I Thee Wed (9 page)

More than anything, more than his work, or Sir Geoffrey's
research, or even his own dreams of acclaim, Orion wanted to complete the list by
tasting
Francesca.

What would it be like to kiss her? Would her mouth be hot, flavored by the spices that she loved? Would she part her lips to let him in her wet, open mouth?

Across the room, she let out a soft, barely audible sigh of frustration. Orion's eyes nearly crossed at the sound. What sort of noises would she make during lovemaking? Would she be quiet, all soft, warm sighs? Would she cry out? Moan?

Would she wail helplessly in ecstasy?

You will never know because you are going to marry Judith someday, and then you must treat Francesca as a dear, companionable cousin in whom you have no interest in giving shrieking orgasms!

The quill she had been using suddenly snapped in two, no doubt from Francesca's feverish pace of notation.
“Cacchio!”
(Bother!) She muttered wrathfully beneath her breath as she examined it. Orion's tattered nerves jumped as if she'd burned him.

“God!” He turned on her. “It is like trying to concentrate in a chimpanzee cage! Can you not work somewhere else?”

With her eyes narrowed, she glared at him. Then she set down the broken quill, bent one arm, and pawed at her armpit. “Ooh-ooh-ooh,” she grunted.

If his blood had not been heated to a boiling point, he might have laughed. As it was, her bold irreverence only brought his desire up a few more degrees.

Never taking her gaze from his, she said, “I have as much right to be here as you do. Sir Geoffrey gave me this space to do my research.” She folded her arms, and her face took on a disgruntled aspect. “I had to force his hand by threatening to set the rest of my family on him. He gave in, but only because Nonna Laura wrote him a very firm letter.”

She said the name Laura in the Italian manner. Low-ra.
Nonna
meant “grandmother.”

Part of Orion's mind sailed far into the future, wondering
what Francesca would be like as a grandmother. Her sable hair would fade, and her smooth golden skin would crease, but he rather thought that even in their old age, those luminous dark eyes would flash sparks at him just as they did now.

He fought back the notion with difficulty. “Just—just try to be less”—
succulent, desirable
—“distracting, if you please.”

One of her dark eyebrows rose in question as her head tilted.

“Just take this, then!” Orion snatched his own quill from the tabletop, jumped from his stool, and thrust it in her direction. The sight of the long, vivid royal blue feather made her smile.

“Well, thank you. Indeed, it appears you have unexplored depths of lavishness, Mr. Worthington.”

“What?” He would tolerate no more of this distraction. He had to get back to work. “If you must know, it is a tail feather from my own bird, an
Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus
, a hyacinth macaw.”

“You have a pet bird?”

“Attie is caring for it at the moment, and it is a specimen, not a pet. Now, might you please minimize the noise?”

Francesca curtsied with the utmost politeness, sweeping high the large blue feather in her fingertips. “As you command, Your Lordship.”

T
HEY both turned back to their work. Orion busied himself stacking his notes neatly on the opposite table. Francesca sat quietly upon her stool, reading through her pages of observations, making corrections and additions every so often.

Orion's own notes were kept tidily within the leather folio that he'd found in his bedchamber, provided for his use by Sir Geoffrey, he assumed, although there seemed to be no economy of paper practiced in this house, certainly not by Francesca. He wrote down every step of every experiment and each result. It was important that all the pertinent facts be orderly and easy to follow, for one never knew when some untoward result would propel one forward—or backward!—in one's research. He could hardly re-create or prevent the re-creation if he didn't know precisely how it had come about!

Now that he had managed to quell Miss Penrose's distracting presence somewhat, he continued his elimination of solvents. Two showed some promise in parting the green coloration from the plant fibers, so Orion set them aside on a
shelf he'd clearly marked as “Substances with Potential.”

“Do you know what has potential?” mused Francesca from across the laboratory. “The study of heredity. Do you know what has potential? The study of medicine.”

Orion twitched. The hell of it was, he wanted to hear her voice, even when she was provoking him. “Where do you think medicines come from? The study of chemistry.”

Even she had no retort for that. Instead, she fell back upon the weaker tactic of changing the subject. “Are you planning to join Judith and me when we go to the Duke of Camberton's ball?”

Orion had not intended to waste his time doing any such thing—until that moment. “I suppose I shall be expected to, if Sir Geoffrey wishes me to.”

Francesca snorted. “Yes, by all means, we should all follow Sir Geoffrey's wishes.”

Orion didn't even glance at her. “There is no shame in being polite to my mentor. He does me a great service by allowing access to his laboratory.”

“Access? Is that what you call it when you run courses of boring experiments that any junior technician could do for a result that you do not even personally care about?”

Although he'd had a few of those thoughts himself over the last few days, Orion looked up at last. “I do not consider myself above building a foundation of solid science for my research.” Except that it wasn't his research, was it?

“Except that it isn't
your
research, is it?”

Orion turned to face her fully then. “If you please, I am trying to concentrate on my notes—” He gestured toward the stack of neat papers lying within the unfolded folio, but the leather-bound volume wasn't there. “Wait—”

As his gaze scanned the room, he spotted Judith outside the window, walking away from the laboratory toward the main house, with his folded and tied folio in her hands.

He blinked in surprise. “Miss Blayne was here?”

Francesca stared at him. “Of course she was, for several minutes. Why do you think I was asking you about the ball?”

How could he not have realized Judith's presence—especially when he seemed to be so finely tuned to every movement and exhalation to emanate from Francesca?

“Are all men dolts?” She scowled at him. “Judith is not some well-trained servant you are supposed to ignore. I don't know how you cannot see that, but I suppose you are just like Sir Geoffrey—you don't care as long as your beakers are washed and your shirts are pressed!” She slapped her palms down upon the chart she was drawing, then spread them wide. “
Dio
, you men are frustrating! How can you be so
impermeabile
?” (Impervious.)

Orion could not deny that he had done precisely that, ignoring Judith just as he would take no notice of Pennysmith's silent efficiency.

Damn it!
He was supposed to be
courting
Judith! Judith, and Sir Geoffrey, held the keys to the kingdom of scientific respect and acclaim!

With a muttered curse, Orion plunked a stifle over his final burn bowl and hurried from the lab. He caught up to Judith near the fountain that centered the grounds behind the house.

“Miss Blayne!”

She did not stop. Orion increased his pace. “Miss Blayne, if you please—”

She hesitated, slowing, then finally stopped entirely and turned toward him. She looked very lovely, posed there with her even features lifted to the light and her hands behind her back, showing her figure to advantage in the bright afternoon.

“You wished to speak to me, Mr. Worthington?”

Orion, drawing upon the training his sister Elektra had drummed into him, dropped a slight bow. “Miss Blayne, I must apologize for my inattention in the laboratory. I meant no offense.”

She gazed at him evenly. “I am the daughter of a scientist, Mr. Worthington. I am well accustomed to that particular
state of inattention.”

That fact alone should make her all the more attractive to him—imagine, a woman who didn't mind being ignored!—but all the realization did was to make him feel worse. If he spent the rest of his life in the laboratory, as he fully intended to, what would that mean for the woman he would marry? “You shouldn't,” he blurted.

She drew back. “I should not what, Mr. Worthington?”

“You shouldn't have to become accustomed to inattention,” he said. He wasn't sure what he had meant to say. It was only that he'd had the sudden thought that he would not wish any of his sisters to endure a marriage composed of nothing but drought and duty.

For the first time in their acquaintance, Judith's calm gaze warmed slightly as she looked at him. “Why, Mr. Worthington, that is the nicest thing you have ever said to me.”

He bobbed his head again. “Then I must apologize again for such spare conversation, that such a meager thing should be the best I have done.”

Her gaze shifted slightly, resting upon the rear facade of Blayne House. “Oh, not so meager, sir. Not at all.” Then she turned back to him and offered him the closest thing to a smile he'd yet seen from her, a graceful upturning of the corners of her lips. “I think perhaps Francesca is mistaken about you, Mr. Worthington.”

He blinked. “I—but—what did she say?”

She leaned slightly closer. “She said, ‘Handsome is as handsome does,'” she confided. “But that was on first acquaintance. I'm sure she has revised her opinion by now.” With that, she began to turn away. Orion caught sight of his folio clasped behind her back.

“Ah, Miss Blayne, why do you need my notes?”

She turned to him again. Her face had resumed its usual perfect marble stillness. “Papa prefers for me to transcribe all the progress for him at the end of the day. He dislikes having to decipher other people's script. He will review it
during his hour of contemplation.”

Orion frowned slightly. “But my notes are most well organized. I'm sure there is no need for you to go to all that trouble.”

“No trouble at all,” she said distantly. Orion was seized by the feeling that he was keeping her from something terribly urgent but that she was too polite to say so.

“Oh. Yes. I am quite busy myself.” He stepped back slightly and bowed again. “I hope we shall have more time to talk during the Duke of Camberton's ball in three nights' time.”

“Yes, Mr. Worthington. I shall look forward to it.” Her expression was serene as always, yet Orion had the impression that she could not care less about the ball.

Something else they had in common.

He watched her as she turned away and floated gracefully across the lawn, in no visible hurry, yet managing to reach the house in very little time. It was a good match for the both of them. She was so very appropriate.

So why did his steps quicken as he turned back to the laboratory—and Francesca?

“Handsome is as handsome does,” she had said.

Francesca thought him handsome?

*   *   *

B
EHIND THE CENTRAL
spire of the fountain, a pair of skinny legs in boys' trousers held very still in the knee-deep water as Attie listened. That Judith girl wasn't so bad, perhaps—just a bit of a bore. Fortunately, Orion didn't seem to be too terribly interested in her after all.

Still, Attie had never known her calm, logical brother to chase a single step after a woman, much less halfway across a vast lawn. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Orion duck back into the laboratory; then her gaze slid sideways to contemplate the house.

Further research was in order. Fortunately, thanks to
Chessa, Attie knew just how to get into Blayne House undetected. She even thought she knew where that dreary girl was going to do her transcription.

It took only a few moments for Attie to work her skinny form through the small cellar window, which was actually more of a ventilation slit than a true window. As she passed the entrance to the main kitchen, she heard Judith's calm voice talking about stewed goose. A deep rumble answered her, resentful and sour in tone, though Attie could not make out the words.

Chessa's silly story ran through her head as she listened.

As tempting as it was to spy on the kitchen and see if the cook really was a giant, Attie realized that she might be able to beat Judith to the girl's destination. If Attie recalled correctly—and she always recalled correctly—the plain, featureless study she'd seen on her first visit was on the main floor, the fourth door on the left. She would wager the compass she'd stolen from her eldest brother Dade's dressing table that dull Judith used that boring room.

Evasion was second nature for Attie, given that she'd been evading Dade for a week now as he looked for his compass. Stealth was actually less difficult in Worthington House because it was packed to the rafters with marvelous, interesting things.

Hiding in Blayne House was like attempting to hide in an empty meadow. It was all about holding still in the shadows while all the busy, busy servants went about their busy, busy business. As the gaunt butler in all his brass buttons strode past without noticing her, intent on his aforementioned business, she rolled her eyes. This place housed an army of help! What did they find to do all day?

By ducking into this room and slipping past that doorway, she secretly made her way to the lackluster study.

In truth, it was a perfectly acceptable room. It simply held nothing of interest to her inquisitive mind. There were no
foreign curiosities crowding the mantel, nor battered and mysterious books on the desk.

The dainty but unadorned desk itself held only an inkstand, a blotter, and, in the perfect center of the blotter, a stack of paper. Attie bet an even number of pages were stacked there, lined up perfectly perpendicular to the long inkstand that rested down the center of the desk.

Aside from the desk and simple wooden chair, there stood a graceful wingback chair by the fire, with a small tea table beside it. All very feminine, in a plain sort of way. Attie supposed it could be worse. The place could be dripping in embroidery and tatted lace. At least Judith didn't seem to waste her time stitching footstools and runners and such.

Yes, the room was sensible, if dull. Just like Attie's impression of Judith.

The latch jiggled. Attie took two unhurried steps and slipped out of sight behind the drapery panel on one side of the far window. She liked hiding in draperies because she was skinny enough not to cause a noticeable bulge. Also, it was much easier to duck out the window than to run toward a door. People always went to block the door first.

Even as Judith settled herself behind the desk, Attie reached out a slow hand to check the window latch. She smiled as the latch gave way with well-oiled silence. Perhaps there was something to be said for an army of servants after all.

She watched through the weave of the cloth as Judith set down her cup of tea and pulled Orion's folio of notes closer. Attie's eyes narrowed as she saw Judith stroke a hesitant finger over the leather cover, her expression deep in thought. Did that action seem . . . romantic? Or only pensive?

Attie had heard the girl tell Orion that something he'd said was nice. Orion didn't say
nice
things. He said
true
things. To imagine Orion saying something gallant or—ew!—
amorous
seemed like an expedient way to lose one's lunch.

Judith inked a quill and began to copy. At one juncture,
she leaned back to regard her page with a frown. Then she picked it up and ripped it in half.

The sudden angry gesture made Attie jump slightly. The drapery waved in response. Attie held her breath, but Judith only let out a long breath and began to copy once more. Attie couldn't think what might make Judith angry about Orion's notes, but she had to admit she was relieved to see some sign of emotion coming from the girl. Attie was used to loud people, who laughed, or sang, or recited Shakespeare in booming stage voices, or shouted—mostly at her!—or called—mostly for her!—so Judith's eerie decorum made Attie feel as though she were inspecting an entirely different species of human.

However, her current safari to study the native habitat of Other People aside, Attie soon began to feel bored.

That was, until Judith stood up with the stack of Orion's original notes in her hands—and flung them into the fireplace!

It was all Attie could do not to hurl herself onto the hearth to grab her brother's notes back. That was when she realized that there was no fire. The hearth, although piled with fresh tinder, was not lit. Attie waited.

Judith took a twisted paper spill from a container on the mantel and held it to the lighted candle at her desk. Attie tensed her body, ready to spring out at the horrible, wicked girl who meant to destroy all of Orion's hard work!

As Attie waited with balled-up fists, she watched Judith gaze expressionlessly at the burning spill. At the last moment before it might have burned her fingers, Judith lifted it up and blew it most decisively out. Attie drew back, unsure.