A slight breeze rustled her skirts as Rachel walked along Bond Street, her spirit lifted by the wonderful array of wares on display in the windows of all her favorite shops. The Highlands held so much wondrous beauty, and yet there was something about the thrill of a new bonnet or a beautiful dress that called to her. She met her friend, Eloise, and together they entered the shop of their favorite dressmaker.
“Oh, but would you look at this fine silk,” Eloise said, her eyes lighting up as she trailed her fingers along a bolt of fabric hanging by the door. “What a beautiful gown this would make, would it not?”
Rachel smiled at her in agreement, before coming to stand beside her. “It would look most becoming on you, Eloise,” she said. “Perhaps it is meant to be yours.”
“Perhaps,” her friend said, a smile upon her lips. Eloise’s father and Hardwick were acquaintances. He was one of the newly rich, a man her father had been trying to impress for years.
Rachel and Eloise had met at a function both of their families were attending. They had gotten along fairly well, and while they would never have a deep friendship, they had bonded over their affinity for beautiful things and their love of the latest fashions.
“You must tell me about your travel to the Highlands,” said Eloise. “What were the people like? What type of houses did they live in? Was it all rather rugged?”
“It was… intriguing,” said Rachel. “I’ve never seen such beauty as the countryside, and I saw everything from castles to basically shacks that looked as if they were made of the earth. It’s like anywhere I suppose — there are differing ranks and classes. The people there, however, were likely the loveliest I’ve ever met. No matter how rude or horrid a remark was made to them, they were lovely and gracious.”
“Our fathers — rude?” Eloise laughed, then added with a sly grin, “And did you have some time to better get to know Vincent Thompson?” Rachel knew that Eloise could not understand her hesitancy toward the man, and continued to push the match on Rachel nearly as much as her father did.
“You will never believe this, Eloise,” she said, feeling rather justified now in her opinions of the man, “But Vincent shot me.”
“He what?” Eloise whipped around and Rachel nearly laughed at the look on her face. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I accompanied them on a hunting excursion, and Vincent got it in his mind to go off on his own. He lost track of his surroundings and took a shot that went right into my leg.”
Eloise stared at her as if she had grown another nose on her face.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I am. I am still limping some.”
“Why, I did not even notice. Why ever would you go on a hunting excursion?” she asked, irking Rachel.
“Why ever not?” she countered. “What would you expect? That I would sit inside all day while the men went out? I wasn’t even actually hunting; I was just sitting there on my horse!”
“Still,” said Eloise, her nose in the air. “I do not understand it. Surely you cannot fault Vincent for that.”
Rachel shrugged, finished discussing this with Eloise. “I cannot say I blamed him, but nor was he completely faultless,” she said. “Regardless, I was well looked after and all is now fine.”
Eloise moved on from the subject as she walked toward the next dress that caught her eye. “And tell me, are you and Vincent any closer to setting a wedding date? Or, at the very least, officially announcing your betrothal?”
Rachel felt a twinge in her stomach at the subject. Since the conversation with her father she had, of course, thought of little else than her future. She had always been so sure that there was nothing to truly bind her to Vincent besides her father’s preference. And now… she felt guilt at thinking of anything but her father’s arrangement, and yet she was also equally pulled to Adam and all he had to offer her. Everything her father proposed made sense, from a practical side, and she owed her father for keeping her, for raising her when her mother did not. Her heart, however, had other ideas. Which was she to follow?
She sighed.
“No,” she said simply. “I must be going, Eloise. Can we revisit the shop on another day?” She had, suddenly and certainly surprisingly, lost all interest in the dresses before her, and wanted nothing more than to leave Eloise and her probing questions and return home once more.
20
The next couple of days passed in a swirl of focus on work for Adam, as he spent nearly all of his time in the power plant, hunched over the desk in the workroom with Sullivan Andrews. Adam enjoyed the man. He was intelligent, slightly absent-minded, and yet together they worked in comfort, understanding one another with few words required. They had built a second prototype, and Adam could feel they were close to a breakthrough on the inner workings of the machine to generate the power.
Adam had always discussed his projects and ideas with his brothers, but they lacked the same interest and regard as a man like Andrews.
His evenings, however, were altogether different. Trenton, who Adam rarely saw during working hours, blatantly ignored him, treating him almost like an employee rather than any sort of business partner. Adam still detested London, finding it so busy and crowded with the buildings seemingly falling down on him from where they stood crammed together on the congested, teeming streets. And Rachel… Rachel was difficult to read. She seemed to have closed in on herself.
