When she didn’t complete her sentence, Owen offered her a wry smile. “We are in a quandary.”
“Agreed. Do you wish to stay for dinner?” she asked without thinking, considering she was his bright spot, and he, hers.
*
Adelia surprised himwith the invitation. One minute, she seemed to consider him the bane of her existence, the next, she seemed to care for him as he did her.
“It’s scarcely past noon,” he pointed out, and she laughed at her folly. It was a glorious sound.
“Oh dear!” she said. “I didn’t realize. Doubtless, you have other things to do today anyway.”
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea.”
“Of course,” she said, her cheeks becoming a pretty pink. “My manners! I shall ring for some at once.”
“Do not fret,” he told her as she went to the bell pull. “I believe I had you well and truly distracted since the time your engineer left.”
Her hand still on the cord, she glanced back at him, her cheeks reddening further, and he was sorry he’d embarrassed her. She was simply so adorable. And sensual!
“From the instant I heard your voice actually.” She frowned. “I was about to ask Mr. Beaumont a question before he left.”
Suddenly, the door rattled, and he recalled he had locked her butler out. Her pretty eyes widened. However, holding her head high, she crossed to the door, unlocked it, and admitted Mr. Lockley.
Without acknowledging the indecorousfaux pas, she instructed, “Tea, please, and some of that spice cake with the currants.”
The butler nodded, and with the quickest of glances between Owen and the maid’s empty seat by the ferns, he left.
Owen probably should insist Adelia get that same girl—Penny, wasn’t she called?—into the room at once to protect the reputation of the lady of the house, if it wasn’t entirely too late.
Adelia returned to the sofa, seemed to think better of it, and took a wing chair. He dropped into a matching one, glad he could have more time in her company and kept his mouth shut about Penny.
“There are men and women in Newgate for many and various charges, aren’t there? Some are jailed for being poor.”
Owen sobered.Poor lady.Thoughts of her brother were always close to the surface, which he could completely understand. He wished he didn’t feel the slightest modicum of guilt. He shouldn’t, but he did.
“Yes. For many reasons.”
Adelia nodded. “Thus, I wonder why our engineer assumed Thomas was under a charge of murder.”
Owen shrugged. “Why was he here?”
“To speak about running the company while my brother is…away.”
“Rather insolent!” he said. The man might be overstepping his bounds.
“No, I invited him here to discuss that very thing, but when I mentioned where Thomas was, he said something about the seriousness of a murder charge. I was about to ask him why he assumed it was such when you arrived.”
“I suppose that is presumptuous.”
She lifted a shoulder delicately. “It is no matter. I will ask Mr. Beaumont when I see him again.”
“You have a bookkeeper, I hope,” Owen said. “Someone who can handle the payables and the receivables, to keep everything in the black. Or a professional accountant to oversee the ledgers.”
She frowned again. “Mr. Beaumont said that would be improper.”
“What?” Owen leaned forward in his chair.An improper accountant? What did she mean?
“I suggested having Mr. Arnold, our accountant, handle the finances, and Mr. Beaumont said it would be too easy for the man to steal.”
