Page 20 of One Dangerous Desire
Rex would have preferred something stronger. Whiskey. Brandy. Black coffee, at the very least. Instead, he nodded agreeably toward Ashworth.
“Are these the plans for your hotel?” Thorndike followed the duke’s example and remained upright, prowling around the perimeter of the room. He’d stopped at Ashworth’s desk and stood staring down at the blueprint of the hotel.
“That’s the Pinnacle.” Rex moved to the opposite side of the desk. He didn’t bother glancing down at the plans. He’d studied them for so long, the shapes and lines of the building were imprinted in his mind’s eye.
“Is this your final venture, Mr. Leighton?” A frown crinkled Thorndike’s brow. “Thepinnacleof your achievements? I’d rather thought you’d only just begun to make your mark.”
“Oh, there will be more.” Rex rarely shared his long-term goals with anyone, expecting to hear himself denounced as unreasonable or his dreams deemed unachievable. He required no one’s encouragement to pursue his objectives. Drive burned inside him like a constantly fed coal furnace. “But I plan to make the hotel the crown of my achievements. As well as my home.”
“You’ll live there?” Ashworth drew up to the desk and perused the plans again. He reached out a skeletal hand and pointed to the arched top of the building. “At the top, I take it.”
“That’s the plan.” They weren’t the first aristocrats to scoff at his notion of living in the hotel. Every time he’d told a nobleman of his plans, he’d stared at Rex as if he’d gone mad. Apparently, gentlemen didn’t reside in businesses of their own making.
“Is it safe?” Thorndike’s question was a familiar one. Rex found that curiosity about electricity was often matched by fear of it.
“When installed correctly, used properly, and generated with safeguards in place, electricity is completely safe, Mr. Thorndike. I intend to employ a team of electrical engineers full time at the hotel, as well as a staff of men experienced with maintaining dynamo generators.”
Thorndike tipped his head to indicate he’d heard the explanation, though Rex sensed he hadn’t quite convinced him.
Ashworth snapped his gaze toward the door, and a few moments later a maid pushed in, not with the tea but the guest they’d been awaiting.
“Mr. Sedgwick to see you, Your Grace.”
Rex’s stomach no longer tumbled. It plummeted.
Aside from grainy images in newspapers, he hadn’t laid eyes on Seymour Sedgwick in six years. The man strode in chest first, his stride clipped and feet planted wide with each step, as if he were marching down Fifth Avenue, leading a parade dedicated to his greatness.
“Duke, thank you for the invitation.” He headed straight for Ashworth, his hand stuck out ahead of him. Ashworth exchanged niceties with Sedgwick and then turned to introduce Rex and Thorndike.
Before the duke could say another word, Sedgwick’s gaze settled on Rex’s face, and the man’s skin took on a sickly pallor before slowly heating in a splotchy flush. He raised the same hand he’d held out to Ashworth and pointed in Rex’s direction. “What ishedoing here?”
“This is Rex Leighton,” Ashworth offered congenially. “He’s the other party interested in the property, Mr. Sedgwick. We thought it best to have the two of you here to discuss the merits of your ventures. My friend Thorndike has a difficult decision to make.”
Staring into Sedgwick’s eyes, Rex couldn’t help but note how much their shade resembled May’s. They even creased in fury at the edges as hers did. Her anger had arrowed straight into his gut, struck a lifetime of regrets. But Sedgwick’s anger could destroy him. This man knew his sins. His secrets.
They glared at each other across a tense silence. Thorndike’s and Ashworth’s gazes flitted between them, as if the men expected the outbreak of a brawl.
Rex crossed the room, hand outstretched. “Mr. Sedgwick, your reputation precedes you.”
Sedgwick’s mouth quirked at the edge and then opened, his jaw working as if he was chewing over the perfect condemnation to bring Rex and all of his plans crashing down.
He shocked Rex by clasping his hand. “Never heard of you, Mr. Leighton. No reputation preceding you, apparently.”
The duke hooted one of his strange chortles and slapped Sedgwick on the back. “Nonsense, Sedgwick. Leighton has been cutting quite a swath in London’s business circles, and you’ve been in the city for many months with your daughter, haven’t you? Surely you’ve heard of such a daring fellow American and entrepreneur.”
Sedgwick stared at his host with a stony expression. “Not at all, but we haven’t come to compare reputations. Have we, gentlemen?”
“No.” Thorndike’s voice boomed. “Ideas are what I’m after.”
A housemaid wheeled in a tray covered with teacups daintier than any of the men in the room and piles of those damnably tiny finger sandwiches the English were so fond of.
Tea wasn’t suitable for consumption, in Rex’s opinion, but being handed a cup provided a useful distraction. Holding onto the fragile porcelain without crushing it or spilling its contents gave him something to focus on, rather than the mystery of why Sedgwick failed to expose him when he had the chance. The man appeared truly shocked to see him, which meant May hadn’t spoken to her father of their encounter. That fact pleased him to an unreasonable degree.
Sedgwick’s strident tones echoed in the room as he launched into a pitch for a new London branch of his department store chain. Rex suspected that neither Ashworth nor Thorndike knew of his stateside failures, as the newspapers had painted it as a change of venue for Sedgwick’s store, rather than a downfall.
The man’s bluster hung in the air like London’s pea-soup fog. Rex refused to sit and be bombarded. He strode across the room, pulled the thick green drapes covering the room’s only window aside, and stared out onto the rows of whitewashed townhouses. He fought the urge to fix his gaze on the spot, just a few footsteps away from Ashworth’s front door, where he’d clashed with May.
Other than eye color, nothing about Sedgwick reminded him of his daughter. The man smiled a good deal, but his curved lips carried none of the sincere pleasure of May’s grins.Damnation. He had to forget the woman. Even as he stood pondering her merits, he had a list of marriageable English noblewomen tucked in his waistcoat pocket. Ladies whose connections to men like Ashworth would bring him access and favor.
