Authors: Juliana Gray
He stepped forward and took her shoulders. “That damned Giacomo! You thought I’d left without a word? Oh, darling.”
“But the list . . . the shareholders’ list . . .” A tear leaked from her right eye. She brushed it away in an angry gesture. “I knew you’d think the worst, that I’d betrayed you, but I didn’t, Finn, I swear it!”
“Of course not. I realized that, once I thought it through. Once I saw you fighting to save the workshop. Oh, Lord, darling, don’t cry.” He reached up one hand to touch her cheek.
“At first . . .” She shut her eyes to keep the tears in. “At first I wanted to find out about what you were doing, to see if there was something I might learn, something that might help. I was so desperate. But, really, it was
you
, Finn. I realize that now. It was all an excuse to see you. I knew in my heart the idea was all useless, because yours was electric and Hartley’s was steam, but I told myself . . . I told myself . . .”
“Shh. I know.” His hands caressed her shoulders.
She opened her eyes and looked at him steadily. “From the beginning, from that first dinner in the inn, when you looked at me with those eyes of yours, looking straight into my heart. It was
you
. You must know that.”
He drew her against him and wrapped his long arms around her body. His heart beat against her ear, still rapid from his sprint across the field. “I know it now.”
She closed her eyes and savored him, flush and living against her. She could almost feel the blood rushing through his veins, the vibrant strength of him enfolding her. How she’d missed him! Only now, in his arms, did she realize just how much. How dull, how empty life had been without him. “What did your note say?” she whispered.
His chuckle rumbled against her ear. “All sorts of lovesick rot. I’m rather glad you didn’t read it, after all.”
“I’d have come to Rome straightaway, if I had. I’d have taken the next train.”
He shifted beneath her head. “Hmm. And why
did
you come?”
“Why, to help Hartley, of course. If he wins the race . . .”
He started backward. “If
he
wins the race?
Hartley?
You’re on
his
side?” He took her by the arms and set her away, looking directly in her eyes.
“Well, yes. From a practical point of view. I’m a shareholder, after all.” She caught his incredulous expression and patted his elbow. “Of course I want you to do well, Finn. It’s just that he
needs
this.
I
need it. He’s got to prove to the City that the automobile’s a winner.”
Finn’s voice took on an ominous note. “And why is that,
exactly
, Alexandra? Why does he need to prove the automobile to the City?”
A rather uncomfortable feeling began to work its way through the Finn-induced bliss in Alexandra’s brain. “Well, so that . . . so that the shares will go up. So that I can sell my stake and have my money back and . . .”
“I assume, of course, you’re aware that the company’s owners have already received an offer to tender their shares at a generous price?”
She cleared her throat. “Er. Yes.”
“I assume you’re aware of the identity of the individual making the offer?” he pressed, in a dark growl.
“Oh, Finn, really.” She smiled up at him. “It’s too kind of you—noble, really—but I simply can’t allow you to throw your money away on another company, just to give me my jointure back. I have my pride.”
He removed his hands from her arms and ran them through his hair. “Christ, Alexandra. You haven’t convinced Hartley to
refuse
the offer, have you?”
“I didn’t need to. He thinks we can do a great deal better than fifty shillings a share.”
“He’s mad!”
She crossed her arms. “Well, I won’t let you do it! I won’t tender my shares to you, by God, even if you offered me a hundred!”
“Why not? Why the
bloody
hell not?” He stood before her, arms akimbo, bristling, looking two or three inches taller and a good foot broader. The rising sun had caught his hair aflame, radiant red gold against the pale hazy sky.
Anger filled her, hot and unreasoning, at the glorious sight of him, at the way he glowed with brilliance and power and infallibility. Even the sun couldn’t resist him.
“Because I won’t! I won’t let you buy me! The way Morley did, the way every man does!” she blazed back. “I am not for
sale
, Phineas Burke! And neither is Manchester Machine Works!”
She whirled away and strode off in the direction of the automobile sheds. The grounds were scattered with people now: exhibitioners readying their automobiles, members of the public arriving early to peer at the machines, photographers setting up cameras.
“Wait, Alexandra!” he called from behind her.
She broke into a run, stumbling across the field in her cumbersome skirts and her awkward shoes, half hoping he would catch up with her.
But he didn’t.
TWENTY-FIVE
W
hy, I believe it is Lady Morley!”
Alexandra turned to see a man of medium height tilt his bowler hat courteously in her direction, his black eyes flashing. He must have sensed her confusion, for he supplied, quickly, “Bartolomeo Delmonico, your ladyship. We met in the spring at my friend Mr. Burke’s workshop near Florence.”
“Signore Delmonico! Of course.” She held out her hand.
He took her gloved fingertips and bowed over them. “Am I mistaken, your ladyship, or was it you who drove Mr. Hartley’s automobile on the track yesterday morning? A dazzling spectacle.”
“Yes, it was. Thank you.” She allowed her eyes an instant to dart past him, searching for Finn’s ginger head above the crowd. All day yesterday, she’d watched him stalk about the exhibition grounds, half a head taller than anyone else, radiating confidence and command. This was his turf, his kingdom, and he roamed about the crowds like Jupiter down from Olympus. She’d lost count of the number of times someone had nudged her and said,
Look, there’s Mr. Burke, all the way from England!
or
Have you seen Mr. Burke’s machine? The man is a genius!
Deeply annoying, and also deeply arousing.
She’d told herself she was too proud to approach him, or that they were all too busy. In truth, she found him too strange, too intimidating, here in this foreign place where aristocratic English titles were as flimsy as paper, and only genius and initiative had the power to impress anyone. At the exhibitioners’ dinner last night, she’d been seated at the opposite end of the table, with Hartley’s team, and had hardly spoken to Finn all night.
You’re enjoying yourself?
he’d asked at one point, when the shifting crowd had brought them together, his voice as cold and reserved as the rainy March evening they’d first met.
Yes, very much
, she’d answered, chin tilted high, and then some half-drunk Belgian exhibitioner had claimed his attention, and that was that.
It had been an exceedingly restless night for her.
“Have you met my friend Herr Jellinek?” Delmonico was asking her, turning to a tall bearded man at his left. “My dear Jellinek, I have the honor to present Lady Morley, an English rose of the highest bloom.”
Alexandra fixed a smile to her mouth. “Signore Delmonico is too flattering. A pleasure, Herr Jellinek.”
“The pleasure is mine,” said the man, in a thick German accent. He straightened from her outstretched hand.
“Have you brought an automobile to the exposition, Herr Jellinek?” she inquired.
He shook his head. “An enthusiast only, Lady Morley.”
Delmonico laughed. “Herr Jellinek is in great demand among our exhibitioners, Lady Morley. He has a great passion for the automobile, and seeks one with particular promise in which to invest.”
“How brave of you!” Alexandra said. “I’m surprised our dear Delmonico lets you out of his sight at all.”
Jellinek smiled and glanced at the Italian. “His machine does impress me very much. He is far in advance of others with petrol engines, save perhaps for Herr Daimler.”
“Oh, Herr Daimler!” Alexandra exclaimed. “I’ve heard of him! The fellow in Munich with the four-stroke engine. Is he exhibiting here this week?”
A scowl settled on Delmonico’s face. “No.”
“A great shame.” Jellinek sighed. “I do not know why he has not come. It would be so much use to see the two machines side by side.”
Alexandra glanced between the two men, at the black and restless expression on Delmonico’s face. “A great shame,” she echoed. She noticed a young woman by Jellinek’s side, holding a large dark-haired baby against her hip and looking rather bored. She smiled kindly. “Have you brought your wife, Herr Jellinek?”
“Forgive me!” Herr Jellinek put his hand to his wife’s back. “My wife, Frau Jellinek, Lady Morley. She has no English, I fear.”
Alexandra took Frau Jellinek’s free hand and squeezed it. “You have a lovely child, Frau Jellinek.”
Jellinek murmured something in his wife’s ear, and she smiled a great proud smile. “
Danke, mein Dame. Sie heisst Adrienne
.”
Jellinek turned to Alexandra. “She thanks you, Lady Morley. Our daughter is named Adrienne. Though we call her Mercédès, because she is our gift.”
“Mercédès.” Alexandra bent and placed her finger in the baby’s grasping fist. “What a lovely name.”
* * *
T
hough Finn located William Hartley readily enough—in the center of a phalanx of photographers, his steam motor-car hissing behind him—finding a quiet moment in which to intimidate him proved more difficult.
In the end, he resorted to brute strength.
“A word with you, sir,” he said, grasping the man by the arm and pulling him away from the battery of camera lenses.
“Why, Mr. Burke!” Hartley straightened his cuffs and craned his neck to meet Finn’s gaze. “What can I do for you?”
For most of his life, Finn had regarded his excessive height as a matter of personal grievance between himself and his Maker. There was nothing at all wrong with being a tall, sturdy chap like Wallingford or Penhallow, but all good things had their limits. Once he’d passed seventy-four inches, during the weedlike summer of his fifteenth year, Finn cursed each successive inch—there were four of them—more roundly than the last. He grew from gangly, awkward youth to broad, long-shanked adult, always half a head taller than his companions, always bumping into doorframes and folding himself into train compartments and hanging his feet over the edges of beds. To have his six and a half feet crowned by a shock of ginger hair was only the final insult.
Now, staring down at the hat brim of the modestly proportioned William Hartley, who continued to straighten his cuffs as if his life depended on it, Finn recanted.
Height was good.
“You can do a great deal,” Finn said, in a drawling voice. “You can begin by telling Lady Morley you’ll brave the rigors of the race yourself.”
Hartley removed his hat, ran his fingers through his hair, and replaced the bowler on his head. “Oh, Mr. Burke. I’m afraid . . . well, the plans are already in place . . .”
“Change them.”
“Well, I . . . I . . .” Hartley swallowed, and then burst out, “I don’t see that it’s any business of yours! Sir.”
Finn bent his head a little closer. “Oh, but it is. Lady Morley is very much my business. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t want the slightest whiff of danger to so much as drift in her direction. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir. But Mr. Burke,” Hartley said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and patting his forehead with it, “I don’t see how. The race begins in an hour. How am I to find a substitute driver?”
Finn shrugged his shoulders with deliberate slowness. “If you can’t find a suitable driver, I expect you’ll have to cancel your entry.”
“Mr. Burke! But you know—surely you know—we need to prove ourselves.” Hartley’s voice took on a pleading note, perilously close to a whine. His round cheeks worked in agitation. “We can’t simply cancel. Our investors would . . .” He stopped. “Oh, I see. I see.”
Finn narrowed his eyes. “What do you see, Mr. Hartley?”
“You
want
us to lose, don’t you?”
“Naturally, I do. I’m fielding another entry, after all. But my primary concern is for Lady Morley’s safety.”
Hartley stabbed a finger in the general direction of Finn’s chest. “You want us to lose so we’ll be forced to accept your flimsy offer for my company. Eh?”
Finn raised his overlarge hand and folded it around Hartley’s stabbing finger. “Fifty shillings a share is not flimsy. It’s a damned windfall, and you know it.”
“If we win . . .”
“If you win, then what? Your company will be worth over half a million pounds overnight? When current law in England prohibits speeds in excess of four miles an hour? When legal operation of motorized road vehicles requires the employment of no less than three accompanying men?” He brought Hartley’s offending finger down to his side and released it with a pat. “I think not.”
Hartley’s face began to flush. “We expect those laws to be repealed.”
“Not for years, I think. Not with railway interests pushing so hard to keep them in place. Eventually, perhaps, but not yet.”
The photographers, noticing the intensity of the conversation, began to draw near. Hartley glanced nervously toward them and then back to Finn. He licked his lips. “If that’s what you think, Mr. Burke, then I wonder why you’re so keen to buy my company.”
Finn shrugged and folded his arms. “Because I’m playing the long game, Hartley. I can afford to; I’ve got two million pounds in hard-won capital, and I’m going to use it to muddle around and experiment and find the solution that sticks.” He leaned down and spoke softly. “Cash is king, Hartley. Remember that.”
“Damn it all, Burke.”
Finn straightened. “Now, look, Hartley. As I said, I don’t particularly care if your automobile runs today or not. My only concern is for Lady Morley’s safety. If you can find another driver, I’ll raise my offer to fifty-five shillings a share.” He reached out his hand and brushed at a piece of lint on Hartley’s wool shoulder. “Should Lady Morley so much as step inside that machine of yours, however, I’ll withdraw my offer entirely.”
Hartley’s mouth opened and closed. He threw a desperate look at the photographers, setting up their cameras a few feet away.
“Mr. Hartley! Mr. Burke!” called out one. “A photograph, please!”
“Why, Hartley, old chap.” Finn linked his arm with the other man and turned them both to face the cameras. “Do smile, there’s a fellow. You’re looking a bit panicked.”
“But surely you understand. When Lady Morley’s determined about something, she always manages to get her way.”
“Hmm. Yes. I’ve noticed,” Finn said affably. “So I suggest you find a way to manage
her
. And soon.” He started to turn away.
“Hold still, please!” shouted a photographer.
“If it’s as easy as that,” Hartley said, “why the devil don’t
you
tell her to sod off?”
“Well, well!” broke in a female voice. “How very charming! Our two competitors, linking arms and all that before the race. Whatever can they be talking about?”
Hell.
Finn looked across the heads of the photographers. There stood Alexandra in another impeccable white dress, hat spreading about her head, arms folded across her bountiful chest. The expression on her face could have melted stone.
“Gentlemen,” he said to the cameras. “Thank you. That will be all.”
He withdrew his arm from Hartley’s, stepped over to Alexandra, and drew her aside. “Darling,” he began.
“You’re plotting against me, aren’t you?” she said, in a harsh whisper. “You’re trying to convince Hartley to keep me from driving.”
He exhaled. “Yes, I am. It’s dangerous, Alexandra. Not just the race, but the automobile itself. I haven’t looked at the engine. I don’t trust it. It’s untested, untried. And steam’s a damnably tricky thing.”
“Finn, if I don’t drive, we won’t win. It’s as simple as that. Hartley’s a fool, and the mechanics don’t know the course.”
“For God’s sake, Alexandra! Better the automobile loses the race than you lose your life!”
“Don’t be ridiculous. No one’s going to
die
, Finn. Or perhaps you don’t like the idea of my racing against you? Beating you, perhaps?” Her eyebrows rose in challenge.
“Nonsense. I . . .” He frowned into her gaze. “All right. Perhaps a little.”
“I knew it!”
Finn looked up at the cloudless sky, hoping God might perhaps help him understand her. “Look, I don’t see why you’re so determined on it. It’s as if you want to pit yourself against me.”
“That’s not it at all. Not exactly. It’s just . . . oh, Finn, don’t you see? It isn’t just the money; it isn’t just being able to sell my shares to someone other than you. I admit that. I
want
to do it, to prove to myself that I
can
do it.” She put her hand on his arm, her slender fingers biting into the thin summer-weight wool of his jacket. “Look at me, Finn. When will I ever have another chance to do something like this?”
“You can drive my motor whenever you like.”
“Would you let me race it today?”
He hesitated. “No. The course . . .”
Silence settled between them. In the back of his mind, he sensed the shift of people around him, the curious glances directed their way, the smug attention of William Hartley in his wilting bowler hat a few yards away. But in his sight there was only Alexandra, her golden brown eyes looking up at him in supplication, her hand still tight and pleading on his arm.
Pleading not for his permission, he realized, because she was going to climb into Hartley’s motor-car and drive it anyway.
Pleading for his understanding.
“You see?” she asked, in a small voice.
“Oh, Alexandra,” he breathed out. “The danger . . .”
“Far less danger than having a baby, I think, and most women face that all right.”
He slid his hand down her arm to grasp her fingers. With his other hand he grasped her chin, heedless of their gathering audience. “In other words, you’re going to risk your life just to prove to me that you don’t need my money?”
She tried to pull away. “That’s not it. You’re twisting my words.”
“Because I don’t understand. I don’t. What are you saying, exactly? That if you don’t win the race, you won’t have me? That your damned independence, this need to have a fortune of your own, is worth more to you than a life with me?”
“No, I . . .” She pushed his hand away. “Why do you put it like that?”
“Because that’s how it is. You’re risking everything just to prove that you’re not the mercenary woman you used to be, when I already know that perfectly well. When I’ve been trying to convince you all along. I don’t need your proof, Alexandra.” He forced his voice to soften. “I only need your love. Can I not have that, at least?”
“Stop that, Finn. Don’t turn this into a test.”
“It
is
a test, by God!”
“Is it? Is it?” Her voice grew, not in volume, with nearly every ear on the grounds trained on them, but in intensity. She folded her arms and leaned forward. “Very well, Finn. If it’s a test you want, it’s a test you’ll get. I’ll back out of the race.”