“You won’t be sitting on the grass. You’ll be sitting on my coat.” He held out his hand in order to assist her in lowering herself.
“I can’t. It’ll get all dirty.”
“My valet enjoys nothing better than the challenge of determining how best to make a well-soiled garment look as though it’s never been worn. Don’t deny him his fun.”
She laughed, a joyous sound. He found it remarkable that she could be so lighthearted when her mother’s censure had to weigh her down.
“I don’t believe you,” she said.
Leonora had never heard anything more ridiculous in her life. His eyes were twinkling with merriment, his hand, steady and sure, waiting for hers.
“’Tis true,” he responded with such earnestness. “And you should know it to be true because I didn’t close my eyes.”
She nearly laughed again. Instead, she placed her hand in his, ignoring the sense that it was returning home. She acknowledged the strength in him as he slowly lowered her to the ground, not that the power of his muscles came as a surprise. She’d felt them beneath her fingertips each time they came together.
Once she was situated, he crouched before her, balancing himself on the balls of his feet.
“I suppose your valet also likes the challenge of polishing your boots until they shine,” she teased.
“He is fastidious about my boots.”
She smiled at him before looking past him to where Mama stood on the path conversing with an elderly woman, whose clothing and bearing indicated she was someone of import. “Mama is speaking with a lady I don’t recognize.”
Rook twisted around slightly. “King’s mother, the Dowager Duchess of Kingsland.”
She sighed. “She’ll be asking for advice on marriageable lords. Wealthy marriageable lords.”
He returned his attention to Leonora. “Ignore her for now and enjoy the opportunity to draw your... machines.”
Her breath caught. “How did you know?”
“You don’t strike me as the sort to spend her time filling pages striving to draw perfect flowers or courting couples strolling about. Will you show me if I have the right of it?”
“It’s an idea I had for a new sort of machine, but I haven’t worked out all the particulars.”
“I should think that’s usually when it’s the most interesting... in the beginning... when it’s merely the spark of an idea... and so much potential for what it could be is waiting to be tapped into.”
He’d described so well how she felt at the moment regarding what she’d designed thus far. It was like unwrapping a gift, loosening the bow, peeling back the paper, seeing only a part of the item, slowly revealing the whole of it. She’d always taken her time opening presents, drawing out the anticipation. “Is that how you feel about investing? That it has an unknown quality to it and you’re waiting to see how it all plays out?”
He seemed to be giving her question some thought. She liked that he was taking her questions seriously and giving them due consideration. “I suppose so, yes. I experience an excitement as I wait to discover if what I’ve invested in will soar or fall.”
“Our company will soar,” she couldn’t help but assure him.
As though admiring her spunk for not letting an opportunity pass to try to sell him on their enterprise, he grinned and nodded toward the sketchbook in her lap. “End the suspense. Allow me the honor of confirming if I did indeed guess correctly. That it’s not a rose, or tree, or a couple engaged in mischief.”
Her heart was thundering because she never shared the details of her drawings until she’d worked everything out, until it all came together to make sense in her mind. She mighttellSam about it, but she didn’t show him anything until she’d taken the idea and given it form. Yet there was something exciting about Rook taking an interest. Inhaling a deep, shuddering breath, she dared to lift the cover of her sketchbook to reveal what she thought might be the final product. She turned it toward him.
He studied it as though it was a masterpiece in a museum. He reached for the paper, halted. “May I?”
She nodded and watched as he slowly turned the page back to reveal the next that was the skeleton of the thing. Another flip of parchment, more details. “What is it going to be?”
“A tallying machine.”
He lifted his gaze to hers. She saw no mockeryreflected in his eyes, only interest. “What does it tally?”
“Throughout the day, it will keep a running total of sales so when a shopkeeper closes up, he can count the money in his till, and it should match the amount the machine indicates.”
“If it doesn’t match, it’ll let him know sticky fingers are withdrawing money from his till.”
