He heard a carriage. He bolted to the window and strained to see it rolling down the street. When it slowed, he bounded out to the reception hall, sped past the servant on duty, and threw open the door. Miss Jameson peered out the cab’s window.
The servant nipped around him and handed her down. She smoothed her skirt before coming toward the door.
She had tried to hide a bruise on her face. Perhaps those who did not know it was there would not notice it, especially in the day’s overcast light. He saw it right away, however. His anger at Philip had never fully receded, and now it spiked again.
He swallowed his reaction and greeted her. “Welcome. We have much to discuss.”
“We do indeed. It is past time, I think, to show me the invention.”
“Of course. However, I have had some coffee prepared, and the terrace is a fine spot from which to see the garden. Let us go there for a few minutes first.”
“I do not need coffee. I have been busy since eight o’-clock. However, I suppose you are newly awake, so I will join you.”
He ushered her through the house to the morning room. Breakfast awaited his father. He gestured toward it. “Would you like—”
“No, thank you. If you haven’t eaten, however—”
“I too had an early morning.” He pushed open the garden door.
A table had been set at the far end of the terrace, away from the morning room. He did not want his father’s interference should the man rise before noon. He settled her down. A servant came to pour coffee.
He looked at her face. The overcast light evoked a special radiance from her skin, as if it penetrated deeply, then came back with subtle nuance. The result was a surface that appeared very white, with the vaguest shadows below her mouth and nose. Unpolished marble statues looked like that, with the material’s crystals absorbing light instead of reflecting it.
Her hand went to the bruise. “I was given some paint to hide it. I don’t suppose it worked if you keep staring at me.”
“I was not noticing the bruise. I know it is there, but few others will.”
“Then why are you looking at me so intently?”
“Because I have something very important to say to you, and I am wondering what you will think on hearing it.”
Curiosity lit her eyes. “Have you decided you want to take on another partner?”
“Not at all. Why would you think so?”
She shrugged. “It has entered my mind that we could use one who has a factory.”
What a nuisance of an idea. He swallowed his annoyance. That was for another day. “I have instead thought that we should reconsider our own partnership.”
She looked at him blankly. So much so that it unnerved him more than he wanted to admit. The practical Miss Jameson had never seen the possibility that he had. She had never entertained the idea that he planned to broach.
Not once.
* * *
Mr. Radnor sat there, looking at her. She sensed surprise in him, but she could not imagine why.
She hoped he was not going to ask her to sign that stupid document again, the one that gave him all control of the enterprise. If he did, she would sell her share, even if they had now developed a friendship of sorts.
He was nothing if not a self-assured man, but right now she saw something else. Not lack of confidence in himself so much as in his idea.
“Perhaps you should explain what you have in mind,” she said to encourage him to get on with it.
“Of course.” He leaned forward. Closer. “When I say reconsider our partnership, I mean extend it.”
“You have another enterprise?”
He smiled ruefully. In a blink, he became more himself. “See here, we are bound to each other in this endeavor. Our lives are intertwined.”
