One Dangerous Desire (Accidental Heirs) (7 page)

Chapter Seven

T
WO DAYS LATER
, Rex found himself summoned to Ashworth’s library-office. He sat in front of the man’s desk in the same uncomfortable chair he’d occupied during his first visit. Being in the duke’s house again unsettled him, but he trusted the tumbling in his gut would ease. And if Ashworth would cease flitting around behind him, his headache might wane too.

The cluttered room, with books and Oriental pottery stacked everywhere, bore no resemblance to the house’s elegant drawing room. Yet his mind kept wandering to that upstairs space and his first sight of May in her ruby evening gown. The back garden terrace haunted him too, even if her
good-bye
had been the right choice. And it had been.

She was right to put an end to it. Soon his body would catch up with the logic of it too.

As for the duke’s wager—he simply had to win. There was no other option. Rex lifted his gaze to study the walls, carpet, and decorations in the room. As much as he’d be curious to see how May’s artistic mind might transform Ashworth House, he required the man’s funds. Finding another investor would take finagling for which he had no time or inclination.

He’d wandered from rented home to rented home most of his life. It was time for permanence, something of his own.

“Thorndike, welcome. Come and meet our young aspiring hotelier.”

Grateful for a reason to stand and stretch his limbs, Rex rose from his chair and reached up to straighten his necktie before turning to greet the man who could change his life. He needed Thorndike to sell his prime piece of Mayfair real estate where the Pinnacle would stand.

“Mr. Leighton, I trust you’ve been well.” Thorndike shook hands with a firm hold and met Rex’s gaze directly.

“And you, sir.”

Thorndike’s almost-smile buoyed Rex’s spirits. Sullivan had gathered information that a rival investor had recently shown interest in the property. Ashworth had been gracious enough to arrange a meeting with Thorndike so that Rex could present his case. Considering that Ashworth had yet to definitively back the venture financially, the last thing Rex needed was a bidding war.

“Gentlemen, we’re waiting for one more guest to join us. Tea in the meantime?”

Rex would have preferred something stronger. Whiskey. Brandy. Black coffee, at the very least. Instead, he nodded agreeably toward Ashworth.

“Are these the plans for your hotel?” Thorndike followed the duke’s example and remained upright, prowling around the perimeter of the room. He’d stopped at Ashworth’s desk and stood staring down at the blueprint of the hotel.

“That’s the Pinnacle.” Rex moved to the opposite side of the desk. He didn’t bother glancing down at the plans. He’d studied them for so long, the shapes and lines of the building were imprinted in his mind’s eye.

“Is this your final venture, Mr. Leighton?” A frown crinkled Thorndike’s brow. “The
pinnacle
of your achievements? I’d rather thought you’d only just begun to make your mark.”

“Oh, there will be more.” Rex rarely shared his long-term goals with anyone, expecting to hear himself denounced as unreasonable or his dreams deemed unachievable. He required no one’s encouragement to pursue his objectives. Drive burned inside him like a constantly fed coal furnace. “But I plan to make the hotel the crown of my achievements. As well as my home.”

“You’ll live there?” Ashworth drew up to the desk and perused the plans again. He reached out a skeletal hand and pointed to the arched top of the building. “At the top, I take it.”

“That’s the plan.” They weren’t the first aristocrats to scoff at his notion of living in the hotel. Every time he’d told a nobleman of his plans, he’d stared at Rex as if he’d gone mad. Apparently, gentlemen didn’t reside in businesses of their own making.

“Is it safe?” Thorndike’s question was a familiar one. Rex found that curiosity about electricity was often matched by fear of it.

“When installed correctly, used properly, and generated with safeguards in place, electricity is completely safe, Mr. Thorndike. I intend to employ a team of electrical engineers full time at the hotel, as well as a staff of men experienced with maintaining dynamo generators.”

Thorndike tipped his head to indicate he’d heard the explanation, though Rex sensed he hadn’t quite convinced him.

Ashworth snapped his gaze toward the door, and a few moments later a maid pushed in, not with the tea but the guest they’d been awaiting.

“Mr. Sedgwick to see you, Your Grace.”

Rex’s stomach no longer tumbled. It plummeted.

Aside from grainy images in newspapers, he hadn’t laid eyes on Seymour Sedgwick in six years. The man strode in chest first, his stride clipped and feet planted wide with each step, as if he were marching down Fifth Avenue, leading a parade dedicated to his greatness.

“Duke, thank you for the invitation.” He headed straight for Ashworth, his hand stuck out ahead of him. Ashworth exchanged niceties with Sedgwick and then turned to introduce Rex and Thorndike.

Before the duke could say another word, Sedgwick’s gaze settled on Rex’s face, and the man’s skin took on a sickly pallor before slowly heating in a splotchy flush. He raised the same hand he’d held out to Ashworth and pointed in Rex’s direction. “What is
he
doing here?”

“This is Rex Leighton,” Ashworth offered congenially. “He’s the other party interested in the property, Mr. Sedgwick. We thought it best to have the two of you here to discuss the merits of your ventures. My friend Thorndike has a difficult decision to make.”

Staring into Sedgwick’s eyes, Rex couldn’t help but note how much their shade resembled May’s. They even creased in fury at the edges as hers did. Her anger had arrowed straight into his gut, struck a lifetime of regrets. But Sedgwick’s anger could destroy him. This man knew his sins. His secrets.

They glared at each other across a tense silence. Thorndike’s and Ashworth’s gazes flitted between them, as if the men expected the outbreak of a brawl.

Rex crossed the room, hand outstretched. “Mr. Sedgwick, your reputation precedes you.”

Sedgwick’s mouth quirked at the edge and then opened, his jaw working as if he was chewing over the perfect condemnation to bring Rex and all of his plans crashing down.

He shocked Rex by clasping his hand. “Never heard of you, Mr. Leighton. No reputation preceding you, apparently.”

The duke hooted one of his strange chortles and slapped Sedgwick on the back. “Nonsense, Sedgwick. Leighton has been cutting quite a swath in London’s business circles, and you’ve been in the city for many months with your daughter, haven’t you? Surely you’ve heard of such a daring fellow American and entrepreneur.”

Sedgwick stared at his host with a stony expression. “Not at all, but we haven’t come to compare reputations. Have we, gentlemen?”

“No.” Thorndike’s voice boomed. “Ideas are what I’m after.”

A housemaid wheeled in a tray covered with teacups daintier than any of the men in the room and piles of those damnably tiny finger sandwiches the English were so fond of.

Tea wasn’t suitable for consumption, in Rex’s opinion, but being handed a cup provided a useful distraction. Holding onto the fragile porcelain without crushing it or spilling its contents gave him something to focus on, rather than the mystery of why Sedgwick failed to expose him when he had the chance. The man appeared truly shocked to see him, which meant May hadn’t spoken to her father of their encounter. That fact pleased him to an unreasonable degree.

Sedgwick’s strident tones echoed in the room as he launched into a pitch for a new London branch of his department store chain. Rex suspected that neither Ashworth nor Thorndike knew of his stateside failures, as the newspapers had painted it as a change of venue for Sedgwick’s store, rather than a downfall.

The man’s bluster hung in the air like London’s pea-soup fog. Rex refused to sit and be bombarded. He strode across the room, pulled the thick green drapes covering the room’s only window aside, and stared out onto the rows of whitewashed townhouses. He fought the urge to fix his gaze on the spot, just a few footsteps away from Ashworth’s front door, where he’d clashed with May.

Other than eye color, nothing about Sedgwick reminded him of his daughter. The man smiled a good deal, but his curved lips carried none of the sincere pleasure of May’s grins.
Damnation
. He had to forget the woman. Even as he stood pondering her merits, he had a list of marriageable English noblewomen tucked in his waistcoat pocket. Ladies whose connections to men like Ashworth would bring him access and favor.

“We’ll hear from you now, Mr. Leighton,” Ashworth called from the center of the room. Sedgwick had taken a seat next to Thorndike, and the duke lounged against the front edge of his desk.

Discussing his plans invigorated him. If anything, Rex had learned to temper his enthusiasm when speaking of the hotel. Now careful words mattered more than ever. Ashworth and Thorndike were the two men who could set his plans in motion.

He positioned himself where Sedgwick’s hard glare was out of his line of sight and began to describe the project that had occupied his mind for months.

After listening a moment, Ashworth interjected, “Do you have any thoughts about Mr. Sedgwick’s venture?”

Sedgwick shifted in his chair, exhaling a noisy sigh. Rex cast his gaze toward May’s father. Sedgwick might have been a bastard to him in the past, but the faltering entrepreneur was fighting for his future too. Until May married, the man’s fortunes, or lack thereof, would impact her life as well.

Rex rolled his shoulders back and pivoted toward Ashworth. “As a project, the Pinnacle has the potential to exceed any success Mr. Sedgwick might expect with a department store in Mayfair. There is a Fortnum and Mason department store not two blocks from the site in question that would bring Sedgwick’s serious competition.”

Who was he to worry about May Sedgwick’s future? She would marry some duke or earl and go on with her glittering life as a titled lady.

He’d marry his own aristocratic lady and build the finest hotel London had ever seen. Acquiring Thorndike’s property would be the first step.

“O
H, MISS, THEY
’
LL
have those colors everywhere. You know how particular your father is about his white carpet.” Just as the housekeeper whined the words in an ear-piercing screech, Poppy and Hyacinth Entwhistle, twin neighbor girls that May was teaching to paint in watercolor, jumped and skidded their paint brushes across paper. A matching pair of pale blue eyes went as round as the balloons of colored water splattered on the table between them. Not, May was careful to note, on the off-white rug her father had chosen for their parlor.

“It’s all right, Mrs. Campbell. I’ll keep an eye on them. And the furnishings.”

Before withdrawing, the housekeeper cast a fearsome glance first at Poppy and then at her sister.

Hyacinth blew aside a strand of auburn hair that seemed determined to escape the yellow ribbon holding her tresses back. Before returning to her painting, she squinted angrily at the closed door. “Forgive me for saying it, miss, but she’s frightful.”

“She’s overprotective,” May countered.

“Of the carpet,” Poppy offered in her most strident tone. “What consequence is carpet compared to art?”

May couldn’t disagree, no matter how clearly she envisioned her father’s face mottling with rage at the thought of two eleven-year-olds besmirching his pristine rug.

“Wouldn’t it come out with bit of soap, in any case?” Hyacinth was the practical one.

May leaned in to whisper. “Actually, it does. I’ve spilled a bit myself, and it cleans up beautifully.” She’d been using the room as a makeshift art studio for months.

The girls’ chorus of giggles vied with the sounds of a commotion in the main hallway. Her father had come home, it seemed, and while she couldn’t make out what he was shouting about, he was less than pleased.

May glanced at the mantel clock. “Perhaps we should start cleaning up, ladies. Your mama will be expecting you back by tea time.” Though the girls lived just two townhouses down, and her arrangement to teach them remained an informal one with no firm stopping time, May was determined to shield the twins from her father’s ire.

Their giggles dropped in pitch to a series of
ohs
and
must we’s.
Lips protruded, shoulders sagged, and Poppy rolled her eyes. “I’ve only just started on this pony.”

The tawny brown blob on Poppy’s paper looked more like a grouse at the moment, but May trusted that with a few more layers of color and a bit of shading, it would soon reveal a steed to rival Mr. Stubbs’s famous equine portraits in the National Gallery.

As she carefully placed their canvases on a side table to dry, the girls collected palettes, brushes, and jars of murky water.

When a knock sounded at the door, May jumped and both girls looked up at her quizzically.

Mrs. Campbell stepped in. “Your father wishes to see you in his office upstairs, miss.” She glanced down at the Entwhistle girls with more tenderness than she’d shown moments before. “Shall I escort the young ones back home?”

“Would you?” May rested a hand on each girl’s shoulder. “I’ll see you next week, my dears.”

Two auburn heads nodded in unison before Hyacinth cast a wary gaze at May.

“It’s all right. Go along with Mrs. Campbell.”

In the hallway, the raised voices of Mr. Graves and May’s father carried down from upstairs. As the housekeeper buttoned up the sisters in their overcoats, the sound of glass shattering made them all turn gazes toward the ceiling above.

May bustled the girls toward the front door and then rushed up to her father’s office.

She stood outside the closed door a moment, hands at her waist, wondering exactly how to approach the maelstrom. Inside his office, her father was raging at Mr. Graves, but another man’s name rang on his lips. In the few minutes she stood listening, he repeated the name
Leighton
almost as many times as she’d repeated it in her head since meeting the man again.

One bolstering breath and she slipped into the midst of her father’s tirade. “Father, Mrs. Campbell said you wished to see me.” Her voice only shuddered a bit, far less than her insides, and she moved to take the seat her father indicated with the point of his finger.