by Regina Scott
“I don’t see how you could have done me a disservice,” Lydia said. “You have always been kind to me.”
“Nein.” She sighed. “Sorry. I find when I grow weary the German comes out too easily.”
“You’re from Hanover,” Lydia guessed.
“Jah. Born and raised in the capital itself. My parents came over when I was a girl. We have always served the nobility.” Her voice rang with pride.
“How did you end up working with Miss Worthington, then?” Lydia asked as they moved past the trees in the center of the square.
“After my father died, my mother was laundress to the Worthingtons and others in the area. She made her own baskets. I learned from her. I took over the laundry three years ago, but already I was tired of it. The work is long, hot, and wet.”
Lydia hid a shudder. “I would imagine.”
“Miss Worthington came to me about a year ago and asked me to weave a special basket. It must be done in secret, in her home. She said I would be like her companion. It was a great elevation.”
Indeed it was. Like Miss Janssen’s mother, most laundresses died in the trade. “So you’ve been working on that basket for a year.”
She made a face. “His lordship kept changing his mind. That didn’t trouble me so much. Sitting and weaving is much better than working with lye.”
“I admire your patience,” Lydia told the older woman.
Miss Janssen kicked at a stone on the pavement. “But I was not so patient. Working with Miss Worthington gave me ideas. She treats us so well, like we are family. I began to dream of being a family in truth. I thought if I worked hard, showed promise, Lord Worthington might notice me.”
She knew the feeling. “I take it he didn’t.”
“Nein!” She sighed again. “I am a servant, someone to complete a task. But a fierce heart beats in my breast.” She thumped her chest as if to prove it. “And when he showed interest in another, I acted to protect what I hoped would be mine.”
Another? Was Worth courting again? Her own heart beat fiercely at the thought.
“Lord Worthington expressed interest in a lady?” she asked as they neared Meredith’s house.
Miss Janssen nodded. “You.”
Lydia started, then forced a laugh. “A momentary folly, I assure you. Lord Worthington decided that we would not suit.”
“I decided.” Miss Janssen stopped on the pavement, fingers now bunched in her skirts. “I was jealous, shameful though that is. I knew he would not listen to me. So I gossiped with Miss Pankhurst. She loves it so.”
“I’ve noticed,” Lydia murmured, dread gathering. “And what did you share?”
“I had heard stories from the maid about your brother. Everyone in the great houses knew of his ambitions.”
Beau would be so proud to hear that his name had been bandied, even with poor report, in high circles. Her dread only grew. “And Miss Pankhurst went to Lord Worthington.”
Miss Janssen rubbed her fingers together, until she nearly tore the gloves from her hands. “I heard them speak. The way she talked, you had ambitions too. She is very good at such nuances. She said you wanted to marry above yourself. To marry for money. She made it seem as if you could never have loved Lord Worthington himself.”
“I see.” Indeed, she thought she saw a great deal. She had cared deeply for Worth, had dreamed that at last she had found a way to make Beau happy while marrying for love. She had made no secret of her admiration. Lacking family and fortune and being no great beauty, all she had had to offer was her love and devotion. To hear she cared only for his title, that her sweet attentions stemmed only from calculation, would have seemed to Worth the ultimate betrayal.
“I am very sorry,” Miss Janssen said, entire body trembling now. “You have been so kind to me, so clever with the work. I was wrong to try to part you and his lordship. You are good together.”
“Sometimes.” Her mind was whirling once more, offering picture after picture of what might have been. Then another thought intruded, shaking her with its truth.
She regarded the older woman, whose face was puckering. “Thank you for telling me, Miss Janssen. I truly cared for Lord Worthington, and I thought he cared for me. Yet why would he so readily believe that story? He ought to have known me, believed in me. Then again, few do.”
Tears were gathering. She despised them. They made her feel wet and miserable, and they accomplished nothing. She’d long ago learned to turn aside criticism with a smile, find opportunity in any cloud. At the moment, she struggled.
“He knows better now,” Miss Janssen insisted. “I see how he looks at you when he thinks no one notices. He still cares for you.”
Hope leaped up. She had to contain it. For the first time, people were taking her seriously. How could she jeopardize that for the chance that Worth’s feelings would prove reliable this time?
“Perhaps,” she told Miss Janssen. “But I fear Lord Worthington has far more on his mind then me, and always will.”
~~~
He could not get Lydia off his mind. Neither the work to create and test the bellows nor the note threatening death to one of the team fully claimed his attention. Where Lydia had been the distraction, now his work proved the most intrusive. He even troubled to focus when he, Charlotte, and Bateman attended church services that Sunday.
“Mind what you’re doing,” Bateman ordered during one of their sparring matches. The boxer hadn’t been as convinced as Lydia that the note was a sham.
“Different hand than the original set,” he had insisted, studying the note. “Seems you have more than one enemy.”
Or two working together. The thought brought no comfort. The need to protect Charlotte and the other members of his team had never been more important. So why did his brain fixate on Lydia?
He simply could not sit in his laboratory, listening to the cheerful voices down the corridor as she sat sewing with the others. He found himself prowling along the edge of the square, energy uncaged. Perhaps that was why he nearly bumped into Julian coming out of Miss Thorn’s again. His friend took one look at him and whisked him off to an inn in the City, bespeaking a private room.
“I take it your experiments are going badly,” Julian said after they had settled themselves into comfortable overstuffed chairs near a glowing fire, cups of tea in their hands.
“It’s not the experiments that trouble me,” Worth admitted. “Do you plan on attending the wedding between Beau Villers and Lady Lilith?”
If Julian wondered at the shift in topic, he didn’t comment. Instead, he leaned back. “I haven’t been invited.”
Worth raised his brows. “I thought everyone in London had been invited. Lady Lilith doesn’t do things by half.”
His friend’s mouth quirked. “We had a disagreement recently. She didn’t care for my stance on the issue. And remember, I’m simply a solicitor.”
Worth shook his head. “A solicitor who has the ear of the highest levels of government and is welcome in the most noble houses. I certainly wouldn’t want to alienate you.”
Julian laughed. “Should I take it you’ll be missing out as well?”
Worth sighed. “No. We’ll all attend.”
Julian toasted him with the cup. “I predict it only a matter of time before I’m not invited to your wedding too. Miss Thorn and her cat Fortune have a way of seeing to her clients’ future.”
He and Lydia, matched by a cat? He remembered how Fortune had regarded him when they’d first met, as if she could see his inmost thoughts. Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was moving in the wrong direction.
“I’m not ready for marriage,” he told his friend.
Julian eyed him. “Why? You’re established in your field. You have a suitable income to support a wife. Some might consider you kind on the eyes, if one can stomach all that red in your hair.”
Now Worth laughed. “Said the flame to the blaze.”
Julian patted his red-gold mane. “Exactly.” He sob
ered. “So why hide away as if you had nothing to offer a lady?”
Worth shifted, the chair feeling suddenly hard. “You of all people should know my record when it comes to judging a person’s character.”
“You’re talking about Shubert,” the solicitor surmised. “That could have happened to anyone. You were still a boy.”
“Sixteen,” Worth corrected him. “And my father’s heir. When he died, I shouldn’t have simply trusted those who had been left in charge to care for me, my mother, and Charlotte. Shubert had been the family solicitor for years, and he embezzled thousands before you caught him at it.”
“But you had the idea to hire me to review your accounts,” Julian reminded him.
Worth cocked a smile. “Well, you needed the job.”
Julian shook his head with a wry chuckle. “You have a good heart, Worthington.”
“A soft heart,” Worth replied. “I can offer more evidence of it. One of my first acts on graduating from Eton and returning to London as the viscount was to replace our aging butler. The fellow had earned his retirement. The man I chose was tall and imposing, with impeccable references. He so browbeat the rest of the staff that I had to sack him within a fortnight.”
“You aren’t the first to have trouble with your staff,” Julian pointed out. “If everyone had a perfect household, my Miss Thorn wouldn’t be able to place her ladies so quickly.”
He suspected Miss Thorn placed her ladies not so much from need as from savvy negotiating. “Very well,” he allowed. “But you can’t deny Curtis was a disaster.”
Julian finished his coffee. “No argument here. You were lucky to escape with your dignity intact.”
“And little else,” Worth agreed. Even as he thought back on it, his shame rose anew. How could he have been so blind?
He’d met John Curtis at a Royal Institution lecture, two idealists determined to revolutionize the nation. Curtis seemed to understand Worth’s theories, encouraged him to dream big. For once, someone had understood him. To have the attentions of the older man, already an icon of the prestigious Royal Society when Worth had only just been put up for membership, had told Worth he was on the verge of greatness. He could finally feel his portrait deserved a spot with his forebears’ in the family picture gallery. Curtis, whose protégé had recently passed away, appeared eager to help another young gentleman. Within a week, Worth and Curtis were meeting daily to compare notes. Within a month, they shared laboratory space. Worth hadn’t worked at home, then, but in a warehouse along the wharves.
Everything had been going splendidly, his work progressing faster than he had hoped. Then Curtis had published a paper in Philosophical Transactions, claiming the innovations as his own.
Worth had stormed to his flat, demanded an explanation.
“What’s the fuss, old chap?” Curtis had asked. “We both worked on those experiments. You would have eventually published the results. I merely helped highlight the work sooner. And the Royal Institution is interested. We’re no longer confined to the musty halls of the Royal Society. The Royal Institution makes all these theories practical. That’s where the money is, the chance for advancement. Do you think glory so easily attained and held?”
“Money and favor,” Worth had raged. “That wasn’t my aim.”
Curtis had made a face. “Then what does it matter who takes the credit? Science will be served. You’ve accomplished your goal.”
Not in the slightest. “If names don’t matter,” Worth had returned, “then you won’t mind if I write to the editor and request a correction in the next issue.”
Things had turned uglier from there.
“You parted with Curtis more than a year ago,” Julian reminded him now. “You said your experiments were going well. Why dwell on the matter?”
“Because Curtis wasn’t the last to disappoint me,” Worth said. “I’d thought I’d learned my lesson. I purchased the adjoining townhouse and brought my work home, where I could control it. I refused to accept Curtis’s card when he called. I even took a different direction in my studies. No more far-flung theories. No more relying on others. I decided to pursue something practical, useful. I wouldn’t publish, I’d demonstrate, so it was clear to my colleagues, to the world, that the work was mine and my team’s. I congratulated myself on my victory. And then I met Lydia Villers for the first time.”
Julian grimaced. “You did seem top over toes. I take it you decided otherwise.”
Worth nodded. “She provided ample evidence that I still don’t understand those around me.”
“Strange, then, that you allowed her in your home,” Julian mused, watching him.
Worth barked a laugh. “Even stranger? All my life my intellect has led. I find it retreating now, for my heart demands that I take another chance, on her.”
Once more Julian raised his cup in toast. “May we both find success in our pursuits, of the mind and of the heart.”
Chapter Eleven
Lydia had to endure a third day of sewing, after church services, before all the panels of the scarlet fabric had been fastened together. At that point, anyone might have guessed they were manufacturing a balloon. The silk spread across the hardwood floor and rippled with every movement of the air through the room.
“So beautiful, it is,” Miss Janssen said, watching it.
“It’s the durability, not the beauty, that matters,” Charlotte said, sticking her needle into a pincushion for the last time. “And that only Worth can tell us.”
A little thrill went through Lydia, like a candle brightening the night. She snuffed it out. Sewing beside Miss Pankhurst had been all the more difficult now that Lydia knew the role the woman had played in forcing her and Worth apart. Small wonder the little companion had been so eager to jab at her, thinking she understood Lydia’s character. Lydia would prove her wrong. She wasn’t here for Worth. She was here for herself. Worth wasn’t coming to see her, was no longer interested in her as a potential partner in life. He was coming to inspect their work. Any anticipation she felt should be aimed in that direction.
They all gathered in Miss Pankhurst’s room the following morning. As if to commemorate the occasion, Miss Janssen had pinned an ivory cameo broach on her broad chest and swept up her hair in a more elaborate braid around her face. Even Miss Pankhurst was looking her best in a lavender round gown that drew attention to the blue of her eyes. Lydia in one of her muslin dresses felt as pretty as a butterfly among flowers.
If Worth noticed the changes in their attire, he gave no indication. He walked up one side of the envelope where it was spread across the room, around the top, and down the other side, gaze latched onto the scarlet fabric.
“And you are satisfied the panels will hold when expanded?” he asked Miss Pankhurst, who was scurrying along beside him, hands fluttering in front of her gown.
“Quite satisfied, my lord,” she assured him. “I tested each stitch myself.”
That seemed an overstatement. The woman generally left the house at the end of the day before Lydia. She had arrived at about the same time as Lydia and had sat beside her sewing. When had she tested any stitch but her own?
“Well done,” Worth pronounced, and the little woman preened.
Worth turned to Charlotte. “We’ll have to confirm it, of course. I’ll have Bateman set up the rear garden for the task. Would you care to oversee his efforts?”
“Yes, thank you.” Charlotte gathered up her skirts and swept to the door.
“And what would you have us do, my lord?” Miss Pankhurst warbled.
He eyed her a moment as if considering the matter. Instead of answering her directly, he turned to the weaver. “Miss Janssen, we had discussed finding a way to pad certain parts of the basket to better support the propulsion devices. Please consult with Miss Pankhurst about which fabrics might be more efficacious.”
Miss Pankhurst smiled like a cat among the canaries. “Delighted to offer my expertise, Miss Janssen.”
The older wo
man nodded, but her shoulders slumped. It seemed she still was not entirely above attempting to catch her employer’s eye.
“I’d be happy to help too,” Lydia put in.
Miss Janssen managed a smile. “Danke.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Worth said. “Miss Villers, I need you with me.”
Her heart leaped up. It was the prospect of the science, of course. She’d been sewing for so many days that she would likely have brightened to be back turning her skin blue as she tested Gussie’s preparations. At least, that was what she told herself as she followed Worth from the room.
“I appreciate your flexibility,” he said as they descended to his workroom in the old kitchen. “I realize other natural philosophers focus on a specific discipline. This effort requires us to think more broadly.”
“I like that,” Lydia said, stepping down into the room. “When I worked with Gussie, we experimented with plants, animal products, and minerals, but we were focused on one goal, perfecting skin lotion. You must perfect the geometry of the basket, the tensile strength of the fabric, and the heat of the fire. You must master the very air!”
“Yes, that’s it exactly.” They shared a smile before he hastily looked away.
Lydia took pity on him. “So, how are things coming?” she asked, advancing on the table.
“Not as well as I’d like,” he said. “The bellows did well in testing. The bronze brazier appears to be a suitable container. But I find it difficult to concentrate.”
Lydia nodded. “I have the same trouble. We are so close! The idea of sending the balloon soaring is intoxicating.”
“It’s not that.” He paused beside her, bare inches between them. “Lydia, I seem to have made a grave error.”
She leaned over to look at the notebook open on the table. She could see the numbers they’d discussed—height, length, width, and weight of the bellows. “The calculations appear to be in order.”
Worth reached around her and closed the journal. “The calculations aren’t the problem.” His gaze brushed hers, soft as a caress.