Hugo considered her information. Mr. Craig would doubtless kill and throw Hugo over the side of his fishing boat before an hour was out—unless the man enjoyed cleaning vomit from his yole. And farm work sounded very…smelly.
Hugo nodded. “Mr. Stogden it is, then. Thank you.”
Her expressive eyebrows arched.
“Why do you look surprised?”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of man to have done much strenuous work”
Hugo felt oddly insulted. “Are you saying you think I lack the physical strength, Miss Pringle?”
A layer of red washed over the pink already staining her cheeks and she grabbed one of his hands and turned it palm up, her rough finger pads tracing his smooth palm.
She looked up, her eyes very blue against the red of her face. “Your skin is so soft it’s obvious you’ve never done an honest day’s work in your life.”
Hugo took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. “Why, Miss Pringle, how observant of you to notice my…skin.”
She pressed her lips together.
“And you might be pleasantly surprised to learn just how hard I canwork, when properly motivated.”
She dropped his hand as if burned, took a step back, struck her heel on the step, and would have fallen on her arse if Hugo hadn’t caught her. He should have let her go once he’d steadied her, but his body wanted what it wanted, and right now it wanted to feel Miss Pringle.
Although her body was firm and muscular from all her physical labor, her breasts were small and deliciously soft as they pressed against his threadbare shirt, warming his chest. She had nice, womanly hips—at least as far as he could tell without a more thorough examination.
Hugo imagined how fetching her bottom would look bent over in front of him, his fingers digging into her hips, his cock sliding into her body.
That was all it took to make him harden against her flat belly.
Awareness—slowed by her own animal arousal—gradually dawned in her eyes. Her jaw dropped and those kissable lips quivered—anger, desire, confusion, and a dozen other emotions flitting across her face quicker than a flight of swallows.
And then her body stiffened like a plank and she shoved him back.
Hugo immediately released her.
She clamped her jaws shut, brushed off the front of her dress, inhaled enough to strain her plain frock to its limits and said, “Church begins at eight o’clock. Sharp.”
She was gone in a flurry of skirts before Hugo could tell her that he’d not be attending church tomorrow. Or any other day, for that matter.
He adjusted his throbbing erection before wandering over to the meeting house, where he found Franks looking at something on the bench beside him.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
The younger man jolted. “Oh, Mr. Buckingham.”
“Call me Hugo.”
Franks’s gaze dropped to the front of Hugo’s thin, obscenely tented trousers and he blushed almost as prettily as Miss Martha. Hugo saw the truth in the lad’s wide green eyes, which was riveted to his cock. Bloody wonderful—just what he needed right now—an infatuated pup.
“Well?” Hugo prodded.
Franks blinked and wrenched his eyes up to meet Hugo’s. “Uh, what was that, again?”
“What’s on the bench beside you?”
“Oh. I’m calculating how much I will need to get back to London,” Franks said, scribbling on the small scrap of paper with a graphite stick.
Hugo dropped down beside him. “What do you do in London, Franks?”
“Call me Albert.” His attempt to sound like Hugo was adorable.
“Very well, what do you do in London, Albert?”
“I’m a clerk at a solicitor’s office. At least I was.”
“Huh. What the devil did you do to end up on that ship?”
Albert’s smile dropped away. “I think my employer is responsible for my abduction.”
“That bad of a clerk, were you?”
“What?” His eyebrows knitted. “No, of course not.”
Hugo chuckled.
“Oh. You were speaking in jest.”
“Yes.”
“Er, I invented something and asked him to assist me with the patent process.” He cut Hugo a shy look. “I am a man of science—not a solicitor. I only took the position to make money while I pursued my invention.”
“What did you invent—if you don’t mind telling me, that is.”
“Of course I don’t mind telling you.”
“Perhaps you should. Look what happened the last time you shared the information.”
Albert stared blankly, making Hugo feel bad for teasing the boy, but—really—you’d think Franks would have learned his lesson already. And that lesson was: you should guard any information that involved money with your life.
“I am usually an excellent judge of character.” He must have seen Hugo’s skeptical look because he added, “Except for that one time—but he was my employer.” He sounded amazed, as if thieving employers were such a rarity in this world. “But my heart tells me that I can trust you.”
Hugo suspected he was being guided by some other organ—one closer to his waist—but kept that observation to himself because young Albert had the look of a man who’d not yet identified his own sexual proclivities.
Instead, he said, “I thought men of science only trusted their intellect.”
“I aspire to be a Renaissance man.”
“Ah.” Hugo said. “That has something to do with using both science and art to inform one’s thinking, does it not?”
“Just so,” Albert said, looking inordinately pleased.
“Admirable. So, go on, then, what is it—this invention of yours?”
Several long minutes later, Hugo held up his hand. “That’s plenty, thank you.”
“But I’m just getting to the interesting part.” Albert’s eyes shone with enthusiasm.
“I didn’t understand a bloody word you just said, Albert, so I’ll be unable to understand the interesting bit, either.”
Albert’s face fell.
“Come now,” Hugo said, feeling like an ogre for taking the wind from his sails. “You must be used to people not comprehending this…this, well whatever it is.”
“Yes, since I left school, it has been difficult to find like-minded men of science.”
Hugo wanted to tell the boy that he should bugger the science and go get his corn ground by a like-minded man. But he didn’t.
“Cheer up,” he said, clapping Albert on his slender shoulder. “You’re a free man now. Tell me about these Wilsons you’ll be
