Martha slid from the stool and walked to where her father’s boxes and crates were stacked.

He stood. “You don’t have to do that,” he said, when she went to open the first of the boxes.

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “Who better? I packed them. I know what’s in each.”

He sat back down, watching her. She was looking for something. After taking out a sheaf of papers from the first box, she put the top back on and moved to a coffin-like crate.

“You’ll have to help me with this one,” she said.

Grabbing his walking stick, he moved slowly to her side, taking the precaution of grabbing a length of iron from one of the vertical bins against the wall.

She nodded at him approvingly as he bent and used the iron as a pry bar, lifting the lid from the box.

“I wanted to make sure it wasn’t disturbed in the move,” she said, helping him lift the lid.

“It’s your father’s prototype.”

She nodded. “Bessie.”

Mounds of shaved wood were pillowed atop and on the sides of the torpedo ship. She gently pushed it away, revealing a bullet-shaped vessel four feet long. The metal had changed from a copper color to verdigris in several places, indicating that it had been used on more than one voyage.

At least Matthew hadn’t lost his in the bottom of a lake.

Placing the lid of the crate on the floor, she carefully lifted the ship from its nest.

When he moved to assist her, she shook her head.

“It’s not that heavy,” she said.

“I’m not an invalid, Martha,” he said his voice stiff.

She looked at him, her eyes widening at his comment.

“Of course you aren’t. I didn’t decline your assistance because I thought you were unable to give it.”

Her glance swept up his body and down again, leaving him to think he’d never been so thoroughly examined by a female.

“No,” she said. “I most certainly would not consider you an invalid. A man in his prime, perhaps.”

He felt the back of his neck warm.

“Besides, I’ve lifted Bessie myself numerous times.”

As Martha carried the vessel to the workbench, he grabbed his walking stick and followed, silently cursing his lurching gait.

Once seated at his workbench he reached out a hand and placed it on the curved copper snout.

“It looks like mine,” he said. “But that’s to be expected, since your father and I exchanged drawings.”

She nodded. “This is the one he was operating that last day. I still don’t know what he did that was different. I’ve examined it and tested it myself numerous times, but I haven’t discovered what changed. Perhaps you’ll be more successful.”

He didn’t say anything, merely moved his hand carefully over the body of the ship and the seams where the three sections of the ship were joined together. If the prototype was true to Matthew’s drawings, the engine run by compressed air was in the middle of the ship while the hydrostatic valve and pendulum were in the rear. At the bottom was the rudder keeping Bessie level and on course.

He wondered if it also controlled the depth at which the ship ran.

His fingers trailed over the copper vessel, hesitating on the spots of verdigris.

“Why didn’t Matthew tell you what he’d done?”

“At first he wanted to share the secret with you,” she said. “Later, when he realized you weren’t coming, he was too ill and delirious.”

He sometimes regretted what he’d done. This was one of the few cases where he wanted to make amends for an act he hadn’t performed. Yet he couldn’t have gone to Griffin House since he was in his own sickbed. Nor did he feel comfortable telling her that since it sounded as if he was begging for pity.

He reached out and touched her hand where it rested on the workbench, wordless comfort. Or perhaps an appeal for her understanding without him furnishing an explanation.

She turned her head and looked at him.

“Forgive me,” he said. Did she realize that it wasn’t the first time he said that to her?

She nodded, turning her hand over until their palms met. For a moment that’s how they remained: her standing, him sitting beside her, their hands and their gazes touching.

A sliver of time in which he had the curious thought that they communicated without words. He felt her pain and loss and wondered if she could sense his regret. Or understand his bruised pride that, even now, dictated that he offer no excuse.

She pulled her hand free and reached out to touch Bessie, her fingers smoothing over the copper as if she felt for tactile differences in the vessel.

He had a thought that had nothing to do with torpedoes, one that would have probably offended her had she known it.

What would her hands feel like on him?

“I suggest you install a wire to the stern,” she said, effectively cutting off his reverie. She pointed at the back of the ship where a small round circle had been welded. “I would have lost every single one of my vessels if I hadn’t.”

“A leash?”

“If you wish,” she said, smiling.

If he’d thought to do that, he wouldn’t have lost three of his ships and would’ve been able to reel it in when it sank. Nor would he have had to ask for volunteers among the footmen to dive for his vessel.

They treated the whole thing as a jest, which is probably how his entire staff viewed his preoccupation with a torpedo ship. The lame, penurious duke, attempting to recoup his family’s coffers by inventing a metal fish. Yet it was no more laughable than his brother traipsing through Italy armed with his brushes and his painting teacher.

He turned away, staring at the empty bays where his prototypes once rested.

By her competence she put his own incompetence into relief. He felt inept around her, an emotion he’d rarely experienced. He’d known failure before, but never this sudden need to explain his shortcomings.

He wanted her approval, a thought that startled him. He wanted Martha York to smile at him and say something in praise of his efforts or his thoughts or even his plans.

Matthew should have warned him.

My daughter is a treasure. He’d written those words more than once. He should have appended them. My daughter will befuddle you, Hamilton. She’ll make you laugh, shout, argue, and contemplate circumstances you have no business thinking.

Perhaps it would be better if she didn’t return to the boathouse. He’d muddle on without her. He’d examine Bessie at his leisure—alone—without her comments or constructive remarks. He’d done very well without Martha before. He could certainly do so again.

Why, then, did the idea of working by himself annoy him?

A pain streaking through his right side effectively silenced any contemplation of tomorrow. Smoothing his face of any expression, he moved his leg to stand. The knife had grown teeth over the past hour, gnawing into the muscles and bone.

He should have stopped working earlier. Hopefully, he hadn’t left it for too long. If he didn’t seek out Henry soon the pain was going to get worse.

Standing, he grabbed his walking stick, prayed that his leg would hold up, and looked at her.

“Shall we go?” he said.

He was being too abrupt, almost rude, but thankfully, she only nodded. Nor did she remark on the fact that his passage to the door of the boathouse was slower and more lumbering than before.

He didn’t want to look lame in front of her, damn it.

Once outside the boathouse, he realized that the day was more advanced than he’d thought. The sky was darkening to the east, a blaze of orange and red streaking across the western sky.

“It’s gotten later than I thought,” he said.

She didn’t look away, making him realize there wasn’t any compassion in her gaze. Nor was there pity. Instead, she regarded him the way a friend might look at another, without judgment.

“I’ll take you through the Duchess’s Garden,” he said. “It cuts down the distance back to the house.”

She didn’t say anything, merely joined him on the path.

The back wall of the garden was brick, with hornbeam hedges forming the other three walls. The entrance to the Duchess’s Garden was through an intricate trellis arch. He stepped aside for her to precede him.

“This is one of the gardens featured in the prints in the Morning Parlor,” she said.

He was surprised she knew that. Most people didn’t notice what was around them, but he should have known Martha wasn’t like most people.

“The garden was begun in the late seventeenth century as a kitchen garden, but now we grow our vegetables in the Potager.”

At her look, he explained. “It’s an ornamental vegetable garden closer to the kitchen. Here the area is set aside for roses, in honor of my mother. She was fond of roses, I believe.”

She glanced at him and he answered her unspoken question.

“She died when I was three months old,” he said.

“I always thought bringing you into the world led to her death,” his father stated once. His offhanded remark had been like a weight around Jordan’s neck for years, until he learned his mother had died of influenza. It wasn’t the first time he’d experienced his father’s casual cruelties and unconscious insults.

“It’s like a separate world,” she said, looking around her. “All these colors. And the scent of roses is almost intoxicating.”

“It clings to you,” he said. “If I spend any time here I can smell roses on my clothes hours later.”

“How many types are there?” she asked, walking slowly down the path.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Once, there were over a thousand. I don’t know if my brother added or subtracted from the number.”

“Was he duke for long?”

“Ten years.” Long enough to do his damage to the family coffers.

His father and brother evidently believed money was a natural province of a dukedom. Inherit one and the other magically appeared. It didn’t.

“My mother died when I was a baby,” she said.

Another commonality between them. He wanted to ask, but didn’t, if she often found herself feeling adrift in her own family.

“Will you be joining us for dinner this evening?” she asked.

Had she noted his difficulty in walking? Or had his face revealed the degree of his pain?

“Yes,” he said. Whatever it cost him, he’d be there, if for no other reason than to prove he wasn’t an invalid.

He left her at the back entrance to Sedgebrook, claiming a need to speak with his housekeeper. In actuality, he was going to use the servants’ stairs to get to his room. That way, his painful ascent wouldn’t be witnessed by his guests.

He wasn’t lame, damn it.