Lady Bridgewater smiled in the manner of a woman accustomed to having her way. “See? It’ll be a lark.”
A bolt of annoyance flashed through Beatrix.A lark. That factory was Dev’s livelihood. It paid for this roof over their heads and the sumptuous meals they’d been enjoying, even the fire in the hearth had its beginnings with a servant paid to start and stoke it.A lark!
Dev’s piercing aquamarine gaze cut across the room and met Beatrix’s. “And you, Lady Beatrix? Will you be joining us on this lark?”
She detected a spark of the serious and urgent…
Will.
He was willing her to sayyes.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she said, and he smiled.
That smile was why she’d assented. To please him—and to please herself, it must be admitted. She was curious about his factory.
An hour later, she was entering the receiving room of Deverill & Shaw Company, which was not at all as she’d imagined. She’d thought they would step through the doorway and find themselves suddenly coated with grime and grease. But the room was tidy and clean.
Then they were passing through the threshold of another doorway and into a large, cavernous space with high windowsthat provided ample light, even on a rainy day. This was the factory proper, machines in various stages of assemblage filling row after row.
It was the silence Beatrix noticed next. The odd giggle or whisper peppered in by a lady here or there didn’t break it, for it was the near oppressive silence of a typically loud space—as if the cacophony were only just held at bay.
Dev had explained on their twenty-minute carriage ride that as Saturday was a half-day, the workers had already left. They had Sundays off altogether. In their wake, the workers had left this quiet that would burst back into life first thing Monday morning.
Ahead, Dev began leading the group slowly along the rows, explaining this or that part or machine. Beatrix lagged at the back. Not that she had no interest in learning about this place—she was curious abouteverything, in fact—but she wanted to form her own impressions first.
For a lady of theton, she’d always felt she led an interesting life. At least, one more interesting than that of her peers. True, she didn’t have money or a husband or children, but she did have freedom. And even though she would readily trade that freedom for money, husband, and children, she daily took advantage of her freedom to float through society as she willed—from a resplendent ball held by a duke to the odd lowly racecourse on a Wednesday afternoon.
Yet as the reality of this factory—of Dev’s real life—sank in, she saw that herfreedomexisted firmly within the structure society had laid out for her. She never truly stepped outside it.
But this factory…this life of Dev’s… It existed in an altogether different realm from hers. Not only did he experience true freedom of mind and practice, he contributed to the world in a meaningful way.
Dev led an interesting, free life.
Dev led the life he wanted to live.
It was a revelation to Beatrix—and it rattled the foundations of the good, solid life she’d always thought she’d wanted no small bit. For it inspired a question: was that life nothing more than another sort of prison?
Ahead, Lady Bridgewater tossed her head back and laughed as if Dev had just said the funniest thing in the world. Lord Bridgewater had stayed back at Primrose Park, presumably to partake of billiards and the copious amounts of spirits he was so fond of. Which gave his wife leave to flash her beautiful smile about and laugh and take none of what Dev said seriously. Just as a lady would, of course. Wasn’t this a lark, after all?
Beatrix experienced another flash of annoyance.
But,oh, how attractive Dev was at this moment. So handsome and deliciously wicked. The former a quality known to the world, and the latter known only to her.
And possibly—probably—to Lady Bridgewater.
Again, the flash of annoyance.
A low, persistent thrum at this point.
As he demonstrated his knowledge, skill, and talent, there stood a man who knew his business.
It rivaled both handsomeness and wickedness in attractiveness.
“It was a lucky day when I met Blake Deverill.”
Beatrix turned to find Mr. Shaw smiling at her. “Was it, indeed?” She kept her tone light, even as she noted his unwavering sincerity.
“Aye,” he said.
