage, she inwardly sighed, touched by a combination of happiness and sadness as she thought of her father.
It was an abiding pity he hadn’t lived to see this moment—to see William John complete the invention and drive it off to the exhibition. How proud her father would have been of William John.
And, perhaps, of her.
* * *
Standing cloaked in shadows, Clive Mayhew watched the Throgmorton machine rumble down the drive. One small part of him cursed, but a larger part of his mind was fascinated.
Enthralled.
As for the rest of his mind, that had taken a firm stand, lecturing and hectoring him on his fall from grace.
He now deeply distrusted his uncle’s stance. And despite the black cloud of despair and desperation that hung over his own head, he was nevertheless increasingly sure that for his own sake, he needed to pull back and step away from the action he’d agreed to undertake. To turn aside from that particular path to monetary salvation.
His attempt to seize Miss Throgmorton had been calculated to bring about his uncle’s desired end without physical harm to any person or, indeed, to the machine, even though he hadn’t, at that time, set eyes on it.
The thwarting of that attempt—the manner in which it had been thwarted—had shaken him. He’d seen the looks on both Cavanaugh’s and Miss Throgmorton’s faces, signaling their contempt and his loss of all gentlemanly status in their eyes.
Their expressions had haunted him. Had started the voice in his head niggling, asking questions such as What sort of man are you? And some deeply buried part of him had surfaced and warned that there was no point erasing his debts if, in the process, he lost all standing in his world—and, most especially, with himself.
He hadn’t thought of himself as overburdened with morals, yet in that moment when Cavanaugh and Miss Throgmorton had looked at him, his inner self had flinched. Had cringed. And he’d turned and run away.
Now, as he listened to what he realized was a quite fascinating advance in steam-powered carriages hum its way toward the exhibition in Birmingham, he felt that deeply buried part of him strengthen and take firmer hold.
He set his jaw, then softly reiterated, “I’m not going to do it.”
He waited to see how clinging to that resolution of yesterday felt—whether it still fitted him, the man he truly was. And it did; it resonated and felt right.
He drew in a breath, slowly exhaled, and felt immeasurably better—lighter—than he had.
He was, thank heaven, a complete failure when it came to illicit and underhanded sabotage. In reality, he felt more comforted than bothered by that conclusion. How he would pay his debts, he didn’t know, but he would find some way—some legitimate way. Some way that wouldn’t make him ashamed to be Clive Mayhew.
Perhaps he could grow serious about his sketching. His family had never encouraged him to think his sketches worth anything, but Cavanaugh and the Throgmorton ladies had thought them better than merely good. The London News used his sketches here and there, but they didn’t want art so much as recognizable depictions of this or that, and they didn’t pay much. Perhaps he should gird his loins and offer his private portfolio to some art dealer and see what might come of it?
One way or another, he would find a way.
The mounted guards and the traveling coach had followed the steam carriage and were now long gone. The Hall’s household had returned indoors, and the stableman had retreated to the stable. Clive turned and quietly made his way out of the wood, eventually emerging onto the lane.
Now what?
He stood in the lane and debated. Given his new direction, his first move should be to free himself from all ties to his uncle’s scheme. “I’d better tell the old codger that I won’t be doing his dirty work.”
He grimaced at the thought of going back to London. He rather fancied remaining in the country until he had added substantially to his portfolio, so he would have some hope of securing cash quickly on his return to town, the better to keep Quire at bay, at least long enough to test the waters with some art dealers.