Page 23 of The English Duke
Nor should she have asked. She wished she hadn’t voiced her curiosity.
She turned to leave, but was stopped by his comment.
“He often wrote about you,” he said.
She truly wanted to cry, and she wouldn’t allow herself to do so.
“Do you really not know what he discovered?”
In the past few minutes she’d been buffeted by emotions: sadness, regret, compassion, and now irritation again.
“No,” she said, turning to look at him once more. “I don’t. It should work. It doesn’t. I haven’t found the answer why. Perhaps you’ll have more success.”
“Reese suggested that I ask you to help me,” he said.
“He said the same to me.”
In the silence she studied the shelving around them. Everything was carefully marked, stacked by size and date. Below the shelves were slots for materials including the sheathing to be hammered into the final ship’s form.
“I could show you the latest adaptations to Bessie,” she finally said.
“Bessie?”
“It’s the name of his latest prototype.” She smiled. “He named all of them. But you’d have to move my father’s things in here.” She pointed to an empty space on the far side of the boathouse. “You have room.”
He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Accepting her help would give her something to do for the three days they were forced to remain at Sedgebrook. Also, she could show him her father’s other inventions, explain his notes, perhaps give him an appreciation for the bequest.
“Are you still angry?” he asked.
She linked her fingers together and looked at him. He confused her, excited her, made her think things no proper woman should consider. He also enraged her and hurt her feelings more than any man she’d ever met. Yet she had no intention of telling him the whole truth. Her emotions were hers and right at the moment she didn’t want to share them.
He studied her in the shadowed light as if she was a puzzle he’d been given to solve. Her father had often worn the same expression. Copper sheathing, gun powder, and pendulums were much easier to understand than people.
Was he as much a hermit as her father had been? She had the feeling that the answer to understanding the Duke of Roth was tantalizingly close. All she needed was a little more time.
He was evidently not willing to give it to her.
She ended their stalemate by nodding, turning, and heading for the door.
“I’m used to working alone,” he said, as she was stepping over the threshold.
“Mr. Burthren was with you earlier,” she said.
“He doesn’t understand that I prefer solitude. He doesn’t like being alone, I suspect, which is why he’s unable to accept that state in others.”
“Do you have no one transcribing your thoughts? Making notes of things to check?”
“No.”
With one hand on the door frame, she glanced over her shoulder.
“Are you not willing to alter your workday a little?”
“No,” he said. “I find I don’t like change. Not recently.”
“Then there’s nothing more to say, is there?”
“Yes, there is,” he said. “Don’t go.”
