Tempting The Rival (Scandals and Spies Book 3)

by Leighann Dobbs

  “She isn’t allowed in the kitchen. Our cook barred her from entering after she stole a baked apple.”

  “And defecated in the soup,” Charlie added. “Don’t forget that.”

  Felicia made a face. “I understand why she was banished.”

  She fell silent as they arrived at the kitchen. The room, small when compared to others in the house, was in chaos. Aromatic steam thick with the savory scents of meat and spices collected from pots on the stove and wafted from the oven when opened. Men and women shouted to one another as they attended to various tasks. They wove in and out of each other like a swarm of bees. Their general, a short man with wide shoulders, a barrel chest, and a bit of a paunch, shouted encouragement, criticism, and orders all in the same breath as he paced the room.

  When he noticed the trio of women in the doorway, he wiped one hand on his apron and jabbed the finger of his other hand toward Lucy. “You’d best not have brought that blasted bird, my lady.”

  “I left her with Mother.” Lucy had to raise her voice in order to be heard above the cacophony. The kitchen staff offered her an inclined head or curtsey as they passed, but otherwise ignored her.

  “Good. We have enough to handle in here as it is. Did you know that the dowager ordered a four course meal tonight on account of your guest?”

  Felicia winced. She shrank back behind Lucy and Charlie’s forms, hoping not to be noticed. Surely Evelyn wouldn’t have gone to such trouble for Felicia. Perhaps Miss Merewether had been asked to join or the Graylockes expected someone else.

  Fortunately, Lucy didn’t draw attention to Felicia. She ignored the cook’s remark—given his flippant and harried tone of voice, it had sounded rhetorical.

  Instead, Lucy informed, “Giddy missed lunch.”

  The cook rolled his eyes heavenward. “Of course he did. I’ll make up a plate. I assume he’s in the orangery?”

  “No need to trouble yourself. We’ll take it to him.”

  “Is his friend in there with him today?”

  “Yes.”

  Felicia frowned as the cook expertly navigated the staff and began to put together a large tray of cold vittles. She leaned closer to the two women. “I thought you said you wanted to take tea.”

  “We’ve already eaten,” Lucy said smoothly, “but we know you and Giddy haven’t. You’ll have to take his plate to him, of course.”

  Felicia rubbed her forehead. “It might be best if I didn’t see him for a while.”

  “Oh?” Lucy turned, a glint in her eye as she pinned Felicia beneath her gaze. “Are you having difficulties?” She dropped her voice to the barest whisper on the last word, infusing it with suggestion.

  Felicia clenched her teeth and silently counted to five before she answered. “Gideon and I had a disagreement involving our joint project. I think it’s best if I give him some time to come to his senses.”

  Lucy and Charlie exchanged twin smirks. They didn’t believe Felicia’s explanation at all. Never mind that it was the truth.

  “You could always try to sweeten him up,” Lucy suggested.

  Charlie giggled.

  Felicia sighed. She had already tried to inform these ladies that she had no romantic designs on Gideon, to no avail. Her protests would fall on deaf ears. Better she remove herself from their company and prove to them through action that she and Gideon were nothing more than partners for this one assignment.

  Besides, he was too stubborn to see what was in front of his eyes. By this point, she would be lucky to survive another day with him without getting into a row, let alone the duration of their assignment.

  When the Tenwick cook presented the completed tray, Felicia snatched it from his hands. “I’ll deliver this to Gideon. We have to continue work in any case.”

  Lucy and Charlie didn’t protest, like Felicia thought.

  Her peace and quiet lasted the mere minutes it took to traverse the manor. Once she reached the orangery and crossed the long corridor to the glass door, she paused. Gideon stood inside, his stiff shoulders raised almost around his ears. He tended to his plants with jerky movements. He still fumed.

  Perhaps her design to elude his sister’s matchmaking attempts hadn’t been well thought out at all. She took a small step back, intending to leave, but he turned, catching sight of her.

  For a moment, their eyes locked. His hostile posture relaxed. He crossed to the door, opening it for her, but didn’t say a word. The humidity radiating from the orangery caressed her skin.

  Sheepishly, Felicia lifted the tray and said, “Peace offering?”

  He stepped aside to let her in.

  Giddy wanted to accept Felicia’s peace offering and continue with their work, but four hours later, he found himself in the middle of another argument.

  Darkness had fallen. The only light emerged from the glow of the lantern poised on the edge of the nearest work table. The humidity fogging the glass obscured everything outside, making it seem as though they were alone in the world. He wished they weren’t.

  He ran his hands through his hair. “If you’d just let me look at the distillery, maybe I could devise a better way to extract the compound that we need.”

  “No.”

  The infuriating woman crossed her arms, drawing his attention to her breasts. She probably did so for just that result, to weaken him.

  “Chemistry is my domain. Yours is botany.”

  His forehead throbbed. “Yes, I know that, and engineering is not one of my strong points either, but we’ve been working at this for hours. In half a day, we’ve used up half the oil you collected and we’ve gotten nowhere. It’s worth taking a look. If the distilling process is weakening the potency of the plant—”

  “It isn’t,” she snapped. “I’ve done this before a time or two, using these exact oils harvested from the very same specimen. If they worked then, there’s no earthly reason they shouldn’t work now.”

  “Perhaps they’ve lost their potency over time,” he said between gritted teeth. He turned, pacing the length of the work bench to keep from doing something he would regret, like throttling her.

  Or kissing her. When he turned back, her lips were pursed. The lamplight reflected off her eyes, making them glitter with promise.

  “The vial was sealed. No contaminants could have gotten in to weaken the potency.”

  Kissing was an infinitely more appealing use for that shapely mouth than arguing. He turned away, balling his fists as he paced the length of the table again. It wasn’t enough. When he turned back, she remained in exactly the same place, one eyebrow arched as if she believed that she was winning the argument.

  He took a deep breath to keep from shouting. When he spoke again, his voice was stiff, but even. “If you won’t involve me in the distilling process, will you at least let me try something different with the plant you removed?” The plant she was likely killing. Although Giddy had tended specimens in worse shape before, he didn’t think the chill of October was doing the plant any favors, even housed inside a wagon away from the elements. The humid orangery was much closer to its natural habitat.

  “No.”

  Stubborn woman.

  “We have one here. We can’t demolish either plant in pursuit of—”

  “Of what?” He stepped closer, looming over her. “In pursuit of science? Of our project? This is what you want, isn’t it, Felicia?”

  His breath caught as her name escaped his lips. He’d been very careful thus far not to utter it aloud while they were alone. The intimacy reminded him that there was no one around to see what he did and didn’t do.

  No one but her, that was. If he kissed her again, she would never let him live it down.

  She isn’t attracted to you.

  He gritted his teeth as that unfortunate truth flashed through his mind. As flirtatious as she had been at first, the moment they were alone together, that playful demeanor dropped away, replaced with hostility. Why couldn’t she just work with him instead of trying to prove that her
way was better? They’d tried her way—it hadn’t worked.

  Her chin jutted out, mulish, as she countered, “We only have two plants. I’m not letting you chop one up when we have a perfectly good sample of the oils right there, and more from other parts of the plant. If you’d only check your ego for a moment, you’d see that we’re far from out of options.”

  Yes, because his ego was the problem here.

  “We have to work together on this project.”

  “I’m trying—”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders, startling her into silence. Startling himself, as well. He had to bend down to reach her, and that brought their mouths closer. Every inch of him was aware of her body heat and the curve of her figure, especially when her chest heaved with her quick breaths.

  He gentled his touch, not wanting to hurt her. Release her. His common sense battled with the awareness of her proximity. “Try harder.”

  Her eyebrows snapped down over her eyes. If he hadn’t been holding her shoulders, he might not have noticed the bunch of her muscles beneath his palms. He stepped back before she slapped him.

  Rage simmered in her eyes. “You don’t respect me—”

  He glanced toward the ceiling, hoping for a stroke of guidance. Nothing.

  “I don’t respect you? I’m the botanist here, or have you forgotten?”

  She grumbled something under her breath as she crossed her arms once more. He decided that he didn’t want to know what she’d said.

  “The plant you removed is more mature than the one we have here. If you’ll consent to return it—”

  “No.”

  Sometimes, he wondered if she knew any other words.

  He battled the urge to rub his throbbing temple. “By Jove, Felicia, I’m not going to murder your bloody plant. I know I’m young, but believe it or not I actually know a thing or two about botany!”

  Her lips thinned. “This is not about your age. I’ve read your essays. I know you’re brilliant, if pigheaded.”

  He threw his hands in the air, exasperated.

  Louder, she added, “This is about having only these two plants. When we finish with the oils I have on hand, these are the only plants that will yield more. If we squander what they have to offer prematurely, we’ll have to wait months for another plant to arrive from South America.”

  She acted as though he was planning on pulverizing the poor plant. All he wanted was a few clippings from various parts. Once he determined whether it was only the seeds—as she seemed to think—that yielded the results they needed, they could formulate a more targeted approach. It could be the roots or the buds that held a greater concentration of the compound they wanted. But would she trust him for two minutes to take what he needed?

  No, of course not. That would be rational.

  Taking a deep breath, he chased away the frustration seizing his body. “What if I took a clipping? If I can manage to coax it to take root, we’ll have three plants.”

  And he would have one all his own to experiment on. Of course, it would take weeks at the least for the plant to mature to such a point, but he didn’t mind thinking ahead—against the eventuality that the plant in her wagon died from the cold.

  Her thick eyelashes fluttered across her eyes as she narrowed them. After a moment, she nodded. “A clipping could prove useful.”

  At least she acknowledged that much. It was a start.

  “Were you thinking of putting it in a water solution or in the ground?”

  Hesitantly, he approached the bench and found his pruning shears. “I’ve had better luck with a water solution in the past.” He’d experimented with the solution over the years and had devised one that worked to encourage root growth within a week, among most plants.

  She said, “I have an unguent that you can apply to the cut edge to encourage growth.”

  Although he had his own remedy, he wasn’t above hearing of something else that might speed along the endeavor. He nodded and followed her around to her side of the work space. She found a small jar from her neatly arranged compounds.

  As he took it from her, their hands brushed. He swallowed, trying to hide the tingle that swept up his arm from that innocent touch. “What did you use to make it?”

  As she began to explain her brewing process and results, the atmosphere between them relaxed. The ache in his shoulders eased as he turned his attention to finding the best clipping. Plants, now that he could understand.

  Felicia, he couldn’t even pretend to.

  Maybe, with luck, their partnership would take root at the same time as this little plant.

  15

  The chill of the autumn air woke Felicia. Her breath fogged in front of her face as she opened her eyes, staring up at the comforting view of her wagon. On the floor next to her cot, Chubs twitched his legs and whuffed in his sleep. When she reached to press her palm against his rump, he settled but didn’t wake. He shivered.

  Pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders, Felicia rolled off her cot. The moment her stocking-clad feet kissed the wooden floor, the chill permeated them. She darted to the brazier she’d stoked before falling asleep. Last night, she and Gideon had worked so late with such single-minded focus that they’d missed supper. She’d filched a plate of food for herself and Chubs before retiring, but with the mix up in the orangery earlier that day, she hadn’t trusted her wagon to be unattended. Hence why she’d slept here instead of inside on the plush mattress.

  Once the brazier started to give off heat again, Felicia checked on the brugmansia plant. She released a breath as she ran her fingers lightly over the plant and dipped them into the soil. No frost. The brazier must not have been out for long.

  Although she knew the plant would be better off with Gideon in the orangery, she didn’t trust that it would be safe there. For all his assurances that no one would be able to sneak past the spies in the household, she still didn’t believe they were beyond their enemies’ reach. Better to leave the plant in the wagon, a small space that Chubs could guard with ease.

  As she chased her dog outside to do his morning business, Felicia wrapped her arms around herself. The sun was separating from the horizon, the looming tree line blocking out most of the light. A dusting of white coated the ground, frost that would evaporate as the sun rose higher and warmed the day.

  She surveyed the estate. The trees didn’t come directly onto the grounds. A vast, sweeping yard of grass ringed Tenwick Abbey, with copses of trees springing up around it. Anyone who entered the premises on foot would have to cross one hundred yards of lawn at the narrowest section. Any servant to glance through one of the many windows of the abbey would see the approach. It was a vast estate, so wide that Felicia couldn’t see how the servants could possibly be monitoring all areas of access. As she already spotted a few faces pass across the windows of the silent mansion, doubt uncurled in Felicia’s stomach. Could Gideon be right? Was it impossible for an enemy to infiltrate the estate?

  If so, that left only one other option: the enemy was already inside.

  A chill washed down Felicia’s spine as she herded Chubs back into the wagon. Once she ordered him to guard, she banked the coals in the brazier and shut the door.

  If the French had infiltrated the Tenwick household, she couldn’t tell Gideon. He wouldn’t believe her. She had to find proof on her own. Now, before the house awoke.

  On the guided tour that Lucy had given her when she’d arrived on Saturday, Lucy had bypassed an entire wing of the house that she claimed held, “Morgan and his assistant, Mr. Keeling’s, offices.” Although that wing of the house had held no interest to Lucy, Felicia suspected that it was the hub where the spies of the household convened. The Duke of Tenwick, after all, was entrenched in the spy effort.

  Still wearing the dress she’d slept in, the one she’d worn to church the day before, Felicia slipped through the quiet manor. It was like walking through a graveyard. Although she spotted the scattered servant from the corner of her eye, they were
like shadows. By the time she turned her head, they had already moved into another room. This early in the morning, they trudged about their duties without the cheerful chatter they engaged in during the day. The only sound Felicia heard were her muffled footsteps on the runner.

  When she reached the wing of the house containing the duke’s office, she turned the corner and nearly collided with a pair of maids deep in conversation. The pair, one old and one young, stopped their conversation immediately. They parted, forming an empty path between them as they pressed against the walls of the corridor. When they curtsied, Felicia reflexively did the same.

  Idiot! She bit the inside of her cheek and continued on as if she knew where she was going. She counted three steps before she glanced behind her. Although the maids hadn’t resumed their conversation when she’d passed, they hadn’t lingered. They might have gone anywhere.

  At least they aren’t watching me. She laid her ear against the door, ensuring no sound escaped the room within, before she slipped inside.

  The room was dark and unoccupied. Only a thin sliver of light snaked between drapes that hadn’t been properly shut all the way. The crack of light illuminated a sideboard crowded with decanters. It stretched a long finger of daylight across a vivacious painting that featured a man on horseback on the heels of his hounds as they chased a wily fox.

  What was she doing? She didn’t know the first thing about spy work, nor about the spies that riddled the Tenwick estate. How was she supposed to find a traitor in their midst?

  Her head throbbed. She meandered to the chair in front of the desk and sat, lowering her forehead into her hand. Scant inches in front of her nose was a piece of correspondence addressed to Morgan Graylocke, the Duke of Tenwick. She must have bumbled her way into his office.

  She straightened. “This is as good a place to begin as any.” After all, she couldn’t conceive of giving up. This traitor had crossed not only her country, but he had tampered with her work. That was unforgivable. She would see him to justice if it was the last thing she did.