“Those short trousers showed entirely too much of you.”
“So you said, and quite adamantly. That is exactly why I abandoned them, not wanting you to suffer a fit of the vapors every morning when you glimpsed me running—well, that and I didn’t care to suffer through lectures from you over breakfast.”
“I rarely lecture you.”
“You do, as can be proven by how often you bring up the need for a Pinkerton man to dog my every step, even though I’ve stated time and time again that I don’t need one. It’s not as if the culprit behind the theft of my research papers has had enough time to figure out he’s in possession of faulty information, nor do I expect him to come to that realization for months.”
“You were accosted on the street only a few days ago.”
“Perhaps, although I’m convinced I was simply the target of an inept pickpocket.” He dashed a hand over a forehead that was still perspiring. “However, because I know you’ll fret if I insist on getting rid of the Pinkerton men, I’ll let them continue following me for now, even if I do feel it’s a waste of their time and your money.”
“That’s surprisingly thoughtful of you dear.”
Norman frowned. “Why is it surprising?”
Mary returned the frown. “Why would I not be surprised? You’ve never been one to concern yourself with how much I fret about you.”
“Of course I have.”
“No, you haven’t, but your surprising thoughtfulness aside, I do have a reason for seeking you out.”
Refusing a groan, Norman pulled out his pocket watch, took note of the time, and tried not to smile. Returning the watch to his pocket, he nodded to his mother. “And while I would love nothing more than to engage in a discussion with you, Theo will be here within the next ten minutes to pick me up. We’re going to the factory to fetch some steel to begin building that peddle-boat for Gemma and Oscar. Can’t very well show up at one of our factories in bathing attire, can I?”
“We can hold our discussion while you’re getting changed.”
Realizing there was no sense arguing because his mother was clearly not going to be put off, Norman blew out a breath before he took his mother’s arm, walking with her through his workshop, then up the steps to his apartment. Opening the door, he gestured her inside. Mary settled her attention on him the moment they reached his sitting room.
“I recently had a lovely chat with Mrs. Martin Tripp” was how she started their discussion.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Tripp, one of the ladies with whom I play whist every Thursday. She has a daughter who made her debut last year, a lovely young lady by the name of Blossom, and, as it turns out, Blossom is in need of an escort to the Palmer Ball.”
“I’m already escorting someone to the ball, Mother, as you very well know.”
Mary waved that aside. “A girl from Marshall Field & Company is not an appropriate guest.”
“Beatrix is completely appropriate, and besides, it would hardly be acceptable for me to renege on my promise to escort her.” He smiled. “You did insist I take all those decorum lessons in my youth, and I well remember the rule that states ‘gentlemen shall not beg off a planned engagement unless a death has occurred.’”
“But Blossom is a most lovely girl.”
“So is Beatrix.”
Mary’s gaze sharpened on Norman’s face. “You believe this Beatrix is lovely?”
“I think it’s time I get changed before Theo shows up.”
“Fine” was all his mother said to that as she spun on her heel. “I’ll just occupy myself by tidying up this place until you’re done. I thought you said you’d already put your sitting room to rights after the disaster it was when you had all those clothes strewn about, but evidently I misheard you.”
Norman cast a quick look around the room, the hair standing up on the back of his neck when his gaze settled on Theo’s fashion magazines, ones he’d stacked on a table but were now scattered about, a few of them having fallen to the floor.
He didn’t hesitate to take a firm grip of his mother’s arm before he hustled her toward the door.
“What are you doing?” Mary demanded.
He didn’t slow his pace. “Someone’s been in here, Mother, because this room was perfectly tidy when I left for my run. That means there is some skullduggery afoot, and I may have use of those Pinkerton men after all.”
Three hours after learning someone had snuck into his rooms—in broad daylight no less—tossed his belongings about, and then managed to escape undetected, Norman still couldn’t seem to puzzle out the incident to satisfaction.
Yes, there were many men he’d met while in New York who’d been overtly interested in his research and had wanted to either work with him or buy his research outright, but not one of them had seemed to possess the intellect needed to have been able to realize so quickly that he’d altered the research he’d left behind after the train heist.
That whoever responsible was willing to resort to breaking into his home lent the whole affair a rather desperate air.
The only consolation he had was that Agent Cochran was convinced the person was no longer on his mother’s property, having discovered horse tracks some distance away from Norman’s workshop. Those tracks suggested the would-be thief had left a horse hidden behind some bushes and had used that horse to make a stealthy departure before Norman returned from his run.
Clearly, that person had been keeping a close eye on Norman, which meant Norman was going to have to make an effort to deviate from his normal schedule in the hopes of thwarting any new plans the potential thieves had in mind.
Using a wrench to twist a bolt into place, he crawled out from underneath a generator at the Nesbit Steel Factory, realizing his
