Page 21 of One Dangerous Desire
“We’ll hear from you now, Mr. Leighton,” Ashworth called from the center of the room. Sedgwick had taken a seat next to Thorndike, and the duke lounged against the front edge of his desk.
Discussing his plans invigorated him. If anything, Rex had learned to temper his enthusiasm when speaking of the hotel. Now careful words mattered more than ever. Ashworth and Thorndike were the two men who could set his plans in motion.
He positioned himself where Sedgwick’s hard glare was out of his line of sight and began to describe the project that had occupied his mind for months.
After listening a moment, Ashworth interjected, “Do you have any thoughts about Mr. Sedgwick’s venture?”
Sedgwick shifted in his chair, exhaling a noisy sigh. Rex cast his gaze toward May’s father. Sedgwick might have been a bastard to him in the past, but the faltering entrepreneur was fighting for his future too. Until May married, the man’s fortunes, or lack thereof, would impact her life as well.
Rex rolled his shoulders back and pivoted toward Ashworth. “As a project, the Pinnacle has the potential to exceed any success Mr. Sedgwick might expect with a department store in Mayfair. There is a Fortnum and Mason department store not two blocks from the site in question that would bring Sedgwick’s serious competition.”
Who was he to worry about May Sedgwick’s future? She would marry some duke or earl and go on with her glittering life as a titled lady.
He’d marry his own aristocratic lady and build the finest hotel London had ever seen. Acquiring Thorndike’s property would be the first step.
“OH, MISS, THEY’LLhave those colors everywhere. You know how particular your father is about his white carpet.” Just as the housekeeper whined the words in an ear-piercing screech, Poppy and Hyacinth Entwhistle, twin neighbor girls that May was teaching to paint in watercolor, jumped and skidded their paint brushes across paper. A matching pair of pale blue eyes went as round as the balloons of colored water splattered on the table between them. Not, May was careful to note, on the off-white rug her father had chosen for their parlor.
“It’s all right, Mrs. Campbell. I’ll keep an eye on them. And the furnishings.”
Before withdrawing, the housekeeper cast a fearsome glance first at Poppy and then at her sister.
Hyacinth blew aside a strand of auburn hair that seemed determined to escape the yellow ribbon holding her tresses back. Before returning to her painting, she squinted angrily at the closed door. “Forgive me for saying it, miss, but she’s frightful.”
“She’s overprotective,” May countered.
“Of the carpet,” Poppy offered in her most strident tone. “What consequence is carpet compared to art?”
May couldn’t disagree, no matter how clearly she envisioned her father’s face mottling with rage at the thought of two eleven-year-olds besmirching his pristine rug.
“Wouldn’t it come out with bit of soap, in any case?” Hyacinth was the practical one.
May leaned in to whisper. “Actually, it does. I’ve spilled a bit myself, and it cleans up beautifully.” She’d been using the room as a makeshift art studio for months.
The girls’ chorus of giggles vied with the sounds of a commotion in the main hallway. Her father had come home, it seemed, and while she couldn’t make out what he was shouting about, he was less than pleased.
May glanced at the mantel clock. “Perhaps we should start cleaning up, ladies. Your mama will be expecting you back by tea time.” Though the girls lived just two townhouses down, and her arrangement to teach them remained an informal one with no firm stopping time, May was determined to shield the twins from her father’s ire.
Their giggles dropped in pitch to a series ofohsandmust we’s.Lips protruded, shoulders sagged, and Poppy rolled her eyes. “I’ve only just started on this pony.”
The tawny brown blob on Poppy’s paper looked more like a grouse at the moment, but May trusted that with a few more layers of color and a bit of shading, it would soon reveal a steed to rival Mr. Stubbs’s famous equine portraits in the National Gallery.
As she carefully placed their canvases on a side table to dry, the girls collected palettes, brushes, and jars of murky water.
When a knock sounded at the door, May jumped and both girls looked up at her quizzically.
Mrs. Campbell stepped in. “Your father wishes to see you in his office upstairs, miss.” She glanced down at the Entwhistle girls with more tenderness than she’d shown moments before. “Shall I escort the young ones back home?”
“Would you?” May rested a hand on each girl’s shoulder. “I’ll see you next week, my dears.”
Two auburn heads nodded in unison before Hyacinth cast a wary gaze at May.
“It’s all right. Go along with Mrs. Campbell.”
In the hallway, the raised voices of Mr. Graves and May’s father carried down from upstairs. As the housekeeper buttoned up the sisters in their overcoats, the sound of glass shattering made them all turn gazes toward the ceiling above.
May bustled the girls toward the front door and then rushed up to her father’s office.
She stood outside the closed door a moment, hands at her waist, wondering exactly how to approach the maelstrom. Inside his office, her father was raging at Mr. Graves, but another man’s name rang on his lips. In the few minutes she stood listening, he repeated the nameLeightonalmost as many times as she’d repeated it in her head since meeting the man again.
