Tempting The Rival (Scandals and Spies Book 3)

by Leighann Dobbs

  He wanted to say something debonair or charming, something to solidify her choice. Speaking of a special license wouldn’t impress her, and if he tried to propose now, he’d probably end up begging her to have him.

  Tomorrow. He would propose tomorrow morning, when he woke with her in his arms. The start of many, many more such days to come.

  27

  Gideon did not wake with Felicia in his arms. Since he had fallen asleep that way, with her head nestled against his chest after they’d snuck into his room, he felt her absence acutely.

  He bolted upright. He hadn’t shut the curtains last night and the early morning sun drifted through the frosted glass. Leafy green plants—the remnants of the orangery—occupied every inch of space. He usually tended them in the early morning before he left his room. Not today. He had to find Felicia.

  As he swung his legs over the side of the bed, flinching as his feet touched the chilly floorboards, he tried not to panic. Too many questions swirled through his mind. Why had she left? Did she regret what she’d done? Hadn’t he convinced her that they felt right together? For a moment, he wondered if it had all been an achingly-realistic dream. Her side of the bed was rumpled. Her pillow still smelled like her floral soap. She’d been here.

  So why hadn’t she wanted to face him this morning?

  Maybe she was feeling uncertain of where they stood. The Lord knew he was. A lump formed in his throat as he thought of proposing to her. What if she said no? In his mind, their marriage was a foregone conclusion, but Felicia was a free spirit. He didn’t want her to feel as though he were chaining her. Nor did he want to push her away. Lud, he’d never done this before. Perhaps he should read up on the best method of proposing. Some poor sap somewhere must have compiled the research.

  He stood, stretching, his mind awhirl and his heart beating fast. Flowers. Women loved gifts of flowers, didn’t they? Unfortunately, with his orangery out of commission, his flower supply was limited. Only the hardier plants had survived the toxic smoke and cold, and even they conserved their strength by eschewing flowers. As his gaze passed over the potted plants assembled, he found one small pink flower in the midst. He clipped it away with his pruning shears. Considering that the plant it came from was hanging onto its health by a thread, he wouldn’t have let the plant keep the flower, in any case.

  Smiling, he quickly dressed and carried his gift as he went in search of Felicia.

  Something brushed Felicia’s hair as she locked up her wagon. Turning to face Gideon, she raised her hand to her simple coiffure and found something plant-like in her locks.

  “Careful,” Giddy warned. “You’ll crush the petals.”

  A flower. He’d brought her a flower. Where had he found it?

  She searched his gaze. His green eyes sparkled this morning, brighter against the charcoal gray of his greatcoat. He tucked his hands into the pockets, hunching his shoulders almost sheepishly. He hadn’t taken the time to shave this morning, his stubble dark against his skin and his uncombed hair sticking up in all directions.

  When he opened his mouth to speak, she hurried to say something first. “Thank you.”

  They’d spent the night together. It had been a wonderful, magical time when she’d forgotten, for a moment, the reality of their situation. She didn’t want to hear him retract his love confession—or worse, propose to her due to some misguided gentlemanly notion of manners.

  She held up the bottle in her hand, hoping to distract him with that. “I thought we ought to take this to Mr. Keeling to have it tested.” After all, if it worked, then her mission was complete. What was the point of speaking of their time together if it was soon to be cut short?

  Giddy looked as though he’d like to say something else. After a moment, he ran his hand through his hair and muttered, “What about breakfast first? I don’t know if he rises this early.”

  Nodding, she strode with him back toward the manor. She didn’t know how she would survive the morning repast without diverting the conversation away from personal matters. The only thing that might hold Gideon’s interest for so long was botany.

  Such as the flower in her hair…

  With a smile that was much less forced, she asked, “What plant did you find that still had a flower in it? I imagine most would be in a sorry state…”

  Felicia danced from foot to foot on the rug in front of Mr. Keeling’s desk. She didn’t dare glance at Gideon. Somehow, she’d managed to keep him occupied for the duration of their meal. Now, with the focus on work, she didn’t want to remind him of their time together last night.

  Mostly because it rekindled the memory in her, as well. If she were to thrive without his arms around her and the taste of his kisses, then she needed to forget that they had ever been intimate. A task easier said than done. She focused on work.

  Mr. Keeling, a thin man with a weak chin and forgettable features, cut the seal on the serum and popped off the cork. He sniffed at the contents and raised an eyebrow. “Are you certain this one will work?” He looked to Gideon for confirmation.

  Felicia gritted her teeth. She was the chemist. She should be used to it by now. She tucked her fists behind her back to hide her irritation. “No, we aren’t certain. That’s why we’d like to test it.”

  Why did she seem to have this conversation every time they appeared with a version of the serum? Didn’t anyone in the Tenwick household understand the scientific process? She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

  Keeling glanced at her. If he noticed her annoyance, he didn’t react to it. He nodded once. “Very well.” He swung his gaze back to Gideon again. “Ask me for my mother’s name. I was writing a letter to her when you walked in. On the back will have her name and address. So you know I’m telling the truth.”

  Felicia bristled, even as Giddy loped around the side of the paper-heaped desk to search for the missive in question. To her astonishment, the spy returned his attention to her with a quizzical look.

  “How much of this should I ingest?” He hadn’t been present for the other trials, beyond finding them subjects willing to imbibe and be questioned.

  The hot, prickly feeling in her chest subsided somewhat. She relaxed her hostile pose, her shoulders falling from around her ears. “A small dose will do. A few drops or a mouthful at most.”

  Carefully, Keeling tipped out a few drops of the serum into his fingertips. He sucked them off. Making a face, he muttered, “Bitter.”

  Giddy exchanged a wry glance with Felicia as he rounded the desk once more. “Next time, we’ll add honey,” he quipped, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Are you ready?”

  Examining the bottle, Keeling twisted his mouth. “I don’t feel any different.”

  “Give it a moment or two to take effect.” It wasn’t instantaneous, after all, no more than someone became instantly intoxicated from a sip of wine.

  “What is the status of the orangery repairs?” Giddy asked, leaning against the wall as they waited.

  Keeling, who apparently wasn’t very keen to wait, poured another drop onto his finger and licked it off. “I’m waiting for your brother to sign off on the glass we’ll need to purchase. It is an exorbitant sum. I’m not certain we’ll be able to have enough delivered before winter sets in. It might be best to wait for spring.”

  Giddy sighed, but didn’t argue. He looked disappointed. Since Felicia couldn’t begin to fathom the amount of money that went into building such an edifice, she couldn’t think of a way to comfort him, other than to focus on work.

  “What’s your mother’s name?” she asked, her voice casual.

  Keeling glanced at her, a small smile playing at his lips, but ignored the question. He licked at a few more drops. She took that to mean that the serum hadn’t yet taken effect.

  To Giddy, the man said, “If you need a new laboratory set up, I’m sure we can find a suitable room in the abbey to accommodate you. Heaven knows there are enough rooms in this monstrosity.”

  Privately, she agre
ed.

  “It will have to do, for now. But it won’t do as a permanent solution. Plants need sunlight in order to thrive, so I’ll need to keep the glass. I’ll need to reproduce more of the brugmansia plants if we’re to replicate the serum in any significant quantity. That will take time.”

  A lot of time, but he didn’t need her for that. In fact, given the way he’d tended to the plants thus far, she would only be in the way.

  On the heels of his statement, Giddy added, “It would help if you told us your mother’s name.”

  Keeling’s mouth thinned. He shook his head. “I’d rather not speak of her.”

  Giddy and Felicia shared an excited glance. That was a different reaction than before. Had the serum compelled him to say something truthful? Even if it wasn’t the answer to the question they desired, it was a sign that the serum was starting to take effect.

  The spy, apparently, didn’t think it was working fast enough, because he took a swig from the bottle, corked it, and set it on his desk. Felicia cringed. Coupled with the slow drops he’d been dosing himself with, it might be too much. She didn’t know the side effects of the serum yet, aside from those that accompanied the brugmansia plant—headache, nausea, dizziness, memory loss, heightened suggestibility.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, afraid to know the answer.

  Keeling’s color changed. His cheeks flushed, but the rest of his complexion turned waxen. Beads of sweat jumped out on his forehead. He swayed on his feet and groped for the edge of the desk behind him, which he leaned on heavily.

  Oh, dear. Would they need to fetch a physician?

  “My head tingles.” He raised his hand to his forehead. His words were slurred. “I can’t think right. There’s a fog in my head.”

  To be expected when he drank that much at once. Felicia pressed her lips together, worried.

  Giddy, on the other hand, focused on their task. “Can you recall your mother’s name?”

  “Caroline.” The man gasped for air like a fish. “Caroline Keeling, born Caroline Weston. She came from a big family, but she was the only daughter. I hate my uncles, wretched pigs who would rob their own sister blind, but she doesn’t see it and continues to welcome them into her home, feed and clothe them when they’re down on their luck. Why, currently—”

  Gideon cut off the spy’s tirade by clapping his hand over the man’s mouth. “That’s enough. We got what we wanted. The serum works.”

  The warm feeling of triumph in her chest fizzled into grief as she realized that her mission had come to an end. She had no excuse to stay.

  The moment Gideon lifted his hand, Keeling babbled again.

  “Thank you. I have no idea why I told you all that. I thought of my mother and it spilled out.”

  Giddy pressed his hand to Keeling’s mouth again, the most expedient method of silencing him, it seemed. Was it a flaw that the drinkers of the serum couldn’t stop talking? Perhaps it was due to Mr. Keeling having ingested so much of it. While irritating, it didn’t seem like an adverse side effect from the point of view of the Crown spies. They would collect more information, albeit most of it useless.

  As he stood toe to toe with the much shorter Keeling, Gideon’s posture stiffened. “Do you work for the French?” His voice was like steel. He lifted his hand.

  Keeling’s eyes turned as round as saucers. “Of course I don’t! What in bloody Hell are you talking about? We work for the Crown, man! Against the French.”

  Gideon silenced the spy once more in order to say, “We’ve had far too many accidents and close calls, not just in the orangery. The fire, switched labels on dangerous chemicals, and someone tried to kill Miss Albright with a falling brick while we were in Locksley the other day. It’s more than coincidence. Someone is trying to stop us from completing this serum and the only people who know of our mission are the household spies.”

  For a moment, when Giddy lifted his hand and stepped away, Keeling appeared to be too flabbergasted for words. The first ones he managed to splutter were, “I’ll handle it.” He raised a hand to his head as he tried to stand straight and swayed. “After I sleep this off. It will cease after a while, won’t it? If it doesn’t—”

  Felicia cut him off. “It’s the same as being intoxicated. You’ll probably have a headache when you wake, as well.”

  Nodding, he leaned heavily on the desk as he rounded it. “I’ll make a note to myself then so I don’t forget.”

  Probably a wise decision.

  He babbled as he attempted to make the note, but his hand shook to such an extent that he couldn’t put the words down on the sheet of paper. He looked to Gideon. “Perhaps you ought to make the note. I would, you see, but…”

  Giddy took the pen from him without complaint and bent over the desk to scrawl the note. Neither man paid any attention to Felicia.

  This was it. The serum worked. The French spy would soon be ousted by men more capable than Felicia in that area. Gideon could replicate the serum at will, now that he’d watched her do it. He had an impeccable memory for those kinds of things.

  And Felicia… she wasn’t needed here. It was time to move on.

  Ignoring the gaping chasm in her chest, she reached up to pluck out the flower in her hair. A small, pretty pink bloom. She left it on the corner of the desk, a silent goodbye.

  She slipped away without drawing the eye of either man.

  28

  Gideon’s head ached from Keeling’s incessant chatter by the time he finished jotting down the facts as he knew them about the previous sabotage and murder attempts. The only thing Giddy learned in the interim was that the fire in Felicia’s room had been deliberately set from the outside. He didn’t know how such a thing was possible considering the guest quarters resided on the second story, but he would have liked to have been informed before now. Perhaps he would have believed Felicia and they could have addressed the problem sooner.

  Rubbing his eyes, Giddy straightened only to find the room empty save for him and the babbling spy. His heart flipped in his chest, an acutely uncomfortable feeling. Where was Felicia? As he spotted the flower he’d given her lying on the edge of the desk, his entire body chilled.

  He had to find her.

  “Are you well enough to make it to your room unassisted?”

  Keeling, cut off in the middle of discussing his collection of seashells, blinked a few times before he answered, “I think I might take a nap here, in my office.”

  Unlike Morgan’s office, Keeling’s was a cramped square space with little room for his desk, lone chair, and rug. There was no place for him to stretch out to sleep. Giddy bit the inside of his cheek as he realized that he couldn’t leave the poor man there.

  Without asking permission, Giddy hoisted the older man to his feet and bore the brunt of his weight. “No, you won’t. Come, let’s get you to your room.”

  He hurried Keeling along even though the man’s legs seemed to be made of rubber. He didn’t have time to waste. He had to find Felicia before…

  He didn’t want to think about what she could be doing.

  Unfortunately, he was unable to avoid it. As he made his way to Keeling’s room, they passed a window peeking out into the circular drive in the front of the abbey. A woman busily hitched Felicia’s wagon to a mule. The black spec of her dog romped nearby, spooking the mule and making the task more cumbersome.

  She might be going to sell her perfumes in Locksley village again.

  Or she might be leaving permanently. He didn’t have her direction. If she drove away, he would have no means of finding her again.

  I can’t. At that moment, everything inside him aligned like the gears of one of his sister-in-law’s inventions. He couldn’t let Felicia leave, not without a fight—not after last night. He respected her, cherished her, admired her. Damn it all, he loved her and he couldn’t let her drive away without so much as a goodbye. She might not react well to a proposal, given her responses to date, but he couldn’t let her leave without try
ing to keep her in his life. She had to feel the same way about him. He didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t.

  He stopped a muscular woman wearing an apron with the Tenwick crest. “Mr. Keeling is feeling ill. Will you see him to his room? And please ignore anything he says. He isn’t in his right mind at the moment.”

  “Ah,” she said, a knowing expression on her face. “Got that potion to work, did you? My husband was one of the other testers. Had a nasty headache the next day. I’ll take care of Keeling.”

  That was all he needed to hear. He handed over the babbling man, whose voice had hoarsened until he was only decipherable with considerable effort. The moment the maid had her shoulder braced beneath Keeling’s arm, Giddy raced away.

  He didn’t have much time.

  Tearing through the manor and down the stairs, he barely heard anything aside from the thunder of his own heart. He knocked into Lucy along the way, earning a gasp from her and Charlie and nearly getting raked by Antonia’s claws as she took to the air. He twisted away just in time, but didn’t stop. Not even for the threats Lucy hollered in his wake. He had to reach Felicia.

  As he burst into the cold open air, Felicia opened the door to her wagon to usher Chubs inside. She shut it and bounded up to the driver’s seat. The second her rear kissed the wood, she flicked the reins. The mule let out a disgruntled groan and lumbered into action.

  Giddy’s heart turned into a hard knot in his throat. No. He couldn’t let her get away. Heedless to how it looked, he loped after the wagon. Neat trees, devoid of their leaves, lined the long drive toward the road. There was only space for one vehicle at a time, and the wagon was wider than most carriages. It made for treacherous footing as he dashed around the side. He slipped and skidded but barreled on despite his precarious balance.