While Grey gave his stepmother free rein of Beacon House and its environs, he still kept watch over her. Before leaving for the north, he’d put notes in his files about Winthram’s connection to Adam Winters. Once an influential member of the Chartist movement, Winters had been under surveillance by the Crown for suspicious activities, including working with Omnium Democratia. Violet had insisted to Grey that Winthram could be relied upon. It was her belief that Winthram would never allow any harm to come to the ladies of Athena’s Retreat.
Arthur had long ago learned never to trust based on someone else’s opinion.
“Heard Adam fell out with Lovett and the rest of the Chartist moderates after the convention in ’37,” said Arthur. “Now he’s printing leaflets and giving speeches on the tyranny of the ruling class.”
The doorman closed his eyes in acknowledgment, setting a hand to his stomach as if recovering from a punch.
Arthur gave him no time to think and pressed on with his questions.
“Quite the rabble-rouser, Adam. While he hasn’t admitted to membership in Omnium Democratia, he has taken up their causes at his meetings. When was the last time the two of you spoke?”
“The last time we spoke . . .” Winthram’s voice broke, and he swallowed twice. “The last time we spoke was two years ago.”
Arthur read misery and defiance on the man’s face. Was there malice as well?
Winthram continued, his words slurring as he held back tears. “He told me I was dead to him, and I haven’t seen him since. I left the name Winters behind after that day.”
Grey’s files contained facts; motivations were Arthur’s responsibility to uncover. He cocked his head in query. “And the name Henrietta as well?”
Color flooded Winthram’s cheeks. Defiant despite his sorrow, he dashed away tears and pushed back his shoulders.
“Henry,” Winthram said. He touched a palm to his chest, giving himself the name with a tender dignity. “My name is Henry. And I would never let anyone hurt Lady Greycliff.”
They considered one another in the silence that followed.
Winthram broke the stalemate as a question occurred to him. “Why would you think it were—was the Omnis? Members come here to do their science. Most of their talk is about compounds and reagents, not elections or riots.”
“Lady Greycliff is in a position to uncover one of the Omnis’ secrets,” Arthur replied. He backed away and examined the scattered debris by his feet. “Plenty of them behind the doors of this club, aren’t there?”
“What do you mean?”
“You.” Arthur gestured to the room behind him. “All these ladies come here to hide their brains and their talents from the world. Pretending to embroider roses or glue seashells to boxes, when all the while they are making discoveries no one could imagine.”
Winthram snorted. “They aren’t hiding. It’s outside the secrets are kept. Why don’t you poke your nose around out there?”
Arthur shook his head in disagreement. “Someone knows what happened here last night. It’s best we work together. Don’t you want to help me figure this out?”
“We want to keep Lady Greycliff safe, but no one here will trust you,” said Winthram. “This is a place made by us and for us. If you come in here without understanding who we are or why we are here? Then there is no place for a man like you on this side of the wall.”
* * *
VIOLET TOLD HERSELF not to take offense when Phoebe and the others dismissed her suggestions. The future of Athena’s Retreat was more important than her ego. Even so, she had withdrawn to the place she felt safest. The faint scent of ethanol and graphite settled like a fog around her, and she tapped her toes in contentment.
With the aid of talented craftsmen, Violet had designed a private workroom on the third floor of Beacon House by combining three rooms into one, raising the ceiling and elongating the windows to let in copious natural light. The north side held bookshelves crammed with volumes of varying heights and thickness alongside dozens of jars filled with all manner of chemicals. Rows of drawers in long, low cabinets brimmed with dried powders and piles of useful materials, such as thick silk threads and boiled lemon drops. Next to the green-tiled hearth sat a comfy stuffed couch she used as a bed when she was too tired to go to her chambers.
“Heaven,” she whispered.
Taking a seat at her worktable, she turned her head a fraction of an inch, letting her gaze slip over the top half of the page open in a notebook.
Even five years after Daniel’s death, a pall of guilt often accompanied her research. She should give her work to Grey’s office. They could find someone else to figure out the antidote, although at a slower pace. The club members needed her sole attention.
“Half an hour. If I don’t figure something out, I’ll send it away,” Violet whispered to herself.
A tingling spread from her toes to her fingertips as she sank into the work. A few hours later, she examined a complex equation in pursuit of a solution. If the reaction was endothermic, where delta symbolized the heat of the reaction, then . . .
“No. Don’t scurry away from me. I have to follow your trail,” she crooned to the mixture of symbols and integers thumbing their nose at her.
This was where she belonged. Not stuffed into a gown and propped up before the intrusive stares of disapproving matrons. In her head, it made no difference if she was fat or thin, plain or pretty, no matter if her parties were a success or if she could maintain small talk for an hour. When she worked, she forgot how lonely her nights and how long her days stretched out before her. She hummed a low song of satisfaction and scribbled out an error.
A single heavy knock sounded on the door, which opened before she could tell whoever it was to go away.
“Lady Greycliff?”
Violet’s head snapped up, theories cracking apart beneath the sound of Arthur’s voice.
In the doorway, he stood staring at her as though she were naked. Violet peeked to ascertain that she was not, thank goodness, naked. One never knew.
She blinked.
Why whenever Arthur walked into the room did her thoughts run into a million different naughty directions? Whatever insight she had gained with the formula now slithered away from her.
She put a hand to her forehead, trying in vain to press the solutions back into her slothlike brain.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” Violet asked, heat creeping over her cheeks.
“How long have you been in here?”
“Not long enough. I have almost figured out this last set of formulas, and I need a few more minutes of quiet. Lovely to see you.” Violet waved her hand in the direction of the doorway, hoping he would take the hint.
Instead, Arthur moved toward her in that manner he possessed—stealthy yet purposeful. Despite her frustration, a thrill of lust woke her senses at the sight.
She must remember her resolve. A proper lady did not allow for thrills.
Having reached the opposite side of the table from her, Arthur narrowed his eyes. “When was the last time you changed your clothes?”
“What an odd question.” Violet looked down. “If you must know, this dress is not even a year old. No . . . two, three . . . perhaps more.” She shook her head to clear her thoughts, and swayed, dizzy at the sudden movement.
“When was the last time you ate or drank anything?” Arthur asked.
Thick purple curtains hung over the windows, blocking out extraneous light and hiding the time of day. Sweet-smelling beeswax candles tilted into a tarnished candelabra lit her work space. Judging by the candle stubs, she hadn’t left her work since . . . yesterday? That couldn’t be right.
“I had luncheon at some point today. I think. I do remember dinner. Is it still Thursday?” Violet said.
Arthur’s brows raised, then lowered, in concern.
Gracious,
how long had she been working?
“Why don’t you leave off and have a dish of tea?” Arthur asked.
“A dish of tea? How am I to think of tea when I’ve made a connection between this work and my original research into Avogadro’s law?” Violet began to explain how equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure could contain equal numbers of molecules, but her throat hurt.
“Now that you mention it”—she tried to force her legs to unbend, groaning at the stiffness in her joints—“I am parch—Oh, oh no.”
Violet fell to the floor in a clumsy heap, pins and needles burning her limbs. “That’s odd. My legs have stopped working.”
Arthur was there before she’d finished her sentence, scooping her up in his arms. “Johnson,” he called out to a passing footman as he carried her from the workroom. His low voice made pleasant vibrations against Violet’s side. “If you could ask Mrs. Sweet to send a tea tray for Lady Greycliff.”
“Put me down. My legs fell asleep is all.”
Already, sensation had returned to her toes, but he insisted on carrying her.
Oh well. If a brooding, desirable man must sweep her into an embrace, she may as well enjoy it.
Violet sniffed at his waistcoat. The man smelled like winter and soap. How ridiculously attractive.
“You’re quite strong,” she told him.
“Hmm.”
Inured to flattery, was he?
“Most other men would be breaking a sweat right now, carrying a woman of my size up and down the stairs,” she observed.
His thick black brows met as he frowned. “What do you mean? You are . . .” His glance dropped to her bosom, tracing the curves from her chest to her waist to her hips.
He cleared his throat and shifted her in his arms. When he spoke again, his voice was low. “You are not too heavy.”
“You are going above and beyond your duties,” she told him.
Was it her imagination, or did he pull her even closer? “It is no hardship,” he said.
“Nevertheless. Thank you.” There might have been an electric current attached to those last two words, the way Arthur regarded her. Hadn’t anyone thanked him before?
“How could you forget to eat?” he asked.
Violet rested her head against his chest when he turned a corner then kept it there, lulled by the warmth of his body and the sensation of security.
“I’ve tried to explain what happens when I fall into my work. I’ve never found the right words. It’s as if I lose the tether between my brain and my body.”
Better she would lose the tether between her brain and her tongue. Her words sounded unnatural, and a lady shouldn’t be speaking about her body, especially not to a . . . What was Arthur? Not a servant, and he’d made clear he wasn’t a friend.
Something else? Something more?
He shouldered open the door to her private rooms and stepped around a pile of books. This first chamber she used to entertain close friends. Through a connecting door lay her bedroom.
The request popped out of her mouth.
“Can you bring me to my bed, Arthur?” The dryness in her throat turned her question into a whispered plea.
Time froze.
For her, at least. In a metaphorical sense, that is, because time is always in motion. But goodness—those eyes. They saw right through her layers of fabric: the dress, the corset, and the chemise beneath. The look Arthur gave her was hungry and fierce, and it did something peculiar and amazing to her insides.
Good thing he still held her, for her body went soft and pliant as if she were a flower opening for the sun. She ran the tip of her tongue over the bowed edge of her top lip. In response, he tightened his grip. Violet’s heart lurched.
Was he going to do it?
Languidly, he lowered her legs, supporting her back with one strong arm. Her muscles quivered with tension as she held on to his shoulders and let herself sway against him. His brown eyes grew darker, and he searched her upturned face. A lick of lightning crested beneath her skin.
He was going to kiss her.
She was going to kiss him back.
This oversized lust she’d been stricken with since she first saw him would be sated—unless her heart hammered itself right out of her chest.
He made loose bracelets with his long fingers, stroking upward to her elbows, sending shivers of anticipation in his wake. Violet pressed her breasts against him, wishing away the layers of canvas and wool.
Then, with devastating abruptness, he set his hands on her shoulders and stepped away.
“I see you are well enough to stand on your own,” he said. “Johnson is taking too long. I’ll go fetch your tea myself.”
Oh.
How could she have been so stupid?
Humiliation chilled the space between them. Violet turned her head in embarrassment at the tightness in her throat and a horrible scratchiness behind her eyes. Daniel had warned her time and again that her desire for physical contact was unattractive. Violet’s reaction to Arthur’s touch must have scared him away.
She forced a laugh past the lump in her throat. “It isn’t your job to bring me tea. I’m feeling better anyway. I lost sight of the time.” Glancing at the clock on her mantel, Violet gasped, shock overtaking the hurt.
“There is a meeting of the club chemists in less than an hour,” she cried. “Much as Letty tries to keep them in line, Lady Peckinpaugh is forever one-upping Miss Makepeace with her formulas, and the two of them have burned more than a few holes in the carpet when comparing solvents. I must go.”
Refusing to retreat, Arthur folded his arms in that way he had of turning from flesh to stone. “You will remain here until you’ve had tea. The meeting of club chemists was Thursday at four.”
“Yes, I know. Today at . . . Was?”
“Today is Friday,” he said.
Violet put a hand to her forehead in surprise, only to find Arthur bending over her, concern tightening his jaw.
“Have you a fever?” he said. “Are you ill?”
“Please let it be fever and not the harbinger of things to come,” she cried. “If my brain becomes any more sluggish, I will end up wearing hats on my feet and shoes around my neck. Friday, you say? Who went and misplaced Thursday on me?”
A spontaneous grin cracked the granite of his face. Violet staggered back, dumbfounded. She’d caught a glimpse of him smiling before, but this—this smile—it transformed him into a warm-blooded man, not just a presence.
She pointed at him in accusation. “You are smiling.”
As fast as it had appeared, the smile vanished, and his face settled back into its natural state of hardened detachment. Too late.
“Too late,” she warned him. “I saw it. I made you smile.”
Embarrassed, he found something on the floor to examine. The vulnerability of the gesture touched her. As he inspected his shoes, the tiniest crease appeared at the corner of his mouth for an instant, then disappeared again.
Twice! She’d done it twice.
“It isn’t as though you called water from a stone,” he groused.
“I find it on par with similar miracles,” she said.
When he looked up, the grin was gone, and his thick brows were drawn in worry. “Fevers can be dangerous. You must be careful.”
“Of course.” Violet placed her hand on his arm, the wool of his jacket brushing against her palm. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
A frisson of the earlier tension climbed her spine when he covered her bare hand with his.
“It is no hardship,” he answered, staring at their joined hands.
His answering pressure was slight, and if she hadn’t been waiting for it, she might have missed its significance. Her first tentative step toward him was rewarded when he looked up from her hands without hiding
the hunger in his gaze.
This would happen. Arthur would take her in his arms, bring her to the bed next door, and—
“Hullo, old bird.”
Violet jumped in fright at the sound of her door slamming back against the wall. Her visions of kisses melted away at the sight of a giant blond man standing in her doorway.
Crossing the room, he clasped her hand in both of his. “Got carried away with your work again? Did you forget I was coming today?”
Drat.
“And who is this?” Arthur asked with a disinterested air. A wall of ice had formed around her bodyguard, dousing whatever embers of lust they’d kindled.
Double drat.
“George Willis, Earl Grantham, I’d like you to meet Mr. Arthur Kneland,” Violet managed to stammer even as her face went up in flames.
Grantham glanced at Arthur as though she’d pointed out a new piece of furniture, then flashed a set of strong white teeth at her. “I came as quick as I could to your summons for rescue. Here to spend my every waking moment seeing to your pleasure. I’m all yours, Vi.”
Triple drat to the power of five.
6
EARL GRANTHAM SAT on a cushion of blue brocade. None too subtly, he flexed his muscles as he stretched his arm across the back of a sofa in Violet’s formal parlor, examining Arthur with a curious gaze.
Having read the gossip sheets Cook let lie around the kitchen, Arthur had fleshed out the sparse entry on the earl that Grey had left behind in the dossiers.
Once a soldier in the 24th Foot, Grantham had taken a title upon the death of a distant relative without heirs. The gossip sheets made much of his friendship with Prince Albert and his popularity with the ladies of the ton. Grey had also mentioned that Grantham had grown up in a house on Violet’s family’s estate.
“Grey wrote to me that he’d engaged a man to watch Vi while he went north,” Grantham said. “Suppose you work for that lot in the PM’s office. Off protecting despots and butchers.”
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