Tempting The Rival (Scandals and Spies Book 3)

by Leighann Dobbs

  “Your perfumes,” she said, her voice soft. “How do they work? Not—” She lowered her voice further as she added, “—witchcraft?”

  Felicia was accused of that enough times in particularly pious towns to know how to handle it. “Certainly not, Miss. My perfumes work by science. If you have a grounding in chemistry or human physiology, I’d be happy to explain it to you.”

  “Thank you, that won’t be necessary.” She seemed appeased, but lingered over the bottles, not asking how much they were.

  Felicia offered the information. The young woman nodded. She didn’t speak and avoided eye contact. Drat! Felicia would lose the sale if she didn’t find a means of convincing her.

  “Do you have your eye on a man a bit hesitant to commit?”

  She raised her gaze to Felicia’s. Her eyes were a light blue that matched her dress and made her look innocent and younger than the light grooves etched around her nose and between her eyebrows suggested.

  “In a manner of speaking. Until recently, I would have said the entire family was hesitant to choose wives, but his brothers have recently done so.”

  Felicia nodded. “Men can be peculiar. Sometimes all they need is the slightest nudge for their resolve to crumble into dust.”

  “Feli—Miss Albright!”

  Gideon’s angry bellow rent the air. Felicia jumped. She turned her gaze to the road leading to Tenwick Abbey. There he was, dressed in the same clothes he’d worn to travel. Since he didn’t lead a horse, she assumed he’d followed on foot. He must have been motivated in order to reach the village so soon on her heels.

  She offered the young woman a slim smile and said, “If you’ll excuse me but a moment.”

  The young man, James, shrunk back at Gideon’s arrival. At least the blasted botanist was good for that much. With luck, the young flirt would return to his work and wouldn’t think of her until long after she’d returned to Tenwick Abbey.

  Squaring her shoulders, she turned to face Gideon. She raised her eyebrows, folding her arms over her chest as she waited for him to approach within hearing distance without her yelling.

  “Yes, Lord Gideon? How may I help you? I daresay you haven’t come to purchase one of my perfumes.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Hardly.” Running his hands through his hair, stuck up at all angles and a bit damp from sweating during the exertion of his walk, he added, “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’m selling off my stock. You can hardly expect me to neglect my work while I’m here.”

  He jabbed a finger through the air, but stopped several inches short of making contact with her. “Your work while you’re here is to assist me.”

  “Oh?” She raised her eyebrows. “And here it was my impression that you were to assist me.”

  Judging by the irritated expression that crossed his face, he couldn’t refute that. Instead, the infuriating man attacked her livelihood. He motioned toward her sole customer.

  “Are you poisoning poor Miss Merewether with your blasted spiel over these perfumes? She’s a good, proper young woman. Unlike some I know.”

  Felicia leaned closer to him. He’d stepped closer as he loosed his tirade, so close that her breasts came dangerously close to brushing his coat when she gave him a look at her cleavage. As expected, his gaze dropped. Was he thinking of their kiss? Wondering what madness had consumed him to do it, perhaps? Well, she’d known exactly what had consumed her, and it was nothing more than chemistry. It wouldn’t happen again, at least not on her part.

  From the color rising in his cheeks, he was much less secure in that knowledge than she was.

  “I’ve never pretended to be proper,” she said, lowering her voice to a husky murmur. After all, proper was what had been expected of her when she was seventeen. Proper was constricting and boring. She’d rather be eccentric, be labeled a hoyden even, so long as it meant that she could be herself.

  He clenched his jaw. “No, you haven’t.”

  She swatted him on the arm. At the brief touch, he stepped away, his cheeks turning even pinker. “Why are you attacking my perfumes? You, of all people, know their effect.”

  He didn’t quite meet her gaze as he muttered, “That I do. I doubt she would be happy to find an unwanted man in her bed. Leave the poor woman alone.”

  Because he’d ordered such a thing, she did the opposite. She turned to Miss Merewether with a sunny smile. “What will it be, miss? It might be just the push you need.”

  Gideon ran his hand through his hair again. “Just the push you need to hurl your sanity off a cliff.”

  Felicia doubted that his words were loud enough to meet the young woman’s ears. She had to strain hers in order to hear them.

  Miss Merewether bought the perfume. Her gaze lingered on Gideon for a long moment, as if she hoped for his forgiveness or sought his condemnation. He gave neither, his expression impassive.

  The moment Felicia slid the coins into the reticule on her wrist, Gideon clutched her by the elbow. He towed her a pace or two away from her table. She didn’t have any other customers, so she let him guide her away for the time being. Chubs rose onto all four feet. From the way he danced, he didn’t understand why his new friend who had so recently rubbed his belly was now manhandling Felicia.

  Gideon dropped his hold the moment they stepped closer to the wagon wall. “There. You’ve sold your perfume. Now, will you return home?”

  “Why?” She leaned forward, fluttering her eyelashes. “Are you that anxious to find yourself in my company again?”

  He fumbled with the knot of his cravat as he took a healthy step back. “Hardly.”

  “Then do you propose we start work the very afternoon we arrive?”

  “No…” He drew out the word, as if wondering if it was truly the answer he wished to give.

  “In that case, I’ll return to the abbey in an hour or two, once I’ve peddled what I can.”

  He ground the heel of his palms against his eyes. “The materials you requested have been delivered.”

  “Excellent!” She grinned. She hadn’t expected the duke to be able to secure them so fast, let alone transport them to Tenwick Abbey. The Crown must be desperate for this truth serum, after all. “Don’t touch the bottles. It would be too easy for you to mix them up, with disastrous results. I’ll unpack them once I return to the abbey.”

  He opened his mouth, most likely to argue, but she cut in.

  “Where will we be working?”

  “In the orangery, of course. It is where I keep all of my tools.”

  “Wonderful. I’ll unpack my supplies in the orangery, then. Please ensure there is a workbench free for my supplies.”

  A tick started in his jaw. He rubbed at it. Under his breath, he grumbled, “I don’t know why you refuse to stop this madness. No one will take you seriously as a scientist if you sell perfumes that purportedly make people fall in love.” He refused to meet her gaze.

  She crossed her arms again. “Not purportedly. They work, as you’ve discovered yourself. I provide a public service.”

  He snorted.

  “Well,” she amended, lowering her voice. “They make people fall in lust more so than love, but it often amounts to the same thing.”

  “Which is?” He mirrored her stance.

  “Marriage, of course.”

  Shaking his head, he informed, “Trust me, the very last thing I contemplated was the notion of stepping into the parson’s mouse trap. In fact, I was trying to avoid it.”

  “Of course you were.” She dropped her hands to her hips. “You were the one wearing the perfume, not the one impacted by it. I assure you, those young debutantes who tried to get your attention were certainly thinking of you as a matrimonial match.”

  His green eyes glinted with amusement. A sly smile turned up one corner of his mouth. “Is that so?” He leaned closer. “And were you thinking of marriage, Miss Albright?”

  Was he trying to tease her? Two could play that game, and she was mu
ch more experienced at it. She leaned forward, batting her eyelashes at him. “Why, Lord Gideon, are you wishing that I had?”

  When she brushed her hand over his sleeve, he jerked away and stumbled back. He looked as white as a sheet. “No. Of course not. I only meant—”

  Given the baffled look on his face, he didn’t know what he meant. She took pity on him. “Go home, my lord. I won’t be long.”

  As she turned away, noticing that Miss Merewether had lingered by the table with her purchase clutched in her hand, Gideon captured her arm. He turned Felicia to face him once more. The intensity in his eyes belied his stony expression.

  “Don’t you give a whit about people taking you seriously as a scientist?”

  Felicia laughed. Gideon’s long fingers raised goose bumps beneath the sleeves of her dress as he released her with aching slowness. She wiped at her eyes, shaking her head as she battled her mirth. With her situation, if she didn’t laugh, she would cry.

  “I’m a woman, Gideon. No one takes me seriously as a scientist no matter what I do.”

  He withdrew, his face hard. “They should. For all that you’re a crackpot, you are a brilliant one.”

  Turning on his heel, he strode away from the village. Felicia gaped after him. What did he mean by that? Could he…respect her?

  No. It was ludicrous. Felicia had met with fellow scientists before, even ones less stubborn and arrogant than Gideon Graylocke. They humored her, but they left no doubt that they didn’t consider her to have an original thought in her head. If she tried to prove her knowledge, she was well-read or repeating the research of her father. Men didn’t believe she was as capable as them.

  Gideon had to be the same. If not… If he admired and respected her mind she couldn’t consider the notion of actually coming to like him. Or a future in which she craved his kiss for reasons other than the effects brought on by the perfume. She was so much older than him, in both age and experience. Not to mention, she’d relinquished her right to claim that life when she’d run away from her arranged marriage.

  No, Gideon Graylocke was like all other men. And her reaction to him was purely chemical. For her own sanity, it had to be so.

  10

  Giddy stormed away from the garish painted wagon and its infuriating owner. He balled his fists as he strode away, battling the urge to look back. If she didn’t want to make an effort to earn the respect of the scientific community… he stopped in the shadow of the Golden Goose and rubbed his forehead.

  Therein lay the rub. She was respected in the scientific community… as F. Albright, presumed male. If it was widely known that she was female, her prestige would likely plummet. She was right, blast it all, and he couldn’t stomach the thought. She should at least attempt to cultivate the same respect as a woman as she would be offered were she a man.

  Footsteps thwacked against the packed dirt road behind him. Giddy stiffened his shoulders, refusing to turn to see whether Felicia had chased after him. The footsteps mounted, drilling into his clenched teeth and giving him a headache. He marched down the road leading to his family’s ancestral estate.

  Someone a good deal taller than Felicia thumped Giddy on the shoulder and slowed to match his pace. Gideon glanced sideways into the knowing grin of his best friend, Edgar Catterson III.

  Catt, his blue eyes dancing as he fixed Giddy with his best in-the-cream smile, teased, “Lover’s quarrel?”

  Blast. He’d seen the entire damn exchange with Felicia. Giddy had hoped to evade notice. He should have known better than to think he could keep something from Catt. Even if he hadn’t mentioned Felicia or the friction between them, Catt would have learned from Rocky—Joy Rockwood, Gideon’s other best friend, and the woman who happened to be employed by the Graylocke family as their gardener. Catt, Rocky, and Gideon all shared a passion for plants. In the case of Rocky and Catt, gossip was also on the list of favorite hobbies, at least insofar as it came to outdoing one another. They loved to lord secret knowledge over one another.

  “Felicia is not my lover.”

  Catt waggled his pale eyebrows, a shade lighter than his strawberry blond hair. After the sunny summer and the time he’d spent outdoors, his hair was more blond than strawberry at the moment. “Oh? You call her Felicia, do you?”

  Gideon could practically see the spittle foaming in the corner of his mouth as he thought about relaying the information to Rocky. Or rather, taunting Rocky until she squeezed the gossip from him.

  Gideon waved a hand behind him to indicate the wagon. It was too far away to read the banner without squinting, though Felicia’s form was easy to spot as she strutted along the length of her stall. He turned his face away from the spectacle.

  “I know you can read.”

  “And I know you can lie better than that.”

  Giddy wrinkled his nose. He quickened his step, hoping to outpace the shorter man. Unfortunately, although Gideon did have a longer stride, his friend was only a few inches shorter than him and matched him easily.

  Catt persisted. “This looked like more than a conflict between a vendor and a customer.”

  “Why do you say that?” Giddy asked, keeping his voice carefully blasé.

  Cutting in front of him, Catt forced Gideon to make an abrupt stop or else bowl him over. When Giddy tried to step around his friend, Catt moved to block him. Gideon didn’t like the glint in the other botanist’s eyes.

  “You have no reason to concern yourself with someone who sets up shop on the edge of Locksley.”

  With a shrug, Giddy countered, “My family owns Tenwick Abbey and the surrounding area. We own most of the village. I’d say it’s very much my business.”

  Catt raised his eyebrows. As pale as they were, they stood out against his milk-white skin. For all the time he spent outdoors, the sun refused to bronze him.

  “That would make it your brother’s business.”

  “My brother is not at home. I am currently the man of the house.”

  Catt snorted. “Please. Your sister is more man than you when it comes to village affairs.”

  “Shall I tell her you said so?”

  His friend’s smile slipped. “Please don’t.”

  For all that she was six years younger than him, Catt was intimidated by Lucy. She had that effect on many people who eventually came to call her a friend. Although she knew to act demure in public, outside of the soirees and balls of the Season, she chose not to. If someone had valuable knowledge she needed to complete her ever-growing book, nothing could stand in the way of her learning it. At the moment, he thought it was about a princess-turned-swashbuckling-pirate who invented her own guns and had a parrot sidekick, but he couldn’t be sure. Now that she’d met Felicia, there would probably be a bloody love perfume involved, too.

  Since Catt was the closest of friends, Giddy resorted to blackmail. “I won’t tell Lucy what you said provided you cease to comment about what you think you observed between me and the lady.”

  Catt’s chin firmed. He nodded. “Agreed.”

  They continued to walk. The air between them lifted from strained to companionable as they meandered down the lane. Catt, who let a room in Locksley village, visited Tenwick Abbey on a daily basis when the family was in residence. They both knew the path by rote.

  The wind picked up. It rattled the naked branches of the trees on either side of the road and chased a chill down Gideon’s neck. He pulled his greatcoat closer to his body.

  No more than two minutes passed before Catt said conversationally, “So you do know her last name…”

  “Catt,” Gideon said, lacing the word with warning.

  His friend flashed him a cheery smile. “Your deal was not to speak of the incident which never occurred, not to avoid speaking of her. Are you planning on telling me who she is?”

  Gideon took a deep breath, then another. He raised his gaze to the frothy gray sky. When he answered, only two short words emerged. “F. Albright.”

  He walked ten paces before he
realized that Catt was no longer beside him. When Gideon turned, he found his friend standing between two wagon ruts, his jaw slack.

  “F. Albright, the fellow who’s been nettling you all year about our orchid research?”

  “The same.” Gideon sighed.

  “Wasn’t that the chem—oh.” His ginger hair flopped into his eyes as he glanced over his shoulder, back the way they’d come. Thankfully, they’d walked far enough that the edge of the village—and therefore the wagon—was no longer visible. “What was she selling?”

  “Perfumes,” Gideon said, his voice flat. He shooed his friend into motion once more.

  Although he said nothing more on the subject, Catt nodded. They walked another minute or two in silence. The back of Giddy’s throat burned.

  “Love perfumes,” he clarified to the empty air.

  Catt made a strangled sound. Either he was trying not to laugh or he was choking on his own tongue. His lean shoulders shook. “You’re jesting.”

  “I wish.” If word got out that he was working with a chemist who specialized in love perfumes…

  He rubbed at his throbbing forehead. Word wouldn’t get out. They were working together for the Crown, after all, in a secret capacity.

  “She’s a crackpot!”

  Giddy couldn’t disagree with that.

  “So that’s what your row was about, her presence in Locksley?”

  If only. Gideon sighed. He ran his hand through his hair. “No, her presence is to be expected. She’ll be staying at Tenwick Abbey for the foreseeable future.”

  Catt’s eyebrows soared. Although the interest was written plain on his face, he didn’t speak another word. Unfortunately, Giddy knew his friend better than to think he would remain in that state for the duration of the walk.