“I’m asking because I haven’t any other idea how to spare you your aunt’s attentions,” he said, holding out his hand.
“I should warn Mrs. Brody,” she said. “Tell her to pay Aunt Lilly no heed.”
He nodded.
“And warn Ralston as well,” she added.
He only smiled.
“We should be a good host and hostess.”
“We should,” he echoed. “But Mrs. Brody and Ralston will simply have to fend for themselves. As will your family.”
She placed her hand in his, allowing him to lead her to the servants’ stairs. By the time they reached the arched bridge, they were running, like children escaping the schoolroom.
At the top of the bridge, he placed his hands on her waist, twirled her around until her skirts were swirling above her ankles. She began to laugh, teased into merriment by the look in his eyes and the smile on his face.
Who knew that Montgomery had a mischievous side?
He hadn’t been speaking in jest when he said he would put her to work. He gave her a leather apron and directed her to several crates stacked in the corner.
Tom, one of the stableboys who’d come to work with Montgomery, was to assist her. Tom was young, and shy, a fact she discovered when she smiled in his direction. His face flushed, he ducked his head, and he mumbled something she couldn’t hear. Rather than ask him to repeat himself, she took pity on the boy and looked away.
“What is it, exactly, you want me to do, Montgomery?”
She glanced over her shoulder at him, startled to notice he’d taken off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. She’d never noticed how well developed his arms were. Even fully clothed, Montgomery was arresting.
He’d remained in his room last night, and she’d stayed in hers, feeling a little odd about her entire family being in residence and in rooms down the hall. Instead of feeling reticent, she should have gone to him.
Their gazes locked, and she flushed.
“I’m looking for the blades of a fan,” he said. “I thought I’d unpacked it but couldn’t find it. It’s time I unpacked everything, I think.”
He gestured toward the six crates, and she nodded.
Tom used an oddly shaped iron tool to pry off the lid of the first crate. By the third crate, she was ankle deep in wood shavings and sneezing periodically, as ladylike as she could. Tom, on the other hand, was enjoying himself immensely, as evidenced by his broad smile each time they discovered something new and unusual.
She’d unearthed an oval crystal object Montgomery identified as a thermometer. Something else that looked like a weathervane incited a word of praise from him. He strode across the distillery, took it from her, and held it up in front of him.
“I wondered where that was,” he said. “I ordered it from Italy, you see, and hadn’t thought it was here yet.”
Without telling her exactly what it was, he strode back to his worktable. Her gaze followed him, watched as he perched on the stool, and smiled at the weathervane-like object as if it were a well-cherished friend.
The air was filled with dust, and the temperature was rising in the distillery to almost an uncomfortable warmth. She didn’t know what she was doing yet she couldn’t remember a time when she’d been happier.
After her adventure the day before in the balloon, she was more than willing to go up again. Even eager, a comment she made to him when the last of the crates was unpacked and the wood shavings piled into a barrow for use as kindling. He smiled at her, as if pleased at her enthusiasm.
When she saw one of the maids on the arched bridge, carrying Montgomery’s lunch, it was a clear signal she needed to return to the house to ensure that her relatives weren’t ordering everyone around.
“Is there anything I can do to convince you to accompany me back to Doncaster Hall?” she asked.
He kept his attention on the mass of metal parts arranged on a workbench. For a moment, Veronica was certain he was unaware she’d spoken. A second later, however, he proved her wrong by glancing at her and smiling. He set the tool he was using down on the workbench, wiped his hand on a cloth, and met her in the middle of the building.
Sunlight speared through the door of the distillery, bathing him in a bright light. She walked closer, stopping only when the toes of her shoes met the toes of his boots.
Since the day before, she’d been filled with an effervescent feeling of excitement, an emotion that even the appearance of her relatives couldn’t destroy. She tilted her head back andlooked up at him, blinking against the light. Placing both hands on his chest, she could feel his heat, and the steady and certain beat of his heart.
“Regrettably,” she whispered, “good manners dictate I’m a lady in the parlor at the moment.”
