With the tome safely stored, Leonora turned. He continued flicking through the letters. Her gaze on the pile of parchments, she moved closer. Misjudged and moved too far—she brushed, shoulder to thigh, against him.
Desire ignited, flamed between them.
Tristan tried to breathe in. Couldn’t. The letters slipped from his fingers. He told himself to step back.
His feet wouldn’t move. His body craved the contact too much to deny it.
She glanced fleetingly up at him through her lashes, then, as if embarrassed, eased fractionally back, creating a gap of less than an inch between them.
Too much, yet not enough. His arms were rising to haul her back, when he realized and lowered them.
She reached quickly for the letters and spread them out.
“I was”—her voice was husky; she paused to clear her throat—“going to sort through these. There might be something in them that will point to a discovery.”
It took longer than he liked for him to refocus on the letters; he’d clearly been celibate for too long. He breathed in, exhaled. His mind cleared. “Indeed—they might allow us to decide if it’s something Cedric discovered that Mountford’s after. We shouldn’t forget he wanted to buy the house—it’s something he expected would be left behind.”
“Or something he could gain access to by virtue of being the purchaser, before we moved out.”
“True.” He fanned the letters over the bench top, then looked up at the large pigeonholes. Stepping away from temptation, he turned down the room, following the bench, scanning the shelves above it, searching for more letters. He pulled out all he saw, leaving them on the bench top. “I want you to go through every letter you can find, and collect all those written in the year preceding Cedric’s death.”
Following him, Leonora frowned at his back, then tried to peer around at his face. “There’ll be hundreds.”
“However many, you’ll need to study them all. Then make a list of the correspondents, and write and ask each one if they know of anything Cedric was working on that could have commercial or military significance.”
She blinked. “Commercial or military significance?”
“They’ll know. Scientists may be as absorbed in their work as your uncle and brother, but they usually recognize the possibilities in what they’re working on.”
“Hmm.” Gaze fixed between his shoulder blades, she continued following at his heels. “So I’m to write to each contact he made in his last year.”
“Every last one. If there was anything of significance, someone will know.”
He reached the end of the room and swung around. She looked down—and walked into him. He caught her; she looked up, feigning surprise.
Didn’t have to fabricate her leaping pulse, her suddenly thudding heart.
He’d focused on her lips; her gaze fell to his.
Then he glanced at the door.
“All the staff are busy.” She’d made sure of that.
His gaze returned to her face. She met it but briefly; when he didn’t immediately move, she wriggled her hands free and reached up, sliding one to his nape, curling the fingers of the other into his lapel.
“Stop being so stuffy and kiss me.”
Tristan blinked. Then she shifted in his arms, unintentionally teasing that part of his anatomy most susceptible to her nearness.
Without another thought, he bent his head.
He escaped nearly an hour later, feeling distinctly bemused. It had been years—decades—since he’d indulged in any such mildly illicit behavior, yet far from boring him, his senses were smugly content, luxuriating in the stolen pleasures.
Striding down the front path, he raked his hand through his hair and hoped it would pass muster. Leonora had developed a penchant for thoroughly mussing his normally elegant cut. Not that he was complaining. While she’d been mussing, he’d been savoring.
Her mouth, her curves.
Lowering his arm, he noticed a smear of dust on his sleeve. He brushed it off. The maids had dusted all surfaces; they hadn’t dusted the letters. When they’d finally separated, he’d had to brush telltale streaks off both himself and Leonora. In her case, not just from her clothes.
The image of how she’d appeared at that point swam across his mind. Her eyes had been bright but darkened, her lids heavy, her lips swollen from his kisses. Drawing his attention even more to her mouth—a mouth that increasingly evoked mental images not generally associated with virtuous gentlewomen.
Closing the front gate behind him, he suppressed a wholely masculine smirk—and ignored the effect such thoughts inevitably had. The afternoon’s discoveries had improved his mood significantly. Reviewing the day, he felt he’d gained on a number of fronts.
He’d come to view Cedric’s workshop determined to move the investigation into the burglaries forward. Impatience was sharpening its spurs; it was his duty to marry, thus protecting his tribe of old dears from destitution, but before he could marry Leonora, he had to nullify the threat to her. Eliminating that threat was his top priority; it was too immediate, too definite to give second place. Until he successfully completed his mission, he’d remain focused first and always on that.
So having escalated his own investigations through the various layers of the underworld, he’d come to assess what avenues for advancement Cedric’s workshop might suggest.
Cedric’s letters would indeed be useful. First in eliminating his works as a potential target for the burglar, second in keeping Leonora amused.
Well, perhaps not amused, but certainly busy. Too busy to have time to embark on any other avenue of attack.
He’d accomplished a great deal for one day. Satisfied, he strode on, and turned his mind to the morrow.
Devising her own seduction, or at least actively encouraging it, was proving more difficult than Leonora had thought. She’d expected to get rather further in Cedric’s workshop, but Trentham had failed to close the door when he’d entered. Crossing the room and closing it herself would have been too blatant.
Not that matters hadn’t progressed; they just hadn’t progressed as far as she’d wished.
And now he’d lumbered her with the task of going through Cedric’s correspondence. At least he’d restricted their search to the last year of Cedric’s life.
She’d spent the rest of the day reading and sorting, squinting at faded writing, deciphering illegible dates. This morning, she’d brought all the relevant letters up to the parlor and spread them on the occasional tables. The parlor was the room in which she conducted all household business; sitting at her escritoire, she dutifully inscribed all the names and addresses onto a list.
A long list.
She then composed a letter of inquiry, advising the recipient of Cedric’s death and requesting they contact her if they had any information regarding anything of value, discoveries, inventions, or possessions, that might reside in her late cousin’s effects. Instead of mentioning the burglar’s interest, she stated that, due to space constraints, it was intended that all nonvaluable papers, substances, and equipment would be burned.
If she knew anything of experts, should they know of anything the least valuable, the idea of it being burned would have them reaching for their pen.
After luncheon, she commenced the arduous task of copying her letter, addressing each copy to one of the names on her list.
When the clock chimed and she saw it was three-thirty, she set down her pen and stretched her aching back.
Enough for today. Not even Trentham would expect her to get through the inquiries all in one day.
She rang for tea; when Castor brought the tray, she poured and sipped.
And thought of seduction.
Hers.
A distinctly titillating subject, especially for a twenty-six-year-old reluctant-but-resigned virgin. That was a reasonable description of what she’d been, but she was resigned no more. Opportunity had beckoned, and she was determined to play.
She glanced at the clock. Too late to call at Trentham House for afternoon tea. Besides, she didn’t want to
