And if, therefore, you’re going to get in my way. Mine, my investors’, and William John’s.
He didn’t say the words, but as her eyes narrowed on his, he felt confident she understood.
She stood with her shears held laxly in one gloved hand and stared into his eyes. Then her lips firmed, and she turned back to the rose bushes. “I am not against inventions.” She reached for a dead rose. “It’s inventors I have little sympathy or time for.”
She paused, the fingers of one hand cradling the withered bloom; her shears remained raised, but didn’t sweep in. He could almost hear her debating whether or not to explain her stance to him. He knew when she accepted that, given the circumstances, he had reason to ask and, possibly, a right to know.
“There’s a truth I learned long ago.” Her tone had hardened; her diction was clipped. “When it comes to anything that impacts on their inventing, inventors like my father and my brother are inherently, innately selfish. They live and breathe their work and are deaf and blind to all else about them—to house, estate, staff, friends, family. Everything. Were the house to literally crumble about them, they wouldn’t notice—would pay it no heed whatever—not unless and until it directly interfered with their work. Only then would an issue other than the invention itself become important—important enough for them to afford it an iota of their attention.”
Now that Felicia had finally faced the question no one before had ever thought to ask her, and had started to answer and, in doing so, had opened the box into which for so many years she’d stuffed all her resentments, she discovered that continuing was easier than curbing her tongue. “I saw what my father’s unswerving devotion to his inventions meant for my mother. She was a Walpole, higher born than Papa, but theirs was a love match—and of that I am sure, that there was love on both sides to the very end. Yet my father’s inventions always came first. Throughout all my mother’s life, Papa’s inventions kept eating up all their funds, leaving Mama cut off from society—even the small circle of local society. She couldn’t entertain, sometimes not for years. People were kind, but she wouldn’t attend dinners on her own, and Papa would never make the time to accompany her. For years, we lived under the most straitened circumstances, with Mama’s constant role being to pinch and scrape and eke out the funds left after Papa’s depredations, just to keep up appearances and make sure there was food on the table. Not that Papa or William John ever noticed what they were eating. Our staff, bless them, have stuck with us through thick and thin, but through most of my parents’ marriage, times were far more thin than thick.”
Cavanaugh shifted. “Your father is considered a very successful inventor. I know he had many successes.”
She made a scoffing sound. “He did, indeed, but, monetarily speaking, virtually all his successes were minor. All brought in some funds, but it was never enough to cover my father’s—and more recently, William John’s—hunger for the latest valve or piston or cylinder or gear. There’s always something they simply must have. The drain on our funds was—and still is—never ending.”
She sensed rather than saw him lift his head and glance around—at the well-maintained house, the grounds, the gardens.
“Yet you seem to have managed well enough.”
She laughed cynically. “Up to now.” She paused, then in a quieter tone went on, “I saw what inventions made of my mother’s life. I learned that the obsession with inventions isn’t something even love can triumph against. When she fell ill, at her request I took up the reins of managing the household. Unlike Mama, I have a good head for numbers—and I was more than up to the task of arguing and nagging my father until he agreed to set aside funds for keeping up the house. Mama died eight years ago. Papa’s successes mostly occurred after that, and I managed to cling to sufficient funds to keep the good ship Throgmorton on an even keel.” She paused, then snipped another dead rose. “At least, so I thought.”
After a moment, she turned, dropped the dead rose into her basket, then raised her gaze and met Cavanaugh’s eyes. “I might as well confess that I hold a deep and abiding antipathy toward inventing—the process. Had I known how matters stood, if it had been up to me, after Papa died, I would have drawn a line under the steam engine project and returned the unused funds to you and your syndicate.” She paused, then inclined her head and swung back and shifted to face the next rose bush. “That said, I know William John wouldn’t have agreed, and quite aside from being male, he’s also older than me.” She cut another dead rose and more evenly said, “In addition to the reasons he gave—of wanting to establish himself—I suspect he feels a certain filial obligation to get the engine working as my father envisaged as a form of tribute to Papa—a final triumph.”
His gaze fixed on her profile, Rand murmured, “I can understand that.”
“It might be understandable, but is it sensible?” She snipped another rose, resurgent tension investing the movement.
Before Rand could formulate any answer, she shot a sharp glance—one a very small step away from a glare—his way. “After Papa’s death, the only reason I gave way and acquiesced to William John continuing to work on the steam engine project was because there was money still coming in—as I thought, from royalties from earlier inventions.”
She turned back to the bush; he could only see her profile, but even that looked flinty. The next dead rose fell to a savage slice of her shears.
“Both Papa and William John lied to me about the source of those funds. They didn’t just encourage me to believe something that wasn’t true—they lied. Directly. Several times each. They intentionally deceived me”—Rand almost winced as she took off another dead rose—“so that I would think there was enough money—sufficient money, at least—to be made from inventions after all. They bought my support with lies.”
Rand suddenly found himself skewered with a green gaze that was all daggers.
“You can imagine how I feel about that.”
He could.
“And”—she turned back to the rose bushes—“how I therefore feel about everything to do with inventors and inventing.”
He’d wanted to know, and now, he did. Rand looked down, studying the edge of the flagstone path while he absorbed all he’d heard, all he’d sensed behind her words, and readjusted his strategy.
He knew too many inventors to doubt anything she’d said. The emotional and physical neglect she’d described wasn’t uncommon but an all-too-frequent outcome of inventors’ single-minded focus on their works.
As for her hurt on learning she’d been lied to... He knew all about betrayal by one’s nearest and dearest, those a man—or a woman—should have been able to trust.
The realization left him feeling a closer kinship with her than he’d foreseen.
Unfortunately, he could do nothing about what lay in her past, any more than he could do anything about what lay in his.
Experience had taught him that forward was the only practical way to go.
He raised his head, studied her for an instant, then quietly said, “Just for the record, although I might fund inventions and intend to work alongside your brother in bringing his current project to fruition, I would definitely notice if the house started to crumble in even a minor way.”
She glanced at him sidelong and briefly met his eyes. “You’re an investor, not an inventor.”
He smiled tightly. “Indeed.” He didn’t want her tarring him with that brush.
She gave a small humph and turned back to snip another dead rose.
Rand studied her face, the flawless complexion—milk and honey with a golden tinge courtesy of the summer sun—framed by a wealth of tumbling red-gold locks that made his fingers itch.
And I would