Business, some part of his brain insisted.This is supposed to be about business.
Sadly, the majority of his mind was already otherwise engaged.
Sophy stared at the man—the gentleman—standing just inside her laboratory as her wits reeled disconcertingly and her senses all but swooned.
The latter shocked her to her toes.
She wasnota susceptible female—she never had been—yet her eyes simply would not look away, and her attention remained riveted on him while she drank in each and every visual detail.
He was tall—somewhere over six feet of long, rangy, well-built male. He was wearing a black top hat; as she watched, he tipped his head and removed the hat. His hair was dark with the faintest of waves and long enough to brush the collar at his nape. He was carrying an ebony cane with a finely wrought silver head, and his black wool overcoat hung from his broad shoulders in a way that only the most expensive garments did. Every item of clothing she could see—black suit, ivory shirt, gray-patterned waistcoat, neatly arranged stock of a paler gray, and well-polished boots—fitted the image of a wealthy gentleman, and the diamond that flashed in the gold ring on the little finger of his right hand completed the picture.
Yet it wasn’t his figure that captivated her and held her speechless, breathless, and close to mindless.
His face was that of a fallen angel, with broad brow, black slanted eyebrows, and deep yet well-set eyes of a shade that reminded her of rich burnt caramel. Those eyes were framed by black lashes that had no business being so thick and lush, and his heavy lids, combined with his lean cheeks, patrician nose, thin, mobile lips, and sculpted chin, contributed to an expression of lazy, good-natured, faintly amused, confidently relaxed benevolence.
She was perfectly certain that whoever he was, he was not benign, much less benevolent.
His gaze held hers—effortlessly, commandingly.
Everything about him screamed danger, yet all she wanted was to move closer and learn more.
Like a moth to a flame.
The thought jarred her. Her wits jerked back into the ascendancy, and she registered the oddity of him being there.
She managed a frown and, with suitably imperious crispness, demanded, “Who the devil are you?”
His eyes didn’t leave her face. “Cynster. Martin Cynster.”
She blinked and remembered… “Oh. Yes. You wrote.”
“Four times.”
She remembered his letters quite well. She’d read all of them. Several times each. She forced herself to nod. “I apologize for not replying. Yet.”
She should have known better than to let such a persistently eloquent—and curiosity-engaging—offer to buy the steelworks slide, yet while she’d told herself to respond with her standard rejection, she simply hadn’t.
Yet.
She met his eyes and tipped up her chin. “I fear I’ve been distracted.”
From the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker—a subtle change in the color of the flame shooting upward from the mouth of the third converter, the one she’d been monitoring. She turned her head and squinted, senses and wits redirected. “I’m not interested in selling the steelworks…”
Something’s wrong.
“Damn!” She dove for the speaking-trumpet attached to the wall beneath the window. She seized the instrument, raised it, and yelled, “Hinckley! Shut Betsy down! Stop the feed and throttle the blow!”
She waited only to see her foreman racing toward the controls, then rehung the trumpet and ran for the door.
The gentleman—Cynster—had the sense to smoothly step out of her way. “You name your converters?”
As she rushed past, despite them not touching, a frisson of awareness swept over her, simply because she’d got too close to his flame. Setting her jaw, she pushed through the door and, over her shoulder, flung him an arrogant look. “Of course.”
Then she hurried down the steep metal stairs, disturbingly aware that he followed close behind. She didn’t have time to bother with him. On reaching the floor, she strode rapidly to where Hinckley and his men were turning the heavy valve to close down the stream of heated air that had been feeding the fire in Betsy’s belly.
Hinckley glanced at her. “Off entirely or…?”
“Hold it to a simmer.” She continued past Betsy, making for the other side of the massive converter. “I’m hoping I’ve caught it in time to be salvageable.”
