Heiress in Red Silk, Hunter, Madeline [good beach reads TXT] 📗

mouth slide down its small bowl, then back up. Her tongue flicked at a bit that had remained on the spoon.

“I assume you are now plotting how to finally make the invention pay,” she prodded. “Steps toward manufacturing are probably in order now.”

Damnation. She was going to insist on this conversation. He forced his gaze from her so he might get hold of his thoughts.

“The ideal way to do it is to build a factory,” he said.

“That would take a huge amount of money, wouldn’t it?”

“The second-best way is to sign a contract with another factory to do it for us. Also a goodly amount of money and the design would be in another’s hands.”

“You still worry about it being stolen. Once it is made, that will be a danger anyway, won’t it?”

“It isn’t easy to understand how it works unless you are making it yourself. Once it is in use, it won’t even be visible on an engine.”

She finished her custard. He was sorry to see the servant remove the dish. She lowered her lids and turned thoughtful. “Perhaps we should not make it at all. Maybe we should allow those who build steam engines to make it, along with their engines.”

“We could not control the quality then.”

“If someone is building a machine, he would want it to work. Why improve it with this invention, only to make a mess of the whole thing?”

“This is a precision instrument. It must be exact.”

“I’m sure there are many factories that can make it exact enough. Such a business made the sample you showed me, after all. Is that foundry near London? Maybe we should strike a bargain with them.”

“You would be amazed at how careless many factories are. Foundries in particular. Unless they work iron for decorative use, they have standards that can never be considered precise.”

“And yet you found one that was different. Probably several, knowing you. If we go back to that little list, it will save—” She had been looking at him, and suddenly, she stopped talking, leaned forward, and peered intently. Her gaze bored right through him.

An expression of disbelief flexed across her face. “You did use a foundry to make that sample, didn’t you?”

He would crawl through broken glass to kiss her, but she could be a true nuisance sometimes. Such as right now. He wished his uncle had left that half of the business to a stupid woman, if he was going to saddle him with a partner at all.

“Didn’t you?”

The answer was already in her head and reflected in her eyes.

“I made it myself.”

“You worked the iron yourself? How?”

“It wasn’t hard. I watched it being done for several weeks, then gave it a go. After a while, I learned well enough.”

“Better than well enough, knowing you. Especially because you insist it has to be made with precision. You probably did nothing else for six months. Where?”

“I have a small building across the river where I do—did it.”

“I should have known as soon as I saw the sample that you had not trusted another person to make it. Do you intend to make all of them?”

“If we have any success to speak of, that will not be practical.”

She smiled at that. Then her smile got broader, and she began to laugh. She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and tried to stop, but she couldn’t.

“Forgive me. I am not laughing at you.” She got the words out before another outburst interrupted. “I am picturing the look on your aunt Agnes’s face if she ever saw you at your forge. I see her walking in and you are there, stripped to the waist in front of a hot fire, casting iron.”

“I think she would drop dead on the spot.”

She drew herself up straight and angled out her chest. She lowered her chin and pursed her lips. “‘This is beyond the pale, Kevin,’” she trilled, imitating Aunt Agnes. “‘Bad enough for you to be in trade, but to actually perform labor—It is not to be borne. You are humiliating the family.’”

“You have her voice and her words exactly correct,” he said, laughing along with her. “I’m glad you are not shocked too. There was the chance you would be.”

Her gaze turned sultry. “Such as me aren’t shocked by a man using his strength to forge a dream, Kevin. That is not the word for what I am feeling now.”

He looked in her eyes. He quickly considered and discarded using the table, wall, or floor. “Come with me. Now.”

* * *

Out of the dining room he sped her. Up the stairs, all but carrying her, his arm supporting her beside him so he could move her along. At the landing he paused. “Where is your chamber?”

She pointed, and he strode in that direction. He threw open the door, dragged her inside, and slammed it shut. He held her head with his hands and claimed her with a fevered, impatient kiss.

Her own longing had simmered all day and only grown at dinner, and now it flooded her. She lost herself in the escalating madness they shared, joining him in clutching holds and hard caresses. His hands and mouth were everywhere, as if he could not get enough of her. She pressed against his chest with her hands, but his garments obscured his body too much. She wanted to see him as she had in her mind, naked and hard.

A small sound came from the dressing room. She glanced at that door.

“Your maid won’t come in,” he said while he began releasing her dress. “She knows I am here.”

The notion that the servants would know what she was doing dismayed her. Then her dress fell down to her hips, and Kevin’s kisses bit against her neck, and her stays loosened. There was no room in her mind for servants after that.

Frantic now, her outpouring of passion matching his, she tore at his cravat and fumbled with the buttons on his waistcoat. In a whirlwind of hunger, they shed their clothes