Hanging back to get her reaction under control, she wiped her knife on the edge of her petticoat, then angled her body away so she could raise her skirts enough to slip the knife into its sheath, taking care not to drop the pilfered food cradled in her other arm. When she straightened, she expected Darius and Jacob to be well ahead but instead found her companions only a few yards away, their far-too-curious eyes riveted on her.
“So that’s where you keep it.” Darius’s attention dropped to a spot halfway down her skirt. “I had wondered.”
Nicole lifted her chin. “Yes, well, I tried carrying it around in one of those lacy little reticules, but it kept getting tangled in the ribbons. Not very practical.” Keeping her eyes averted from Darius’s face, she marched past the gawkers and headed for the house. She’d make her own distance.
Darius watched her sweep past, her head high as a queen. The woman was full of surprises. Who would have guessed such a beauty not only had the mind of a scholar but the skills of a pirate?
“Your missus is somethin’ else, Mr. Thornton. You think she’d teach me to throw a knife like that if’n I asked her?”
My missus? Darius balked, yet not as much as he would have expected at such a notion. “Miss Greyson is my secretary,” he quickly corrected, “not my wife. She’s my employee, just as Wellborn and Mrs. Wellborn are, and as you soon will be.”
“So you don’t have any family, neither?”
Darius resumed walking, the boy’s words pricking at his conscience like a stinging nettle. “My family is in New York.”
Jacob, who had been dogging his steps, jerked to a halt. “You just left ’em there?”
The stinging nettles morphed into cactus spines.
“I’m not married, Jacob,” he justified, though the boy looked far from mollified. “I didn’t abandon a wife or children. It is my parents and siblings who are in New York. I’ll return to them when I’ve accomplished the work I came here to do.”
“Your work must be awful important, then.” Jacob started walking again.
“It is,” Darius assured him.
“Still,” Jacob said, a thoughtful expression on his face, “if my folks were alive somewhere, I think I’d find a way to do my work closer to home. Pa always used to say work was easier when you had a family to come home to.”
“Your pa sounds like a very wise man.”
Jacob nodded and fell silent. But the quiet did nothing to dilute the guilt roiling in Darius’s gut. Was that letter from his mother still buried on the desk in his study? Surely he could spare a few minutes to read it this afternoon. Maybe he’d even jot a note in reply. He hadn’t written them in . . . How long had it been? He couldn’t recall.
Needing something to distract him from the shame of that realization, Darius turned his attention back to the boy at his side. “How old are you, Jake?”
“Eleven.”
Darius raised a brow but didn’t question him. The boy looked more like eight or nine. Then again, a kid on his own, eating only what he could steal, wouldn’t exactly have a diet conducive to steady growth. Mrs. Wellborn would have her hands full fattening this one up. Yet he had no doubt his housekeeper would be up to the task. As much as that woman harassed him about eating, Jacob didn’t stand a chance.
He wished Nicole’s problems were as easily solved. He watched the light green skirts ahead of him sway as she extended her lead. Why did he get the feeling she was putting more than physical distance between them? He couldn’t allow that. Not if he planned to protect her. Nicole might try to run, but he’d not let her hide. Not from him.
CHAPTER 17
For a man who had gone out of his way to avoid her during the first few days of her employment, Darius Thornton had become annoyingly attentive of late. He’d dined with her each of the last three nights, to Mrs. Wellborn’s delight and Nicole’s dismay. He insisted she attend him in the workshop every afternoon, either to talk through his latest investigative hypothesis or to assist with his efforts at salvaging what parts he could from the exploded boilers. And tonight, he’d called her into the study hours after the sun had set to go over the article chronicling the results of the boiler plate experiment she’d been working on for submission to the Franklin Institute’s journal.
How in the world was she supposed to maintain a healthy emotional distance from the man if he insisted on constantly thrusting his physical self into her presence day and night? It was like trying to climb out of a bog when the mud sucked your legs farther down every time you took a step. But she’d slogged her way through quagmires before—one of the benefits of growing up on Galveston Island. She’d get through this, as well. It simply required determination and mental strength, two qualities she possessed in abundance.
Or she had, before she’d started fighting a battle that a growing part of her really didn’t want to win.
Be strong, Nicki. Your future depends on it.
Nicole halted outside the study door and breathed deeply, steadying her nerves.
Marrying a man to provide her father with an heir was bad enough, but doing so without a heart to invest in the offer would make her miserable. No matter how many times Darius Thornton with his endearingly crusty manners and gallant offers of protection tugged on her to stay, she would not succumb.
Fortified, she squared her shoulders and rapped briskly on the oak door. A deep voice bid her enter.
Darius sat behind the desk, the one she usually worked at in the mornings, his head bowed over a thin stack of papers. He’d reverted back to his usual attire—smudged and wrinkled shirt gaping at the throat, sleeves rolled up over tanned forearms, unshaven jaw, and hair hanging carelessly over his brow. Yet when he glanced up to wave her in, the haggard look on his face arrested her.
How had she missed that? She’d seen him at dinner not two hours ago and could not recall him looking so weary. Of course, she’d been doing her best to avoid his attention, spending more time staring at her plate than at her companion. But surely if he’d looked this worn she would have noticed. She seemed to notice everything about the man, whether she wanted to or not.
“Darius”—the name slipped off her tongue before she could catch it—“what’s wrong? You look . . .”
“Ghastly, I know.” He smiled then, a self-deprecating twist of his lips that made her want to wrap her arms around him, run her fingers through his hair, and promise him that everything would be all right. “I’m just tired. Nothing to fret over. I’ll force some sleep upon myself tonight.”
Nicole frowned over the odd phrasing as she slid into the seat in front of the desk. She knew his dedication to his work drove him to burn the candle at both ends more often than not, but surely sleep wasn’t so elusive as to require force? The man looked ready to drop.
“Did you have more edits for the article?” She restrained a sigh. She’d already rewritten the thing twice.
“No. Everything looks in order. I only added one note to the front page and thought you should see it.” He turned the sheaf of papers so she could read the change he’d penned in at the top.
There, beneath the dry, mechanical title of Experiment in Boiler Durability When Plating Thickness Is Varied, Darius’s bold, yet completely legible script listed a second contributor to the article. Miss Nicole Greyson.
She felt tears pooling.
“You deserve as much of the credit as I do,” Darius said in a gruff voice. “You helped me refine the procedure and bore witness to the results. Did you think I wouldn’t notice where you added your own observations to the report?”
“I just thought to clarify a few details and—”
“And you did so with an expert hand.” Darius leaned back in his chair, braced his elbows on the chair arms, and pressed his fingertips together into a peak. “I couldn’t be more pleased with your work, Nicole. I wish you had been working with me from the beginning.”
Warmth flooded her at his words. Warmth. Satisfaction. Belonging. Dangerous belonging. Only . . . she had
no true claim to that belonging. How could she? The name he’d written with such beautiful regard wasn’t even hers.
She scooted the papers back toward Darius. “That’s very kind of you, Mr. Thornton, but not necessary. Surely the article will have a better chance at publication without a female listed as a contributor. And really, all I did was tidy your notes and observe from a distance. I contributed very little.”
“On that point,” Darius said, leaning forward in his chair, his blue gaze boring into hers with an intensity that left her a mite breathless, “I’m afraid I’ll have to disagree. But it is neither here nor there. The change is made, and the article will be placed in tomorrow’s post.”
“I don’t need the recognition,” Nicole insisted. “Please reconsider. I’d hate to be the cause of your article not appearing in the journal.” Would publishing under a false name be considered fraud? Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t allow him to do anything that could possibly tarnish his reputation. First thing in the morning, she’d need to rewrite the front page, removing the falsified name. She could switch out the pages and rewrap the packaging so no one would know.
Darius waved his hand, then tapped the stack of papers with a stiff finger. “Publication was never the goal. Congress funds the Franklin Institute, having tasked them to investigate steamboat explosions with the purpose of discovering safety protocols that can be mandated to prevent future disasters. My goal is to add to their knowledge so they can convince the government to pass new, more stringent legislation. I couldn’t care less about seeing my name in print.”
“You’re a noble man, Darius Thornton.” She meant the words as an expression of admiration, for admire him she did, despite the danger that presented—because, really, she couldn’t help it, not when his motives were so selfless and pure.
But Darius reared back as if she’d struck him across his stubbled cheek. “I’m not noble. Far from it.” He shoved to his feet with such a jerk, the chair tumbled backward onto the rug. Paying it no heed, Darius stalked to the window and lifted the curtain to stare out at the black night.
Nicole sat frozen in her seat, the violence of his reaction leaving her stunned. She watched him across the room, her heart aching at the pain radiating from him, even as her mind struggled to puzzle out what had caused it.
“I don’t deserve your regard, Nicole.” He spoke quietly, but the low timbre of his voice slammed into her like a battering ram, laying waste the walls she’d erected to protect herself. What good were walls if they kept her from offering comfort? This wasn’t about sparing herself pain. It was about sparing him. Something was haunting him, some poison from his past that he couldn’t quite work out of his system.
Slowly, she rose from her chair and padded across the floor until she stood within arm’s reach of him. “Why, Darius? Why don’t you deserve it?”
His knuckles whitened as he crushed the curtain fabric in his fist. “I’m a selfish man. And a failure. Not strong enough to save . . .”
She waited, but the rest of the sentence never came. “Who?” she prompted. “Who couldn’t you save?”
His face turned toward her then. Harsh lines traversed his forehead above blue eyes so tortured it pained her to meet his gaze. Yet she refused to look away. She’d not let him fight this battle alone. He stared at her long and hard before finally twisting away, his attention once again focused on the darkness beyond the window. Or perhaps the darkness within his spirit.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, a heavy sigh accenting his words.
“I’d say it matters a great deal. To you.” Dared she touch him? The fingers on the hand nearest him trembled and even stretched toward him a little. Yet before she could lift her arm, Darius flung the curtain away from himself and strode back to his desk. He righted the fallen chair, then braced his palms upon the polished cherrywood tabletop.
“Forgive me, Miss Greyson. I grow melancholy when I’m overtired. Pay me no mind.”
As if that were possible—he filled her mind to overflowing. Nicole traced his steps back to the desk, not ready to let the matter drop. He had no family nearby to confide in, only servants. Somehow she couldn’t imagine Darius baring his most personal hurts to his butler. But perhaps he would confide in her. One friend to another. They were friends, weren’t they?
“Darius, I—”
“Here.” He picked up a stack of journals and thrust them at her belly, effectively cutting off her attempt to converse as she juggled to gain hold of the volumes. “I marked several articles I’d like you to read in preparation for our next experiment. We need to narrow down our options, and I’d like you to be informed as to what has already been reported. You can take a break from transcribing my notebooks and spend your morning researching instead.”
“All right.” She stared intently at his downcast eyes, silently pleading for him to look up. But he never did. He just kept shuffling papers around, pretending to be busy, dismissing her.
Perhaps it was for the best. Sharing secrets bred intimacy. She was willing to risk closeness if it would ease his burden, but if he refused to let her in, there was nothing she could do. At least this way, she could refortify her defenses.
“Will that be all, Mr. Thornton?” She settled the journals against her waist, crooking her right arm around the stack.
The man still didn’t look up. “Yes. Thank you. Good night.”
Nicole hesitated, debated with herself, then reached her left hand across the desk to cover his. He stilled, tension vibrating through the muscles of his hand and wrist, but he stayed focused on the papers.
“Sleep well, Mr. Thornton.” She gave his hand a brief squeeze, then turned and headed for the door.
His voice rumbled softly behind her, so softly she almost didn’t hear him.
“I never sleep well.”
Nicole didn’t sleep well, either, that night. Her mind spun in fretful circles as she lay in bed, worrying over Darius, praying for him. Something from his past held him captive, something he was too ashamed to discuss. She wanted to help him, but what could she do? She’d be leaving in a few days.
When sleep finally claimed her, it was the fitful variety that produced very little rest. She awoke to pitch blackness, her legs tangled in the bed sheets, her sleeping gown twisted so tightly about her knees, she could barely move. Yanking the cotton fabric out from beneath her, she sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She ran her hand over her face, then flung her braid off her shoulder to slap against her back.
What time was it? It had to be after midnight, yet it seemed nowhere near dawn. Darkness lay too thick in the room. Restless energy coursed through her even as weariness made her limbs heavy. She sighed, all too familiar with the symptoms. Lying down now would just result in hours of fruitless staring at the ceiling. She’d have to get up. Pushing against the edge of the mattress, she gained her feet.
Whenever she would get this way at the Academy, usually the night before a comprehensive exam, she’d sneak down to the kitchen and heat some milk. The warm reminder of childhood tended to relax her and make her drowsy enough to drift off again. She hadn’t needed the remedy in a while, but she knew of nothing else that would work. Sliding her feet into a pair of felt slippers, she shook her bunched-up gown down over her legs, collected her wrapper from the end of the bed, and threaded her arms through the loose sleeves. After tying the belt, she opened her door and quietly stole down the hall.
She had just reached the entrance to the kitchen when a dim light escaping from beneath a door farther down the hall drew her attention. The study. Darius wasn’t still awake, was he?
Unable to resist the pull, Nicole approached the study. She didn’t want to disturb him if he was working, and heaven knew she wasn’t dressed to be in mixed company, but something unexplainable urged her forward.
As she neared the door she heard a muffled sound, deep and resonant. She pressed her ear to the crack in the door. It came again—a moan. Darius was moaning. Was h
e hurt? Injured somehow?
She clasped the knob and turned it gently, striving for as much quiet as she could manage. Nudging the door open an inch, she peered through the tiny opening, searching the room for Darius. The dim light from the lamp on the small table near the bookshelf banished enough shadows for her to make out his figure stretched out across the length of the sofa.
His face contorted in anguish. His head tossed back and forth. Cords protruded from his neck as he strained for something, his hand outstretched at his side. He moaned again, the sound flaying Nicole’s heart like a lash.
“No,” he muttered. “No!” His legs thrashed. Even the toes on his bare feet curled down upon themselves as the nightmare claimed him.
Nicole rushed forward, not sure what to do but needing to be beside him. She wanted to hold him, to soothe away his torment, but he thrashed too much for her to get close. He was still clad in the same wrinkled shirt and trousers he’d been wearing earlier in the day, but a fine sheen of sweat had plastered them to his skin. His hair lay damp across his forehead, and his mouth twisted in a painful grimace.
Kneeling on the rug just out of his reach, Nicole wrapped her arms about her waist and rocked in a gentle motion, exuding comfort the only way she knew how. “Shh, Darius. It’s all right,” she crooned. “I’m here.”
She hadn’t thought it possible for his body to stiffen any further, but it did. “Where?” he demanded in a surprisingly clear voice. “Where are you?”
“Here, Darius. I’m here.” She reached out to touch his arm, but he jerked away before her fingers could make contact.
“Where?” he demanded again, his voice breaking. “I’ll save you, I swear. I won’t let you die this time. I’ll find you. I promised. Remember? I promised.”
Tears rolled down Nicole’s cheeks. “Darius,” she called in a louder voice. “Darius, wake up.”
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