Stephanie Laurens - The Designs Of Lord Randolph Cavanaugh - #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens returns with an uputdownable new historical romance

“Despite what we saw when we drove up, it’s a well-run house. Calm and well-ordered, even if a mite eccentric. The staff are longtimers, all of them—and if they’re not that old, then their parents were here before them. Very settled, they are, and... I suppose you’d say they’re content.”

“The explosions don’t trouble them?”

“Seems they’re used to them—and apparently, there’s never been anyone hurt. Just lots of noise and nasty smoke.”

Rand nodded. A well-run household and contented staff were excellent indicators of the qualities of a house’s master. Or mistress, as the case might be.

He straightened from the sill and turned to look out of the window again.

“Country hours here, so dinner’s at six.” Shields retreated toward the door. “Do you need me for anything else?”

Rand shook his head. “Not today.” His gaze flicked to the stable. “How are the horses?” He’d purchased the pair only two months ago; they were young and still distinctly flighty.

“They didn’t approve of the bang and the smell, but the stable’s well away from the house, and they settled happily enough.”

“Good.” Rand paused, then said, “I doubt I’ll need the horses for the next few days at least. Other than keeping an eye on them, I won’t need you for much, but let me know if you see or hear anything that strikes you as odd.”

“Aye. I’ll do that. I’m off for my tea, then.”

Rand heard the door open and shut. His gaze had already found and refocused on Miss Throgmorton.

She was still attacking the roses.

Rand wavered, prodded by an impulse to go down and speak with her. About what, he wasn’t all that clear. Judging by the energy with which she was clipping, she was still distinctly exercised over what his arrival had revealed.

She’d had no inkling of Rand’s or the syndicate’s existence. More, Rand sensed her antipathy toward inventing—an attitude that had reached him perfectly clearly during their meeting in the drawing room—had a deeper source than mere female disapproval of such endeavors.

Yet her support would be vital in keeping her brother’s nose to the grindstone, and they all needed William John to finish the invention within the next three weeks.

Rand wasn’t sure how much he could actively help William John—that remained to be seen—but at the very least, he could ride rein on the younger man and ensure he remained focused on solving the issues bedeviling his father’s machine. William John had already shown strong signs of the absentminded mental meandering Rand had observed in many other inventors.

In his experience, time was the one dimension to which inventors rarely paid heed.

Yet in this case, time was very definitely of critical importance.

Rand refocused on Miss Throgmorton.

He drew out his fob watch and checked the face, then tucked the watch into his pocket and headed for the door.

He had time for a stroll before dinner.

* * *

In the rose garden, Felicia deadheaded roses with a vengeance. With her left hand, she gripped the next rose hip; with her right hand, she wielded the shears. Snip! She dropped the clipped hip into her basket and reached for the next.

She’d hoped the activity would allow her to release some of the emotions pent up inside her. And, in truth, simply being out of the house and breathing fresher air had eased the volcanic anger, fueled by hurt, that had welled within her on learning of her father’s and brother’s subterfuge.

Snip.

Her father was dead; she couldn’t berate him. As for her brother...while she could berate him, she and the household—not to mention the too-handsome-for-his-own-good Lord Cavanaugh and his syndicated investors—needed William John to keep his mind on his work. Berating him wouldn’t help.

Snip.

Besides, she knew her brother well enough to know he would feel no real remorse; encouraging her to believe that the funds she’d been drawing on to keep the household running had been royalties from previous inventions would have seemed to her father and William John to be the easiest path.

They wouldn’t have wanted her to worry over using money received from others for an invention they hadn’t yet got to work.

Their sleight of mind still hurt.

And she was now quite worried enough, and in that, she wasn’t alone. Even William John was uncertain. Unsure.

He’d been growing steadily more nervous over recent weeks—more nervous than she’d ever known him. She’d wondered why. Now, she knew.

This time, her father and brother had embarked on a gamble that might not pay off.

She nudged the basket along with her foot and reached for the next dead rose.

Unlike previous projects, where she’d insisted they worked only with capital they already possessed and also left untouched a cushion of funds on which the household could fall back on should the project fail, this time, there was no cushion. No funds to fall back on.

No way to keep going.

Snip.

This time, if the invention failed, they would have to sell the Hall and let the staff go. There’d been Throgmortons at the Hall for generations; everyone would be devastated. The loss of their home would hurt William John even more; without his laboratory-workshop, he would be rudderless. As for her...she had no idea what such a future would hold for her, other than that it would be bleak. She’d had her Season in London and hadn’t taken—and she hadn’t taken to life in the capital, either; it had been far too superficial for her taste. Now, at the age of twenty-four, the best she could hope for was a life as a paid companion or as an unpaid poor relative in one of her distant cousins’ households.

If she’d been a different sort of female, she might have given way to despair, but she didn’t have time for any such indulgence. As far as she could tell, there was one and only one way to avoid the abyss that had opened up before them—William John had to get the dratted modified steam engine to work.

Snip.

If she wanted to save the household, the Hall, William John, and herself, she needed to do all she could to keep her brother’s mind focused on that task and ensure that all possible burdens were lifted from his shoulders.

William John was a year older than she was, but it had long been she who managed everything around him.

A distant step on the gravel path circling the house had her raising her gaze. Lord Cavanaugh—he who, from her year’s experience of London society, she had instantly recognized as belonging to the too-handsome-for-his-own-good brigade—was crossing the lawn. He wasn’t out strolling; there was nothing idle about his stride. He’d seen her and, apparently, was intent on speaking with her.

While ostensibly clipping another dead rose, she watched him approach. Over six feet tall, with wide shoulders, a well-muscled chest, narrow hips, and long, strong legs, he cut a powerful figure, well-proportioned and rangy. Also distinctly mature; she judged him to be in his early thirties. He was still wearing the clothes he’d arrived in—a fashionably cut coat over a fine linen shirt, a neatly tied ivory cravat, tightly fitting buff breeches, and top boots. The subdued style, exquisite cut, and expensive fabrics marked him as a gentleman of the ton’s upper echelons, yet it was his features that had prompted her to give him the label she had; his dark, walnut-brown hair, the thick locks fashionably trimmed, framed a face of cool calculation tinged with the autocratic arrogance often found in those of the higher nobility.

He was a marquess’s son, after all.

The long planes of his face were spare, even austere, with sharp cheekbones on either side of a patrician nose, and firm, chiseled lips above a squarish chin. Straight dark-brown eyebrows and surprisingly thick dark lashes set off those eyes of molten caramel that she’d already discovered were unwarrantedly distracting.