Kit nodded; that was indisputable, and consequently, they needed to open their order book. He envisioned the sign in his mind, thought of how it would look on the front of the building. After a second, he glanced around; they’d fixed the lining boards for half the larger office. He glanced at Wayland, hammering another board into place. “We’ve done enough for today—the men can finish in here on Monday. Why don’t you design the sign, and I’ll look into the best place to have it made?”
“Excellent idea!” Wayland straightened and set down his hammer on a nearby trestle. “I’ll get the sign designed tonight. For my money, the sooner we get the name of Cavanaugh Yachts associated with this place, the better.”
Kit agreed. He and Wayland locked up, then parted. Wayland headed off quite jauntily, enthused at the pr
ospect of designing something new. Kit grinned and set off to visit the two sign makers’ shops he remembered passing on his meanderings through the city.
Both shops were closed, but in the window of each were displayed a range of different signs. From examining those, Kit decided the second shop was the one he would use; he knew the style of Wayland’s work, and the second sign maker looked to have the higher level of skill required to do justice to Wayland’s designs.
With that decided, Kit paused. The impulse to tell Sylvia of his encounter with Peabody had been hovering in his mind ever since Peabody had walked away. Now, that impulse pressed even more insistently; he really should reassure her of the outcome.
He’d resisted until now because he hadn’t been sure how to present his part in Peabody’s conversion. The school was so very much Sylvia’s creation, he hadn’t wanted to have her think that he had in any way stepped on her toes, even if she hadn’t been there and had, in fact, sent Peabody to him.
But he needed to tell her that Peabody had climbed down; she might view him not doing so in an even worse light.
He turned his steps toward her lodgings. It was after three-thirty; she should be there.
His attitude to Sylvia—his uncertainty in dealing with her and what drove that—was odd, curious, and a touch unnerving. Had she been a different sort of lady—a London sort of lady—after glimpsing her passion when she’d burst into his office and ranted at him over the school, he would have pursued her openly and directly. But she was a country clergyman’s daughter, and although he hadn’t met her before Rand’s wedding, in London or anywhere else—he felt sure he would remember her if he had—her opinion of him as displayed during the wedding, presumably based solely on his ton reputation, had been anything but flattering. He’d created that reputation as a shield to protect himself from the importunities of young ladies and their matchmaking mamas, and in that regard, it had served him well for over a decade. Now, however, that defensive shield had turned into a hurdle.
Not an insurmountable one, but a hurdle nonetheless.
The unrelenting determination that welled from somewhere deep inside him to successfully overcome that stumbling block was the aspect that most unnerved him.
He hauled his mind from dwelling on it further and, instead, thought of the sign and of Peabody, too...
The idea that sparked had him blinking, then thinking, weighing up whether the notion was sound and something to be pursued or if Sylvia would see it as an unwarranted encroachment.
Before he could decide, he fetched up on the pavement before her lodging house. He opened the gate, walked up the short path, and climbed the steps to the front porch. He paused to straighten his jacket, then lifted the brass knocker and beat a polite tattoo.
After a minute of silence, footsteps—not Sylvia’s—approached the door. It opened to reveal an older woman of perhaps fifty summers, with graying brown hair drawn back in a bun and a knitted shawl draped about her shoulders. Her faded brown eyes passed over Kit in a careful perusal, then she inquired, “Yes, sir?”
Kit smiled his most charming smile. “Good afternoon. I wonder if I might have a word with Miss Buckleberry.”
The woman, presumably Sylvia’s landlady, regarded him shrewdly for several seconds, then asked, “And who shall I say is calling?”
Kit kept his smile in place; on one level, it was comforting to know that Sylvia had a dragon, however mild, guarding her door. “Lord Kit Cavanaugh.”
The woman eyed him with increased interest. Then something in her stance changed, and Kit realized she’d decided to approve of him. As if to confirm that, she nodded, more to herself than to him, then she bobbed and said, “Miss Sylvia hasn’t come home yet, my lord. She’ll be in her office for a good hour more. Dedicated to that school, she is. She has a very good heart.”
The last was said as if to impress the fact on him. Kit smiled more genuinely. “I know. And it’s about the school that I wish to speak with her.” Sylvia hadn’t mentioned an office. “Can you direct me to her office?”
The woman considered him again, but must have seen enough in his face to trust him. “It’s in the building beside Christ Church, up along Broad Street. Her office is on the second floor, at the back overlooking the rear of the church.”
“Thank you.” Kit smiled. “And your name?”
She bobbed again. “Mrs. Macintyre, your lordship.”
Kit inclined his head. “Again, thank you, Mrs. Macintyre. My best wishes for a pleasant evening.”
“And to you, your lordship.”
Kit tipped her a salute, turned, and went down the path. He closed the gate behind him, paused to consider his way, then strode for Christ Church and the building beside it.
The latter proved to be as old as the church. The door was unlocked. Kit went in and looked around the small foyer. From the list of tenants’ names displayed on a board on the wall inside the door, he surmised that the building was owned by the church and used primarily for church-linked organizations. Although it was quiet, the hum of distant conversations and the occasional footstep testified to the presence of others in the various offices.
Kit climbed the narrow stone stairs, continuing past the first floor to the second. He stepped off the stairs onto a worn runner and followed it toward the back of the building. There he found a row of small offices, most with their doors shut. He approached the door that stood wide open, shedding the last of the afternoon’s light into the dimly lit corridor.
He walked slowly—silently—into the doorway and saw Sylvia, head bent, seated behind an ancient desk. She was scribbling in an open ledger. He raised a hand and rapped lightly on the frame.