The Pursuits of Lord Kit Cavanaugh

by Stephanie Laurens

  From the gloom shrouding the design office, Wayland had mumbled, “Please tell me that’s you.”

  “It’s me,” Kit had whispered. “Go back to sleep.” Once he could see well enough, he’d crossed to the front office and found the hooks he’d had Shaw install in the beams. He’d slung his hammock between, then had rolled into it with his blanket. He’d settled and let his thoughts slide to Sylvia. His eyes had closed; he’d smiled and, to his surprise, had tumbled headlong into dreams.

  Both he and Wayland were accustomed to sleeping on ships at sea, in tight and cramped quarters and in circumstances where their assistance might be required at any instant. They both slept soundly yet lightly and would rouse at the slightest noise, ready to react, just as they would on board.

  Of course, the night had passed without their would-be saboteur putting in an appearance.

  Today being Saturday, the men had worked for half the day. They’d kept their eyes peeled, but no one had seen any man loitering or watching the workshop. Kit and Wayland had remained behind after the men had left, working on the design and drawings for their first yacht.

  A maid finally arrived bearing two plates piled high with a rich mutton stew.

  Kit and Wayland accepted the plates eagerly and set to. They hadn’t bothered with luncheon, further exacerbating Wayland’s ever-present hunger.

  After clearing half his plate, Wayland grunted and reached for the platter of bread the maid had left. “I just hope that tonight, we have at least one visitor who walks on two legs rather than four. In fact, I could do without visitations from the four-legged variety entirely.”

  Kit chuckled. Last night, they’d discovered that, while the workshop was secure against human intrusion, rodents appeared to have ready access. “If Miss Petty can lay her hands on those mousers she has in mind, tonight and tomorrow night will be the rats’ last chances.”

  When they’d mentioned the rats that morning, Miss Petty had overheard and promptly declared she knew from just where to get three good mousers. Apparently, her brother had a farm outside the city, and one of his barn cats had had a litter only a month or so ago.

  Wayland gestured with his fork. “That woman’s efficiency is frightening.”

  Kit grinned at his friend. “Meaning she’s just what we need.”

  Wayland snorted, but didn’t disagree.

  Once they’d cleaned their plates, they pushed them aside and fell into a discussion of the subject that dominated both their minds—their plans for their first yacht and the next and the next. When it came to the future of Cavanaugh Yachts, their enthusiasm knew no bounds.

  When the clock above the bar chimed seven times, Wayland grimaced. “I suppose we’d better get back.”

  Kit sighed, but nodded.

  They left payment and a large tip on the table—the snug was the sort of place they would definitely use again—waved to the barkeeper as they went past, then walked out into the chilly darkness that had descended on the city.

  Hands in their greatcoat pockets, they ambled toward the workshop. Both were alert and watchful, but saw no one acting suspiciously. Nevertheless, they took care to use the shadows to conceal their approach to the rear of the workshop, avoiding the front and the doors secured with the heavy chain.

  After they’d let themselves inside, Kit quietly tested the front doors. “Still secure,” he reported.

  Straightening from setting the bolts on the hatch, Wayland gave a soft huff and went into his office.

  Kit joined him there, finding Wayland perched on one of the pair of stools; Kit pulled up the other and sat.

  With no light, they couldn’t see the drawings well enough to work on them; they could barely see each other.

  “I predict we’re in for a long, boring night,” Wayland murmured. After a moment, he said, “Do you think we’re being paranoid imagining some blighter is going to break in and try to damage the keel again?”

  Kit took a moment to consider the point, then replied, “No, I don’t. I think he’ll be back. He’s already been back a second time and couldn’t get in. There’s nothing to stop him from returning with lock picks or even a sharp file and forcing the padlock.”

  “But...” Wayland raked a hand through his hair, the gesture only just detectable in the gloom. “Why?” He shook his head. “I just don’t understand it—or him, whoever he is.”

  “No more do I,” Kit said. “But the fact he came back a second time makes it clear he’s not finished with us. And if you think about it, although he succeeded in damaging our work up to Monday, given we’d only just started, the impact wasn’t all that severe—we got over it quickly, and we’ve forged on. That can’t have been the result he hoped for.”

  As if feeling his way, Wayland said, “You think he wants to seriously damage our business? Not just cause damage for damage’s sake but to actually bring us down?”

  “We can’t afford to take the chance.” Kit paused, then went on, “He doesn’t have to completely destroy the work to have a serious impact on the business. Just think how the men will feel if the new keel is wrecked again. We’ve inspired them to believe in their skills anew and to apply them in working on the keel—you know as well as I do that not only is the work advancing at a rapid pace but the quality’s also exceptional. Which is just what we want to set Cavanaugh Yachts above all other yacht manufacturers.

  “Yet despite all that, at this moment, our enterprise is young. We’re in the process of building the reputation we want, but right now, we’re vulnerable. We don’t need any questions being raised about us having some ongoing feud with someone who is determined to wreck anything we build. You know how rumors fly around a waterfront. If our saboteur succeeds in damaging the keel again, the news will get out, and we’ll find not just other people but even our men getting cold feet—just when we need their commitment the most.”

  Wayland huffed. “When you put it like that...” After a moment, he shrugged. “You’re right, but I still predict he won’t show—not tonight and not tomorrow night—simply because we’re here, and Fate likes to play us mortals for fools.”

  Kit laughed and rose from the stool. “I was up late last night—I’m going to turn in.”

  Wayland grunted. “It’s too dark even to play dice with myself.” He rose and, turning to where his hammock was slung across the end of his office, waved Kit off. “Sleep tight.”

  Smiling, Kit ambled into the workshop. His eyes had adjusted and rendered the scene in shades of gray. The keel taking proud shape in the nearest of the three bays sat still and silent. Throughout the workspace, nothing moved, nothing stirred.

  Satisfied, he went into the front office, picked up his blanket, and rolled himself into his hammock.

  They’d checked and established that quiet sounds inside the workshop didn’t carry outside. As Kit settled to stare up at the ceiling, he heard Wayland murmur, “I feel like we’re boys again, out on some silly adventure-cum-lark.”

  Kit grinned. “I can’t recall any of our larks involving sleeping in hammocks.”

  “Much less in a cold and drafty workshop. Even as boys, we had better sense.”

  Kit chuckled. As silence descended, he realized that, despite his earlier words, he wasn’t sleepy. Although he hadn’t said so, he felt that, as their would-be saboteur hadn’t come last night, then it was more likely he would wait until Sunday night, when this area of the city was even quieter, even more certainly deserted. Faced with the prospect of a wasted evening and night, Kit decided he might as well use the time to think of other things.

  Out of the darkness, Wayland murmured, “It occurs to me that, over the past weeks of non-stop discussions about what we want our business to be, the one topic we haven’t touched on is how we see our wider lives developing once the business is established.” He paused, then went on, “I suppose I mean what else we want in our lives besides the
business.”

  As that was precisely the direction in which Kit’s mind had gone, the subject he’d been wrestling with over the past week, he bit the proverbial bullet and volunteered, “I’ve been thinking about that quite a bit in recent days.”

  “Have you? Do tell.” Amusement rode beneath Wayland’s words.

  Kit smiled into the dark. “You might have noticed that, over the past weeks, I’ve had other calls on my time, namely the school and the lady who manages it—a Miss Sylvia Buckleberry.”

  “I had noticed that,” Wayland drily replied.

  Kit went on, “I’d met Miss Buckleberry before—a month or so ago. She was a bridesmaid at Rand and Felicia’s wedding, and being a groomsman, I was partnered with her throughout the event.”

  “And?”

  “She treated me as if I was...someone she definitely didn’t want to know.” If he was brutally honest, he’d been fascinated by her from the instant he’d laid eyes on her—as she’d walked up the aisle ahead of Mary and Felicia. But that attraction had been immediately quashed by the downright chilly way she’d responded to him.

  He’d written her off as a lost cause—as a spinster too strait-laced to bother with. One he should forget as soon as he possibly could.

  Instead, a bare month later, she’d stormed into his office and shown him a completely different side of her—a vibrant, passionate lady—and his initial attraction had roared back to life, stronger, more powerful. More insistent.

  “What?” Pure puzzlement on Wayland’s part.

  “Indeed. To this day, I have no idea what caused her to behave as she did, but suffice it to say that, since we met again here and have been working together to resolve various issues at the school, she’s altered her view of my poor self.” Given their kiss last night, he decided he could feel assured of that.

  “Were you out with her somewhere last night?”

  “Yes. She accompanied me to a concert at the Council House.”

  “Really?” Interest sparked in Wayland’s voice. “You took a lady—an unmarried lady—out for an evening in the full glare of society?”

  Kit’s smile turned wry. “Indeed.” Wayland knew all about Kit’s late mother and her machinations and how that had affected Kit’s attitudes toward ladies and marriage.

  “Well, that is a development,” Wayland said, amazement still flavoring his tone.

  After a moment of staring into the dark, Kit said, “You know that, with my mother’s example before me, I believed marriage was not for me—not for any of us. Not Rand, Stacie, or Godfrey, either. That none of us would ever be able to find our way to marriage, a family, and all the rest. When Ryder married so clearly for love, I could shrug that aside—he’d never been caught in Mama’s coils and was our half brother to boot. But when Rand married Felicia... I was there and saw them, and as cynical as I am, not even I can deny they’re in love.”

  He exhaled softly. “And that means I was wrong, and love is possible for us, if we look. If we find it—or it finds us. And especially after seeing Rand and Felicia more recently—seeing their relationship bloom, as it were—I found myself asking, if love could find a way past Rand’s resistance, which was every bit as strong as mine, then why couldn’t love come for me?”

  He heard his question fall into the silence. Considered it again, then softly added, “If I look, if I find it—or it finds me.”

  Wayland didn’t say anything, but Kit knew he was listening. Kit shifted in the hammock, then, as its swinging settled again, said, “In a nutshell, Rand marrying has had me rethinking my attitude to marriage—that perhaps Mama’s influence is waning at last, and it’s time I ought to actively think about finding a wife.”

  That brought a snort from Wayland. “You are thinking of a wife—specifically, Sylvia Buckleberry. You do realize that you’ve spent more time with her in recent days than you have with any other marriageable lady ever?”

  Kit grunted. Wayland was right, but Kit had had enough of baring his soul. “So that’s me—what about you? You’ve shown precious little interest in anything beyond yachts for years.”

  “I know. But it’s only since returning here and feeling that, with Cavanaugh Yachts, I’ve finally got my feet planted solidly beneath me, that I’ve realized that the years are flitting past, and here I am, still a bachelor.”

  “You’ll be an even more desirable parti in a year or so, once the business takes off.”

  “True. And unlike you, I have no excuse—nothing in my background to turn me against marriage. Admittedly, my parents’ union isn’t any great example, but at least, marriage-wise, I’m starting with a clean slate compared to you.”

  Wayland fell silent for a moment, then ventured, “I think it’s been ambition that, until now, has consumed me. It was always my dream to be the designer of the world’s best yachts. That was always going to be the way I made my mark in the world, and until I got there... Well, I literally didn’t see anything beyond what I needed to advance toward that goal. As you know, ladies have barely impinged, and only when the itch got so distracting I had to attend to it—so that I could keep working as I wished to. My life over the last decade has been strictly defined by my one overriding goal.”

  In the dark, Kit nodded. “Single-minded focus. That is, indeed, your greatest asset and your besetting sin.”

  “Exactly.” Wayland paused, then went on, “But now, being here with you and starting Cavanaugh Yachts, I can see the end in sight. And it suddenly occurred to me that achieving that goal is, in reality, only one step—one cornerstone, if you will—in building my life, the sort of life I want.” Wayland sighed gustily. “So I started asking myself what else I wanted in my life, and I realized that to truly enjoy the fruits of my ambition, I need a wife and a family to share them with. I’m not explaining this well, but it seems to me that I need a wife and family in order to make sense of becoming the best yacht designer in the world.”

  After a moment, he continued, “I never before looked past achieving my ambition, but I suspect my wanting a wife and family has always been there, but with my focus locked on my central goal, I simply didn’t notice. And now I have.”

  Knowing Wayland as he did, Kit could understand that. But there was something else in what Wayland had said... Kit murmured, “What did you mean by saying that a wife and family would make sense of your ultimate success?”

  Wayland snorted softly. “I did say I’m not sure how to explain...” After several seconds had ticked past, he offered, “Think of it this way—seeing our first yacht on the water is going to be a great moment for us. Immensely satisfying. Seeing the first yacht we sell to someone else sailing away will be another instant of extreme satisfaction. But what happens when our twentieth hull slides into the water? Where will the satisfaction come from then?”

  Kit let Wayland’s words percolate through his brain. After some time, he ventured, “You mean that, in order to continue to give satisfaction, a successful business needs to enable something further—something beyond the walls of the business itself.” As the words fell into the silence, he sensed he was on the right track. “A successful business needs to power some other, greater purpose.”

  He couldn’t see Wayland, but suspected his friend was nodding as he replied, “I think that, for men like us, regardless of the details of our upbringings and younger leanings, a family is the one thing that will give us the greatest purpose in our lives.”

  Kit nodded, too. “A family will anchor us—be our port through any storm—and give us reason for continuing to strive to succeed.”

  Wayland sighed feelingly. “And with that, all should now be clear.”

  Kit smiled. As the night settled comfortably around them, cocooning them in dark and quiet, he let his and Wayland’s words float through his mind, absorbed the thoughts those words conveyed, and let them sink in.

  Of all their comments, his
own about an anchor that held one in safety throughout any storm resonated most strongly—that, and Wayland’s invoking the notion of cornerstones. Kit realized that he’d already started thinking of Sylvia as his...not cornerstone but lynchpin, the central anchor around which the family he wished to create would revolve.

  For him, she was the key.

  As for his mother’s lingering if waning influence, he now saw that as a net constraining and restricting him—holding him back. Not being one of Lavinia’s children, Ryder had never been trapped, but all three of Kit’s other siblings and he had. Now Rand had broken free, and Kit felt as if he was on the cusp of doing the same. Stacie and Godfrey, being younger and more firmly under Lavinia’s thrall, were, he suspected, still enmeshed, but for him, yes, it was time to snap the last strands and walk free.

  It was time for him to seize the chance and take the risk of trying for love and happiness.

  Those connected prizes were now his most fundamental desires.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw the look on Rand’s face—the emotion he’d seen shining there when his brother had looked at Felicia. Kit could almost taste that emotion—one he’d never thought to feel himself—yet in his heart, he knew that was precisely the emotion that was growing inside him, focused on Sylvia. It was she—the fiery, passionate lady she truly was—who had given that emotion life and called it forth.

  She’d rapidly become the personification of his future; in her eyes, he saw the promise of a future wherein he would be free to love.

  He dwelled on the prospect, and as sleep drew inexorably nearer, his mind skated back over all he’d assimilated in the past hour.

  Quite aside from Sylvia being critical to his future, one idea rose above all others.

  When it came to lasting achievements, while business was for now, family was forever.

  * * *

  Contrary to Wayland’s prediction and Kit’s expectation, their would-be saboteur arrived outside the workshop in the dead of night.