She hadn’t seen him like this before—in full flight, given over to his passion.
“Actually,” he said as they neared the drawbridge and he took her elbow to steady her up the steps, “I have to thank you anew for the chance to use your pupils as messengers. Several of the men we’ve hired came to us because the boys spread the word—we wouldn’t have found them otherwise.”
She nodded in understanding. “Many of the older craftsmen have given up and are no longer even looking for work.”
“Exactly—and some of those are the very craftsmen we need to build our yachts to the quality we’re determined to achieve.”
And he was off again, describing the features they hoped to incorporate into their yachts. She found his enthusiasm very like that of the boys—infectious and engaging.
They were descending t
he steps on the east bank of the Frome when she again sensed that disturbing—unnerving—tickle of primitive reaction slithering across her nape. Stepping down to the pavement, she glanced swiftly around.
Kit noticed. Instantly alert, he raised his head and looked around, too—and the sensation vanished.
“What is it?” Kit demanded. Every protective instinct he possessed had leapt to the fore the instant she’d abruptly paused and glanced around, and the way she’d looked around had only escalated his concern. He returned his gaze to her face to see her frowning into the distance.
Then she grimaced. Her chin firming, she shook her head. “It’s...annoying more than anything else.” She glanced at him and briefly met his eyes before starting to walk again, more purposefully now.
He fell in beside her. When he simply waited, his gaze on her profile, she sighed and said, “Yesterday, I stopped by the school to check supplies, to check in general, and when I was walking home, I got that feeling one gets when someone is watching you.”
Kit glanced back, thinking of the route they’d covered. “Was it in the same place that you sensed the watcher? Around the bridge on this side?”
“No. Yesterday, it happened while I was on the Butts. I looked around then, too, but...” She gestured. “All I saw was the same thing I saw today—that you saw as well. Lots of ordinary people going about their business. No one skulking. Especially no suspicious youths.”
“You think it’s the Stenshaw lads?”
“It’s possible, isn’t it? But”—she shrugged—“who knows?”
She kept walking, and he paced alongside her, more bothered than he let show.
After several yards, she murmured, “Perhaps I’m just jumpy after the fire.”
He seriously doubted that was the case; from all he’d seen of her, she had a backbone of iron and nerves of steel.
They continued along Clare Street into Corn Street. He could see the tower of Christ Church looming ahead.
In his mind, he assessed every possible angle—every direction from which a threat might come. He remembered the man he’d seen walking away from the warehouse. He hadn’t been in the city long enough to have acquired any enemies here. After a moment, he asked, “Do you know of any enemies—people who might wish you ill?”
The look she bent on him suggested he’d taken leave of his senses. “No. Of course not. I have no enemies.”
He grimaced and let the matter drop, but he wasn’t going to forget it. He’d long ago learned to trust intuition regarding such nebulous threats—and not only his intuition. No matter how she tried to downplay it, she’d been disturbed by the watcher’s attention. That alone meant something, and it wasn’t anything good.
Surreptitiously, he glanced around again, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to them.
Looking at her, he studied what little he could see of her face, then ventured, “You would be entertained if you could be a fly on the wall and see the change in our men—and in Jack the Lad—whenever Miss Petty darkens the workshop door.”
Sylvia smiled and met his eyes. “Miss Petty and Jack the Lad?”
“Haven’t I mentioned them?” Kit put his experience at being a charming companion to good use and soon had Sylvia smiling and laughing again.
But as he followed her through the door of the building beside the church, he decided that, instead of leaving her at her office door, he would dally and walk her all the way home.
CHAPTER 9
The following morning, Kit reached the workshop to find Wayland staring aghast at the wreckage of their first keel.
Kit was struck speechless. Then he looked at Wayland. “What happened?”