Page 73 of For a Scot's Heart Only
“Indeed, it was for a time. But I did manage to create a bust as per her ladyship’s instructions.”
“Where is the piece now?” she asked.
“In Lady Denton’s Grosvenor Square home. I delivered it last winter. Shortly afterward, her ladyship announced that she would sell the manufactory.” He dragged clay-dusted hands down his leather apron. “She left us alone until summer. Since then, there’s been a great urgency to shut the manufactory’s doors.”
“When exactly this summer?” Miss Fletcher asked.
The porcelain master studied the floor. “August, I believe.”
Thomas’s ears prickled at the hitch in the corset maker’s breath. Her posture stiffened, a minute change most wouldn’t catch. He had, and it clanged a warning—how quick you are to notice every little thing about her.
He brushed that aside. She’d come to his shipyard in August to forge a key. This couldn’t be a coincidence.
“Thank you, Mr. Clabberhorn. Thank you very much,” she said. “You’ve been so kind, showing us your work. We won’t take up another minute of your time.”
Thomas touched the small of her back. “Yes, thankyou, sir. Next time Mrs. West and I visit Kent, we’ll look for your new shop in Maidstone.”
Miss Fletcher’s body was shaking against his hand as though she was stifling a laugh.
The porcelain master grinned from ear to ear. “It would be my pleasure to show you and Mrs. West our new manufactory.”
The trio migrated to the front of the shop and said their goodbyes.
Outside, a rumple of clouds hid the sun and traffic had picked up on Lawrence Street. Thomas tucked Miss Fletcher’s arm with his for their walk to the gardens, but inside he was dancing a jig. The air tasted like victory.
“Thank you for that.” Her glance was quick and coded.
“You’re welcome.”
They traversed Lawrence Street, but Miss Fletcher was nose forward, her pretty profile a watery replica in passing windows.Enigmatic woman.London was full of prattle-baskets; it was just his luck to find the city’s only tight-lipped beauty.
Clearly, the upstanding corset maker was up to something. She had dropped certain clues today. He wasn’t worried. Intimate knowledge would come. Given the right circumstances, the Siren of White Cross Street would spill her truths.
No hunter won his reward without ample patience—and she was the prize he wanted.
When the Chelsea Physic Gardens were in view, he set his first trap.
“Why the keen interest in Chelsea Porcelain Works...Mrs. West?”
Chapter Nineteen
A smile flirted with the corner of her mouth. Their gaits matched and neither missed a beat when she slanted her eyes at him.
“What piques your curiosity more? The unplanned visit to the porcelain works? Or my temporary use of your name?”
“As it happens, both.”
“Rather greedy of you,” she teased. “Pillaging my secrets.”
“This day, by design, is entirely mercenary.”
“For whose benefit?”
He flashed a wolfish smile. “Mine, of course.”
“And we wouldn’t want to deny you your rightful reward, now, would we?”
She was a little breathless saying that. Mr. West grinned his approval.
