“You won’t get under my skin this time, Mr. Morgan. In fact, I should like a tour of the library I glimpsed when we’ve finished our supper.”
“We don’t often have company. I meet with my investors and business associates in London, not here. You shall be one of the first outside my family to view my other inner sanctum.”
“Your other inner sanctum?”
He gave her a guileless smile. “My workshop and laboratory.”
He took her cloak and bonnet from her, and immediately missed the intimacy of sweeping it over her shoulders.
“Your workspace is usually a restricted area? You’re the one who bade me follow you.”
“My sister and the children were in the back garden, so there was no one else available to answer the door.”
“Why have you not hired help? This home is one of the most substantial in the parish.”
He lifted a shoulder as he pulled out her chair. “I treasure my privacy and don’t want people tramping about.”
“I treasure mine as well- though I seldom have the opportunity to enjoy it.”
“Siblings don’t often respect our need for solitude,” he acknowledged as he took a seat beside her.
“You still must contend with it? Even in a home this spacious?”
He gave her a rueful smile. “I took the responsibility of raising my four younger sisters when I was barely fourteen, and that was in a cottage much smaller than the one you share with your sisters. Although I wouldn’t trade the experience, or the patience and fortitude it instilled in me, my siblings have always been underfoot. The only time Caris and my niece and nephew keep their distance is when I’m in my workshop.”
She laid her spoon on her napkin and rested her chin in her hands. “What do you work on in your workshop, Mr. Morgan? From what I observed, there appeared to be half a dozen unfinished projects lying about.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Are you truly curious or are you stalling for time, Miss Wainwright?”
Her grin was unapologetic. “A bit of both, I must confess.”
“I know immediately if a design isn’t going to work as I intended it to. Until I devise a way to dismantle it and refashion it into something else, I leave it in its unfinished state.” Cadoc shrugged self-consciously. “I’ve learned it’s easier for me to visualize the particular possibilities of each piece when I leave them intact.”
His companion’s expression turned introspective. “Hmmm, much the same way I ponder a drawing when I’m not sure which direction I plan to take.”
“Your drawings of insects?”
“Primarily. Although I often turn my pencil to other things as well. Especially since I haven’t had the use of my microscope to more realistically render the intricacies that aren’t visible to the naked eye. The suborder Anisoptera contains thousands ofspecies, and I plan to record my findings on the fifty or so species I’ve encountered here in Cumbria.”
He watched her push a wave of hair from her forehead, and marveled at her tenacity. “What sort of findings will you record?”
“Most of their membranous wings have colored markings , and the front and rear wings are shaped differently. A dragonfly rests with its wings spread horizontally and we believe some species migrate thousands of miles.”
Her expression was avid and she’d been gesticulating passionately as she talked. Cadoc could care less about her dragonflies, but her passion was irresistible. “Tell me more.”
“The way they catch their prey is fiendishly savage,” she paused to swallow a mouthful of stew. “They have pincers like fangs, a serrated mandible, they use to catch and pin their prey, and one of my colleagues has divided them into four different classes. He calls them sprawlers, burrowers, hiders and claspers.”
“What is the difference?”
She abandoned her soup to lean forward, placing her elbows on the table. “They’ve each adapted to a microhabitat within their freshwater environment. My favorite species is the emperor dragonfly. I’ve seen it consume its prey mid-air. As if it can’t be bothered to take even a moment’s rest.”
“I assume they have relatively short lifespans. Like most insects.”
“That’s not quite the case. Some of the larger species may spend a year or more as larvae after they are hatched - until they shed their exoskeleton. Once the nymphs have shed the exoskeleton, it can take as little as a quarter of an hour for it to transform into a full-grown adult. As full-grown adults, their lifespan rarely exceeds eight weeks. They make the most of the time they have, though,” she wistfully finished.
“How so?” He wanted to know what the root of that wistful tone was.
“Their lives are brutal, but beautiful as well. A savage dance for survival in a world that might seem small and nondescript to an outside observer.”
