Chapter 15
Bathed a hundred times, brushed, combed and clipped, Rachel’s stray had been cleared of lice, and the two open sores on the legs had healed. Boasting a high glossy brown and white feathered coat, and with doe-like eyes, and a docked tail, wagging to show its pleasure, the dog presented an irresistible companion. Easy to train and loyal to the end, she slept on the floor next to Rachel’s bed. Now with the dog trotting at her heels, Rachel burst through the door of the laboratory.
“You’re late,” Anthony announced, eyes narrowed. “I’m allergic to dogs.”
The dog circled twice, flopping on the bed Rachel had made beneath the window—despite Anthony’s protestations. “You’ve told me a million times. And you are not allergic. You haven’t sneezed once in the past five days.”
“I walk twenty feet away and can still smell the dog. And how did you get my father wrapped around your finger? Never did I believe he’d allow that beast in the house. It belongs in the kennels.”
Rachel lifted her nose in the air. “Your father says she will be an excellent guard dog.”
“I noted when she ran off while we were attacked by the highwaymen. The mutt doesn’t even have a name yet.”
Rachel tossed her hair behind her shoulder. “She was kicked by a bull of a man if you remember. And I’ve decided to name her Caia Caecilia, calling her Casey for short, because she likes to sleep next to the hearth.”
“After the Roman Goddess of Fire? Why not, Dimwit, a name she can live up to?”
Rachel rubbed Casey behind the ears, reassuring the animal. “You are being provocative. Your father says she is a champion and very intelligent.” To demonstrate, Rachel rolled a bottle across the floor. The dog tore across the slippery tiles, sliding and snatching the bottle in her dazzling white teeth.
“Let it retrieve bones like a normal dog.”
His disapproval pierced her with the precision of an archer’s arrow. Rachel straightened. Anthony’s real frustration was on the negative results of his experiments. Wasn’t it? She felt herself heat from her toes to the roots of her hair, remembering the way he had touched her in the library and a million times since, finding excuses to steal kisses from her, his breath hot on her ear as he nibbled her lobe. How he shuddered when she ran her hands over his broad shoulders and muscular chest. If he touched her now, she feared she would incinerate, and if he didn’t, she’d die.
“Casey likes bottles.” Rachel threw a sock doll across the floor to demonstrate. The dog ignored it. Then she rolled a bottle. “Attack.”
The dog attached her teeth to the bottle and shook her head with a ferocious growl.
“Useful. Think of all the butterflies and sparrows the beast will take down.”
“You are too cynical and need to be less critical. This dog will protect us.”
“That’s after she runs off after an imaginary squirrel.”
The dog let go of the bottle at Anthony’s feet, dropped to the floor, resting her head on her front paws, and blinked.
With a grudge, he patted the dog. Rachel smiled. Wars were won by inches.
She hung up her coat, tied on an apron, and turned, caught Anthony staring at her with rabid intensity, just as he had at the ball when she was wearing her emerald silk, freezing her into place and melting her all at once. Kama Sutra. Oh, my. Was he thinking of those sensual images, too? A crackle of energy passed between them, hot and raw and carnal. With certainty, he had those erotic images branded on his mind.
Oh, the things he did to her without final consummation, watching her, touching her, kissing her in her most intimate places. To have to bite down on her lip, to muffle her screams. How was it possible? And didn’t she experiment with him too? Delightful, wicked torments, to experience the delicious power she had over him.
Impossible to stop the constant state of arousal she was in next to him. To sweep the bottles off the counter and demand he take her now. She cleared her throat and looked away.
A huge bouquet of flowers was set beneath the clock. She inhaled the exotic scents. Lilies, orchids, and bird-of-paradise delivered from the conservatory. A new bouquet greeted her every day since the night in the library. Her stomach fluttered. Anthony was a romantic.
But this was business now and they had experiments to perform before she returned to Boston, only days away. Her heart dipped at the thought and she shook it aside. “What are we working on today?”
Following Anthony’s instructions, Rachel soaked flannel discs in an acid solution. She compressed her lips, trying to concentrate. Anthony had conceded to her idea. “Each metal has a certain power, which is different from metal to metal, of setting the electrical fluid to motion.”
“You are so unlike the young women I know.”
“Really? Do tell.” Was he courting her? Hadn’t he accepted the dog, brought her flowers from the conservatory, gone on walks when she requested the exercise? Hadn’t he been by her side, attending balls and dinners in between working in the lab? Unpredictable.
He frowned. “We have work to do, and I’m not about to rain down further compliments on a head that is already full of confidence.”
“How disappointing. Where is Aunt Margaret?”
“She was feeling under the weather and bid us good luck on our experiments.” He took out the metal discs, the copper flashing a bright orange in the light. “I like the way you roll up your sleeves and get things done, taking pride in your work. Efficient.”
She twisted a lock of her hair. A compliment? “Go on.”
His notebook lay open. Drawn in the margin was a heart with Rachel and Anthony stenciled inside. Her toes curled. She would rip out that page and carry it home with her to treasure forever.
Anthony stacked the copper and zinc discs, tonging the acid drenched flannel between. “You are the antidote to my severe, demanding, pigheadedness. I like your observations and most important, your witty comebacks. You make me laugh.”
Regrets. The people she’d miss, Aunt Margaret, the Duke, Sebastian, the butler and Anthony. Her throat thickened. They had been more than family. Think forward to Abby, Jacob, Ethan and the baby. Leave. Don’t’ think about it, don’t look back.
But to whirl in a circle, to sample Anthony’s attention, this indulgence—even for a short time? When she walked by, she heard him inhale her hair. “I really feel we are on the brink of something that will change all mankind. Have you thought of the possibilities?” she said.
He didn’t say anything, his shoulder muscles tightened, intent on finishing the stack. Rachel clutched her chest. One two three. Attached to the top and bottom of the pile, Anthony joined the two wires. A small charge emitted. Her shoulders sank. The experiment failed.
Anthony raked his fingers through his hair. “I told you it wouldn’t work.”
“It did work. We ruled out a possibility. What do you propose next?” She refused to let him sink to despair, the same despondency she drowned in every day, knowing she would be saying goodbye.
“It’s useless. Day after day, we try repeatedly, harvesting nothing.”
She scuffed a chair closer to the cabinet and looked him right in the eye. “One of the older and wiser carpenters in the Thorne Shipyard used to tell me theories are like stars. You never really succeed in touching them with your fingers, but like the ancient seafaring men on the desert of waters, used them as their guides and discovered their path.”
“Platitudes,” Anthony groaned. “No matter how small my successes you always cheer me on. Let’s stack a higher pile.”
“That’s my Anthony, back on his problem solving. Oh, the perils of being a genius.” She wagged a finger at him. “Have you ever experienced the threat of humility?”
He offered her a hopeless grin.
“Well, wisdom is knowing what to do next. Let’s try mixing a salt and acid solution.”
“Interesting.” He compromised and dumped the existing solution to start over again. Rachel joined him at the sink, pumping water and washing the jars, and when the task was completed carried the equipment to the counter and started the process again. Anthony poured the sulfuric acid and Rachel measured in a salt brine solution, soaking new flannel discs.
Copper, flannel, zinc, were alternated and supported by three glass rods. Anthony picked up the two wires, glanced at her. “Let’s hope.”
She clapped her hands together in a prayerful pose. Please. Please. Let it work this time.
He connected the two ends and she held her breath.
Electrical fire zinged around the room like shooting stars, hurling against the walls of the laboratory. The dog barked and leaped.
Rachel had almost forgotten to breathe, for her entire body steeped with the most powerful and intense sensation she’d ever known. It was something like frenzied hunger, and something like fulfillment. It was wonder and awe and yearning and fear captured in a bold new world. Her chest expanded with it until pressed against her lungs, emptying them of breath. There were no words other than to have Anthony at her side and sit on the edge of the heavens at the dawn of creation.
She threw her hands into the air and cried out. “Oh, Anthony, you are magnificent. Do you realize what you have discovered?”
“We,” he emphasized and she loved the ring of that, “We have discovered the first method for the generation of a sustained electrical current, and creating a high energy source.”
He reached out one long arm reached out and caught her to him, like a lion interrupting the pulsing rush of an eagle. “If you don’t want me to fall in love with you, you’re going to have to start not looking so lovely. Maybe have the seamstress sew a couple of potato sacks together.”
She widened her eyes.
“I’m not jesting. You’re too beautiful.”
He pushed her back until she bumped against the cabinet. His mouth skimmed her jaw, down her throat, his teeth grazing her skin and the shadow of his beard scratching her.
Before I go...
She pushed at him, holding his hands. A part of her told her that she should stop, that she should think this through, but the other voices in her head drowned her out. She wanted him more than she wanted to breathe.
“I want to be with you.”
Tension in the air snapped like the rigging on a full-blown sail. “You know this is illogical,” he said.
“Sometimes it is good to be illogical.”