“In that case”—she pointed to the door behind him—“that’s your room.”
His gaze roved her face, reading her expression—the complex mix of emotions that she was sure was there to see. “Thank you,” he murmured, his lips curving in a small wry smile. “And on that note, I’ll bid you goodnight.” He stepped back, his lips quirking, his eyes still locked with hers. “Sleep well.” He saluted her and turned away.
She watched as he strode to the door she’d indicated, opened it, and without looking back, stepped inside and quietly shut the door.
She stared at the wooden panel.
Her restless, reckless inner self railed, urging her to walk to that door and go inside. If she was bold and brazen, she was fairly sure he wouldn’t deny her, not a second time.
“But that wouldn’t be fair,” she murmured to the darkness.
Not to him or, indeed, to her.
Because he was right. She needed to think, to make a definite and fully considered decision, and to get to that point, she needed to be away from him.
She breathed in, then pushed out a breath and walked on to her room.
On reaching her door, she opened it and went inside; obviously, she needed to think, and she most definitely would.
CHAPTER9
At nine o’clock the next morning, Sophy paused in the doorway of the breakfast parlor and smiled appreciatively. Martin, Oliver, and Charlie were already seated around the oval table. While Charlie was dressed for the country, Martin and Oliver, perforce, were clad in the evening clothes they’d worn the previous night. Despite the incongruity, both managed to look rakishly handsome in an attractively disheveled way.
Luckily for Sophy, she’d had the wardrobe she maintained at the manor to choose from, and she’d elected to wear a dark-blue twill dress with turquoise piping adorning the collar and certain seams.
She took in the plethora of dishes lined up along the sideboard. Clearly, Mrs. Elliot had risen to the challenge of having three gentlemen to feed. Judging by the mounds of food on the men’s plates, their appetites were sufficiently hearty to satisfy even the Elliots. The couple loved to have people to serve and had clearly been starved of the chance for too long.
As if sensing her presence, Martin glanced at the doorway, saw her, and met her gaze. Interest and an unvoiced question shone in his eyes.
She let her smile deepen and walked in; when the men made to rise, she waved them back. “Good morning,” she said, and they returned the greeting and her smile.
She claimed her accustomed place at one end of the table. Apparently having guessed which chair was hers—or more likely, having asked Elliot—Martin was on her right, with Oliver beside him and Charlie opposite Oliver.
Elliot rushed in with a fresh pot of tea and made a production of pouring her first cup exactly as she liked it.
She nodded her thanks, picked up the cup, and sipped, then set down the cup and reached for the toast rack. “I hope everyone slept well.”
From beneath her lashes, she glanced at Martin, but it was Charlie who grumbled, “I might have slept, but I’m still having trouble trying to sort out what the devil’s going on.”
“You and all of us,” Oliver returned.
Although he briefly met her gaze, Martin refused to rise to her bait and returned to demolishing a mound of kedgeree. “Perhaps we should review what we think has happened to this point and see how Vince Murchison and his men fit into our picture.”
She nodded. “For instance, are all the accidents within this Vince person’s ability to arrange?”
“Also,” Oliver pointed out, “Charlie had a key, but he still has his and, presumably, hasn’t lent it to the Murchisons.”
Charlie shook his head. “Not likely.”
“Well, then,” Oliver continued, “who else has a key—the old key to the steelworks? Because whoever arranged the earlier accidents had to have one.”
Martin glanced at Sophy, then looked across the table at Charlie. “I assume your brother also has a key.”
“He does,” Charlie confirmed. “But I wouldn’t like the chances of anyone talking him into lending it to them. Very upright and correct, is Edward. He would want to know chapter and verse about why they wanted it, and even then, I honestly can’t see him doing it—letting someone other than family borrow the key—regardless of their reasons.”
Martin let the point lie and, with Sophy and Oliver assisting, ran through the list of accidents in order, this time describing each in sufficient detail to allow them to consider how it was engineered.
Charlie listened attentively and asked several pertinent questions. After Martin outlined what had happened with the Atlas dray, Charlie said, “The type of accidents means that whoever actually did the deeds knows their way around a steelworks, and I can confirm that several of Vince’s favorite men were once to be found working the floor at some of the larger steelworks about town.”
