‘Are you sure there isn’t someone else who should speak?’ She tried to avoid it one last time. ‘Perhaps Mr Burke?’ He’d been a pleasant, well-spoken man in the last group they’d visited and another generous benefactor of the school.
Lynford shook his head and gave her one of his disarming smiles. He’d been using them liberally tonight with the guests, but that made them no less effective. ‘No, I want you to do it.’ She knew what that meant: an ambush for an ambush. He covered her gloved hand where it lay on his sleeve and gave it a conspiratorial squeeze. ‘You will do wonderfully.’ He leaned in, giving her a teasing whiff of clean, autumn male, the woodsy scent of English oak mixed with the sweeter note of hazelnut. Good lord, that scent was intoxicating. It reminded her of strength, of bonfires beneath starry skies when she was younger, when she didn’t carry the world on her shoulders, when autumn was a time to laugh and dream. His voice was a husky whisper at her ear, a tone better reserved for the bedroom. ‘I have every confidence in you. You are not a woman who knows how to fail, Mrs Blaxland.’ Then he slipped away from her, his long strides taking him to the front of the room, the very presence of him compelling people to quiet their conversations, to find a seat and anticipate what came next.
She envied him his confidence, the ease with which it was assumed whereas hers was a hard-earned façade; once acquired, she had dared not lay it down for fear she might never be able to pick it up again. This was not the life Huntingdon had imagined for her, but this was the life she had, the life she’d chosen out of necessity.
At twenty-eight, she’d gone from running their home to running a mining empire, from sponsoring parties to sponsoring schools and other educational causes. If there was one thing the past five years had taught her, it was that education was everything. She’d transitioned into her husband’s position only because she’d had the skills to do it. She could read, she could write, she could do sums, she could keep a ledger and myriad other things. She could think critically and she’d spent her marriage listening, learning and planning ahead against the inevitable: an eighteen-year-old bride would doubtless outlive her fifty-five-year-old husband. The majority of her life would be spent in widowhood. The only question was when it would happen and what she’d do about it.
That foresight had stood her in good stead. If this life was not the one imagined for her, it was a far better one than what she would have had. Without those skills, she would have been passed from relative to relative; her husband’s legacy, his mines and her daughter Sophie’s inheritance would have been taken out of her hands and put into the care of an apathetic male relative. She’d seen it happen to women around her, women like her mother, who lost everything when their husbands died, even the very control of their own lives. When Huntingdon had died, she’d reaffirmed her vow that would not happen to her. She would secure her freedom at all costs and her daughter’s, too. Now that she had, she would see to it that others had the opportunity to develop the same skills.
Lynford finished speaking and gestured that she should come forward. She rose and smoothed her skirts, her head high. She wouldn’t let anyone see how this unnerved her. Lynford was right. She didn’t know how to fail. She knew how to fight. That gave them something in common. He no more wanted to see her fail in this speech than she’d wanted him to fail in having the school ready. It occurred to her, as she stood before the guests, that she and Lynford were compatriots whether they wanted to be or not. Philanthropy, like politics, made for strange bedfellows indeed.
She was magnificent. Eaton listened to Eliza Blaxland address the guests, her cultured tones confident and strong. He watched her, looking for little tells that hinted at her nerves and finding none. Still, he stood on guard, feeling protective, as if he had the right to defend her, to intervene if she faltered. But she didn’t falter. He suspected she didn’t know how. It was not in her nature. Eliza Blaxland was all cool competence in her dark blue silk and pearls, her shiny chestnut hair dressed simply, elegantly, in a braid that coiled at the nape of her neck. If he hadn’t seen the initial flicker of uncertainty in her eyes when he’d asked her, he never would have known she didn’t welcome such opportunities.
What else didn’t he know about her? What he thought he knew of her up until two days ago had been entirely wrong. An old rich woman, she was not. He found the prospect of righting those misnomers intriguing. He’d known widows before—women with a sharp worldliness to them—but they’d not got under his skin so quickly. Or ever. Who was Eliza Blaxland? Was she truly all cool smiles and sharp eyes, or did something hotter burn beneath that smooth, uncrackable façade, waiting for a reason to come out?
She was introducing Cade now, taking the opportunity to cede the room’s attention to the school’s headmaster and his musicians. When the applause began, she attempted to slip away to the gardens. If Eaton hadn’t been watching, he would have missed her. Seeing her go only made him impatient to follow her out. But it would be bad form to leave before Cade got the little concert underway. Was she counting on that? Was she hoping to slip away before he could find her? Did she think to hide from him, or was this an invitation to join her? Perhaps she wanted him to follow?
Eaton took the first chance he had to drift towards the French doors and then fade unnoticed into the gardens, aware he might be too late. An initial sweep of the garden suggested he was right, but a second survey revealed her, sitting on a stone bench, face tilted to the night sky in lovely profile. ‘Are you avoiding me or waiting for me?’ Eaton approached from behind, his voice low. ‘I thought for a moment you might have played Cinderella and slipped away before I could follow. What are you doing out here?’ It was a bold question, one that demanded a direct answer in return. But why not be bold? She was not afraid of him. Even now, alone in the garden, her widowhood protected her reputation and granted her the freedom to respond as she liked.
With that freedom, she might take a lover. Had she? Would she? Did she have a lover now? A man who knew the truth behind her façade, who was allowed the luxury of seeing her without her cool armour. Eaton found the prospect disappointing. He didn’t want Mrs Blaxland to belong to someone else. He didn’t want someone else to know what he did not. There was that sense of exigence again, the same urgency he’d felt in the drawing room while watching her slip away. Wanting to know her, to obtain information about her had escalated from merely acquiring facts to something bordering on obsession. He wanted to acquire her. She would be a delicious distraction from the darkness that had dogged his steps since Penlerick’s funeral. Perhaps she would be someone who could bring him back to life, someone who could hold his grief at bay.
It would not be the first time he’d taken a lover for such a purpose. His own lovers were women of the world who enjoyed time with him until it suited them both to move on to new experiences, new adventures. But it was the first time he’d wanted to do so with such covetousness. It was not the usual reaction he generally had towards his lovers. The intensity of that emotion must have showed in his gaze for in the next moment, Eliza Blaxland suddenly rose and made excuses to leave with far less fluency than she’d delivered her speech. ‘I ought to go, it’s getting late.’
Was she looking for an invitation to stay? It didn’t sound like a question. It sounded like a decision. He hadn’t believed she’d be a runner, but she showed every sign of wanting to do just that. How interesting. If she wasn’t running from him, that only left the option of running from herself. Was she running from her reaction to the attraction that simmered between them? Did this flame that sparked between them unnerve her? How intriguing that the unflappable Mrs Blaxland could be unnerved by the nascent overtures of a flirtation when barging in on a man unannounced hadn’t flustered her at all. But she’d been in control then. She’d been the one to do the barging.
‘Leave? Surely you don’t mean to return to Truro tonight?’ The protectiveness he’d felt in the grand salon surged again. He didn’t like the thought of her out on the dark Cornish roads. It was three hours on the road in daylight between Truro and Porth Karrek. A man could do the trip in a day on horseback, but it was a