“Blinded. She’s been through a lot—and I wouldn’t press myself on her.”
Elizabeth had a sudden, wrenching weakness at the back of her throat. This wasn’t a normal conversation, but their relationship had been anything but normal. He had helped her in the past and had kept her secret. She shoved a curl that had escaped from her coiffure behind her ear, rankled she had to help him secure a lady. Was she the insulted one? Was she jealous?
Self-conscious, she glanced down at her fluttering fingers. “I gather she is an heiress?” Elizabeth collected the courage to look up.
“I don’t know if she would accept me. But in the future, I’ll be able to care for her.”
A powerful silence stretched between them, a dazzling mystery, full of uneasy imaginings. Elizabeth swallowed. “Perhaps I could arrange a meeting by hosting a tea?”
“Ah, a tea. Listening to mundane gossip at a tea would be like sticking embroidery needles in my eyes.”
To laugh at the horrid picture he painted, and so accurate of her mother’s teas. She gave a frustrated shake of her head, realizing she was second best, and her voice fell to a whisper. “Who is the lady in question?”
He looked into her eyes then with an intimacy and connection that Elizabeth felt all the way down to her toes.
If only,she sighed, a foible she had been careful not to indulge in all her life.
Oh, if only…
Chapter Fifteen
Zachary pulled open the door and stepped into the dim interior. Thanks to the thick plank walls it was a few degrees cooler than outside but reeking of the musk of men’s sweat and echoing with the clang of metal on metal as the workers went about hammering the new equipment into working order. Zachary had grown accustomed to the appearance and smell and sound of the factory.
The Irishmen were stripped to the waist in the stifling heat. The Chinese in their traditional changshan shirts and long black braids worked in the suffocating temperature owing to the blazing sun of the deep summer afternoon. The men were pouring with sweat, but they weren’t slacking.
As the lunch whistle blew, a carriage pulled up with three women descending.
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, it’s Miss Spencer, Mrs. Merriweather–and Fiona!”
Zachary did not move, smoothing his hair back and buttoning his shirt. Damn. What were they doing here?
“Do I have crumbs on my face?” snapped O’Reilly.
Zachary scowled. “No. Why?”
“Why are your feet stuck in concrete? Get going lad.” O’Reilly dashed to his love interest like rabbit with a fox on its tail. He grasped Fiona’s hand in a death grip.
Zachary checked behind him unsure of the condition of his plant and noted the men gawking at the ladies, especially Elizabeth in her pink and white stripe batiste day dress, high collar trimmed with lace, fitted sleeves flaring out with lace cuffs. He raked his fingers through his hair. Her dress would probably pay for his men’s wages for a year. “Ladies, to what do we owe the honor?”
Mrs. Merriweather pulled herself upright. “We wish to impose on your hospitality to obtain a tour of your factory.”
Zachary scratched his head, and then stared at his men that communicatedquit your ogling and get back to work. “It’s highly unusual to entertain ladies?—”
“Hogwash, Mr. Rourke. I’m demanding a tour,” said the indomitable widow.
Elizabeth stood on tiptoe scrutinizing the inside of his factory. Was she fascinated with his work? No way was her presence in the factory considered proper. A small, prideful part of him wanted more than anything to show her what he’d built.
She must have felt his eyes upon her. Conscious of all the gazes upon them and with her usual grace and deportment, she pretended nothing had ever occurred between them. “It’d be a shame if we came all this way and didn’t get a peek.”
“Come in, come in,” ushered O’Reilly, posing like a bandy rooster preening his feathers.
Zachary had no choice but to follow the oohs and ahhs of the entourage. Suddenly, he felt taller, bigger, and stronger.
O’Reilly hit the bolt of the new engine with his wrench, flashing sweat stains the size of pancakes. He pointed to a machine with the end of his pipe. The pungent smell of tobacco hung over the place like a pall. “I’ve been trying to get this oldgirl to work over the past few days, but like a woman, she has a mind of her own. A man can shoot a squirrel out of a tree at seventy feet. But he can’t vomit into a bucket or pee into a pot only two feet away. One of the great mysteries of life.”
He tipped his head. “Pardon my language. I’m not accustomed to such fine ladies.”
“Oh, please go on,” said Mrs. Merriweather. “Your work captivates us.”
