Tempting The Rival (Scandals and Spies Book 3)

by Leighann Dobbs

  Three doors down the opulent hall, Lucy opened a closed door and glided inside. Hesitantly, Felicia followed. She stopped short in the threshold of a room bigger than her wagon. The bed alone could have devoured half the space she usually lived in. The spacious bed, the main fixture in the room, sported four intricately carved wooden posters and gauzy blue drapes. The drapes on the windows, of a heavier quality, matched the color, as did the plush rug at the foot of the bed. A wide wardrobe, vanity, and writing desk crowded the edges of the room, along with a patterned dressing screen separating one corner of the room from the rest.

  Felicia could comfortably live in such a space. More than comfortably, in fact—it was fit for a princess. She was uncomfortably aware of every spec of dirt and dog hair on her dress.

  “Are you certain this is meant for me? Perhaps a smaller room out of the way…”

  If Lucy noticed Felicia’s unease, she didn’t address it. Instead, she airily waved her hand as she sat on the foot of the bed. “Nonsense. This is where we always put our guests.”

  Maybe, but her usual guests hailed from a different world than Felicia. They were accustomed to such luxury and demanded it as their due. If Felicia stayed here throughout the winter, she would feel as though she relived a fairy tale. A tight knot formed next to her sternum at the thought of returning to a life of poverty after growing accustomed to the grandeur of the Graylocke household.

  She rubbed at that knot to loosen it. She didn’t need luxury. She’d survived on her own for the last thirteen years—she would do it for the next thirteen, too.

  Unconcerned, Lucy offered her hand to Chubs. He gave it a thorough lick.

  Lightly, Charlie touched Felicia’s shoulder. “If it makes you feel better, your room is smaller than mine. Mine has a marble fireplace and a dressing room.”

  Surprisingly, the young woman’s sympathy did make Felicia feel better. Something in the set of her mouth led Felicia to believe that Charlie hadn’t lived in such splendor all her life, either. She might know exactly how Felicia felt.

  Like an imposter.

  As she took a deep breath, she reminded herself that she’d never once led the Duke of Tenwick to believe that she needed to be treated like a queen throughout her stay. She was perfectly happy to have a roof over her head and be paid for her services. That was exactly what her stay was about.

  The sky growled outside. Felicia pursed her lips. “I’d better fetch my trunk before the storm begins.” She didn’t relish the thought of dripping mud into this pristine home.

  Lucy rose again. “Let’s find one of the footmen. He’ll do it for you.”

  Let a stranger into her wagon? No, thank you. “It’s no trouble. I’ll have it up in the twitch of a cat’s whisker.”

  Snapping her fingers to call Chubs, she turned on her heel and hurried back through the house. Her mastiff bounded after her. She let him precede her down the stairs so she didn’t go tumbling head over heels.

  From the echo of footsteps, Lucy and Charlie followed her. Felicia pretended not to notice. If she hurried, she could reach her wagon and fetch her trunk before they had time to summon a footman. Along the hall she went, slowing her steps and keeping Chubs nearby so he didn’t disturb the artwork. In the antechamber, she let him run free again, hurrying to follow.

  The moment she opened the door, the wind whipped it from her grasp and it thunked heavily against the wall. She winced. Strands of her hair whipped back and forth across her vision. Chubs barked and whined. He backed up behind her skirts. “Stay here,” she told him, not wanting to force him to brave the storm. Grabbing her skirts, she stepped out into the wind.

  Scattered icy drops of rain pelted her as she bolted for her wagon. For all his fear, her mastiff accompanied her, his eyes rolling as he responded to the growl of the sky. She opened her wagon and dragged her lone chest out from beneath her cot. The cot sagged without its sturdy support, but as she wouldn’t be sleeping on it, it didn’t matter.

  When she reached the door again, Chubs was dancing in place. He let out a plaintive whine. Huffing with effort, Felicia pulled the trunk down the steps and onto the ground. She locked the wagon door. That should prove enough of a deterrent against thieves until the weather cleared.

  Her arms trembling with the effort, Felicia tried to heft the trunk herself. Although it was small, her muscles were no better than water in the face of its weight. She would have to drag it. Letting the trunk fall back to the ground, she straightened and gulped for air.

  “Allow me, Miss.” A trim footman in blue-and-silver livery with the ducal crest—a stag rampant—leaned down and easily hefted her trunk.

  She gritted her teeth. Braggart.

  With the four-foot-long trunk easily balanced in his arms, the footman peered over the top. “If you’ll direct me to the rest of your luggage, I’ll get that as well.”

  “I have no other luggage.”

  The footman didn’t bat an eyelash. “Very well, Miss.” He turned on his heel and sidestepped the two young ladies who had followed him out into the growing storm.

  Lucy gaped. “That’s all you have?”

  Heat climbed up Felicia’s neck. Without looking the young woman in the eye, she said, “It’s all I need. Perhaps we should return indoors?”

  “Oh. Of course.”

  Chubs sprinted for the safety of the abbey, arriving first in front of the now-closed doors. Felicia, second to arrive, opened them. She held the door open as the two young ladies scurried inside. Rain pelted from the sky in earnest. It slithered down the back of her neck as she chased the women inside. The antechamber rang with the sound of the door slamming.

  “Come,” Lucy said, twining her arm through Felicia’s, “let’s warm ourselves.”

  “I thought you meant to show me a tour,” Felicia said.

  “I will once we’re warm again.”

  Felicia couldn’t argue with that.

  Lucy led her and Charlie to a parlor half again the size of Felicia’s room. Plain patterned wallpaper interspersed the area between paintings of flowers and other still life. The furniture, primarily upholstered in green, looked plush and inviting. The best feature of the room, around which the furniture was positioned, was a chuckling fireplace. Felicia chose a seat close to the warmth as Lucy rang the bell pull and ordered a tea service. When Chubs tried to climb onto the settee next to her, she snapped her fingers and pointed to the floor. With a pathetic look, he slung his body across her feet and rested his head on his paws. Charlie cooed and knelt beside him to give his head a scratch.

  The moment Lucy perched on the settee next to Felicia, she loosed a tide of questions that it must have taken a herculean effort to withhold until now. The tea service arrived as Felicia found herself recounting her afternoon, including her argument with Gideon.

  “Oh, pish,” Lucy said. She waved her hand so vigorously that tea sloshed over the edge of her cup and into her saucer. “As if Giddy knows anything about industry. Don’t you listen to him.”

  Felicia smiled. “I didn’t. I returned ahead of the storm.”

  After a sip, Lucy offered, “The next time you return to the village to sell your wares, I can accompany you and act as your assistant.”

  The daughter of a duke, an assistant to a woman who peddled perfumes? Felicia shook her head. She tucked loose strands of her hair behind her ears. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I can manage quite well on my own.”

  “Please?” Lucy’s velvet-brown eyes turned as round as Chubs’s at his most pathetic. “I’ll never know what it’s like if I don’t try it.”

  Felicia pursed her lips. “I doubt you’ll ever find yourself in a position where you’ll need to sell a product in order to survive.”

  “Of course not, but I ought to know for my book.”

  No, even after retrospection, that comment made no sense. “I beg your pardon?”

  “I write books. Didn’t I say that?”

  If she had, Felicia had been too consumed
with travel and settling in to remember. She offered a slim smile. “You must have. Forgive me. Your characters are peddlers?”

  “Well, not these characters. But perhaps I’ll have one in my next book.” She drummed her fingers on her knee. “In order to write it authentically, I’ll need to experience it for myself.”

  Helpless, Felicia turned her gaze to Charlie in the chair across from her. The young woman shrugged. “It isn’t the first thing she’s researched.”

  Lucy added, “I promise not to get in your way.”

  Gideon would strangle Felicia if she let his sister accompany her on such a demeaning task as selling her perfumes. For that reason alone, Felicia almost said yes. Instead, she hedged, “I don’t know when I’ll next find the time, since your brother and I will soon be working together.”

  Lucy brightened. “Then, that’s perfect! You can work with Giddy while I sell your perfumes for you. I’ll be helping.”

  Oh, dear. That wouldn’t work at all. “Do you know how to drive a wagon?”

  “No. You can teach me to do that, as well.”

  Her forced smile wavered. “Perhaps when the weather is nicer.”

  Perhaps she would forget.

  “Excellent! I’ll tell Mother.”

  Then again, perhaps she wouldn’t.

  Felicia cleared her throat, desperate for a change of topic. “Is it too soon to ask for that tour? If you’re too busy, perhaps you could point me toward the orangery, so I can learn where I’ll be working.”

  Lucy set down her half-finished cup and bounded to her feet. Chubs, sensing an adventure, followed suit. “Nonsense, I’m never too busy to give a proper tour. Follow me!”

  Charlie grinned as she got to her feet. “Lucy does know the history of the abbey the best. You won’t be disappointed.”

  It was an enlightening tour that began with the ballroom and the neglected ancestor’s room and ended with the library. As Lucy shut the door on the two-story, book-lined room, Felicia’s mouth was still agape. How could one person have so many books? She couldn’t wait for a free moment to scour them and discover if there were any on chemistry or botany. Given that Gideon was in residence, she was willing to wager there would be more than one volume to catch her fancy.

  As Lucy led them around the corner from the library toward a hallway that she claimed led to the orangery, a figure stepped through a door that clearly led outside. A gust of cold wind and a splash of rain preceded the woman’s drenched form. She peeled her cloak from her outfit, a blue dress with silver piping and the Tenwick stag on the breast.

  A grin enveloped Lucy’s face. “Rocky!”

  With the friendly greeting, Chubs darted forward to investigate the new arrival. He reared on his hind legs and planted his front paws squarely on the shoulders of the curvy woman no taller than Felicia. He then proceeded to lick her face, including her rain-flecked spectacles. She pressed her lips together to avoid getting his tongue in her mouth.

  “Chubs! Get down now.” Felicia snapped her fingers to punctuate the command.

  Flicking his ears back, the mastiff lowered onto all fours once more. His tail beat the air. Felicia stepped forward to lay a restraining hand between her dog’s shoulder blades.

  “Please forgive him. He isn’t usually this rambunctious.”

  Chubs, his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth, twisted his head to meet her gaze, the picture of innocence.

  The young woman, Rocky, blinked. As she removed her spectacles to clean them on her skirts, her eyes looked smaller. “It’s no trouble.”

  Although she spoke the words in a light, airy tone of voice, Felicia didn’t believe them to be genuine. Who looked kindly on a person whose pet jumped on them before being properly introduced? As the woman finished cleaning her spectacles, Chubs bumped her hand with his nose, leaving a wet smear on the lens once more. Rocky angled her body away in order to clean it.

  With a broad smile, Lucy stepped forward to command Rocky’s attention. “This is Chubs. He belongs to Felicia, Giddy’s new business partner.”

  A frown turned down the corners of the young woman’s mouth. “His business partner? He didn’t mention having a new business partner.”

  “No?” Lucy’s smile turned sly as she narrowed her eyes. She leaned closer. Although she lowered her voice, it still carried. “Have you spoken to him since he returned from London?”

  “Of course.” Rocky gestured absently over her shoulder to the wall and door she’d emerged from. “I saw him just now in the orangery.”

  Felicia’s stomach flipped. Gideon was in the orangery? That was where she, Lucy, and Charlie were headed. Maybe if they pointed out the door, Felicia would be able to find her way there tomorrow without trouble.

  She couldn’t avoid him forever. However, ever since he’d alluded to the fact that he might respect her as a scientist, she hadn’t been able to purge thoughts of him from her mind. His respect would negate the battle of wills between them once they got to work, but what would it mean for their kiss?

  Nothing. It meant nothing. She’d been influenced by the perfume. By tomorrow, the effects would have dissipated entirely and she would have a clear head around him once more. All she needed was a night’s respite.

  Lucy lowered her hand to scratch Chubs between the ears. “I’m surprised Giddy didn’t mention it to you. Felicia will be staying with us while she and Giddy work on a project together.”

  Rocky’s gaze strayed toward Felicia for a moment before returning to Lucy. In the light spilling from the candle in Charlie’s hands, Rocky’s eyes were unreadable.

  “You mean the way he and Catt work?”

  Felicia frowned. What was she talking about?

  Lucy leaned closer with a conspiratorial smirk. “Not quite. My brother and Felicia have a different sort of relationship.”

  Drawing herself up, Felicia added, “That we do. A business relationship. Not at all that of a man and his… cat.”

  Rocky and Lucy met each other’s gazes and burst into laughter. Even Charlie joined in, her laughter light and musical to their raucous guffaws. If Felicia hadn’t been at the mercy of the Graylockes’ hospitality, she would have turned on her heel and stormed away. She was not a cat. The idea was ludicrous.

  “No,” Rocky said, wiping her eyes. “I mean Mr. Catterson, or Catt as we call him. He and Giddy are working on blooming an orchid together.”

  Ah. That bloody orchid. If it was the one Felicia suspected, they would have much better luck if only they listened to her.

  Lucy said, “This is Rocky. She’s Giddy’s other botany-minded friend.”

  The young woman held out her hand and said, “Joy Rockwood. My friends call me Rocky. I’m the head gardener at the Tenwick estate.”

  A gardener? Rocky was not only a woman in a position typically filled by a man, but she was also much closer to Felicia’s social class than Lucy. Even so, Felicia found it curious that Lucy introduced her first as Gideon’s friend. Could Felicia not be the only person in their lives with whom they didn’t stand on social class? Felicia didn’t know how Lucy could forget the difference between them for a second. To Felicia, it yawned like a chasm.

  Better she not try to decipher the Graylockes’ minds. Soon enough, she would have finished her task and continued on to the next adventure in the nomadic life she’d chosen. She couldn’t afford to get attached to them or her treatment here.

  Clasping Rocky’s hand, she gave it a firm shake and said, “Felicia Albright. I’m a chemist by trade.”

  “And you’re working with Giddy?” the woman asked, cocking her head. “Has he developed a new interest I’m not aware of?”

  “You’d have to ask him. It’s his botanical expertise I seek. We’re collaborating on a project. Until I know more about whether or not it will work as planned—” It will. “—it’s best that I keep my lips sealed as to the details.”

  Fortunately, Rocky seemed to accept the lie easily enough. She dipped her knees and inclined her head
in a shallow curtsey. Felicia’s throat grew tight at the gesture, even though it seemed to be directed to the group rather than to her personally. I’m not a lady like Lucy…

  Rocky said, “If you’ll forgive me, I have to change out of these clothes. If you’re going to see Gideon in the orangery, I recommend using the corridor rather than cutting through the garden. The rain is wicked outside.”

  She slipped past. The three women continued along the hall, Chubs once again padding at Lucy’s heels. The light from the candle reflected off a glass window as Lucy and Charlie pulled ahead. Felicia paused, squinting as the light retreated and her vision adapted for her to overlook the grounds. The gray canopy of clouds, heavy with rain, shielded most of the daylight, making it seem a later hour than it was. Just enough light remained to discern the contours of a long, narrow covered and walled walkway marched from the abbey to a glass-walled hothouse lit by the yellow glow of a lamp. Rain pelted the space between, but Felicia discerned movement in the distant hothouse. A man—Gideon.

  She swallowed and stepped away from the window. “Forgive me, but it’s been a long day and a long journey. I think I can find the way to the orangery from here.” After all, that walkway had to intersect the manor at some point along this corridor.

  Ahead, Lucy and Charlie paused. They turned, the light from the candle spilling onto the ruby runner beneath their feet and reflecting on some metallic threads near the edges. Chubs whined, looking between them and Felicia.

  “Are you certain?” Lucy asked. “It isn’t far now.”

  “I’ll be fine.” Felicia forced a smile. “In fact, I hope it wouldn’t be too much trouble to cry off from dinner tonight. I don’t think I’m feeling quite the thing.”

  The two younger women exchanged a glance. “Are you ill?” Charlie asked. “You had a voracious appetite at breakfast.”

  Since the Graylockes had graciously offered to pay for meals during their travels, Felicia hadn’t wanted to squander the opportunity. If she gained another stone while she was here, she might not feel the lean winter as much as she usually did.