Saving the Scientist (The Restitution League #2)(7)
“There have been others.” Silly, incompetent little men frightened off by the mere wave of a handgun. “I’ve handled things this far, and I will continue to do so.”
Why then did she wish he could persuade her? It wasn’t just the memory of his hard, strong body. Well, yes, it was.
She’d never had someone to lean on, literally or figuratively. Curse him for bringing that particular deficit to her attention. She was much happier not knowing, not imagining what a relief it would be like to share her burdens.
He acknowledged her statement with a nod, but he didn’t look pleased about it. “If you insist.” He reached into his coat and pulled out a card, thrusting it toward her.
Careful not to brush against his fingers, she plucked it by the very edge.
“We help people,” he explained, as it was obvious she couldn’t read it in the dark. “Retrieving lost items is my speciality.”
She palmed the card, wishing she could ignore the way his warmth infused the thick paper. “Thank you, but I have nothing in need of finding.”
“Yet.”
Ada raised her eyebrows. “I have things under complete control. I have a plan, Mr. Sweet, a well-considered plan.” She turned her back to him, reaching for the door handle before she could change her mind. “Good bye.”
She wrenched the handle, remembering to shove her hip against the door as she swung it open. With the autumn damp, it stuck in a most annoying manner. She didn’t need his help. Didn’t want the strange, breathless feelings, the shaking legs, the desire—that damned physical desire—she’d ignored for so long.
Didn’t want to know what she’d missed all those years, married to an older man, with an older man’s soft, aging body.
Yet she couldn’t help staring out into the empty yard, eyes straining for one last glimpse of the first well-made man she’d ever touched.
Though the night was so dark even her workshop was barely visible in the back corner of the grounds, she stared out, until she was shivering so hard her teeth chattered. Only then did she drag herself up the stairs in her damp dress, to her lonely bed.
Sometimes the price of being an unconventional woman in a most conventional world seemed far too high.
*
Zinc chloride. That would do it.
Ada bolted upright in bed. She fumbled on the nightstand for the matches to light the lamp. If she didn't jot down her thoughts immediately, they’d be lost by morning.
She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and scratched out a reminder in the notebook she kept at her bedside for just such occurrences. The smallest amount of zinc chloride should slow corrosion of the anode, making the energy transfer more stable.
Exactly what she needed to buffer her reaction to Edison Sweet.
She tossed down her pencil. Though she knew full well why that particular analogy had cropped up, she didn't choose to dwell on it. She blew out the lamp and flopped back down in bed, yanking the covers up to her chin.
The comparison was an apt one. Chemical reactions behaved in much the same way humans related to each other.
Not that she had a terrific amount of experience with the later.
After one disastrous season, her father persuaded her to marry his dear friend, Harrison. It was well done of him. Her wealth, combined with the Templeton assets, created an astonishing fortune, a fortune that grew once her father’s import business acquired the patina of sophistication that came from association with Harrison’s titled friends.
And Harrison had adored her. He built her laboratories in each of his family homes, bought her exquisite gowns in which she had little interest, and never, ever questioned the large bills from glass blowers or chemical warehouses.
Nor had he ever once set her body aflame.
Ada twisted restlessly beneath the sheets. As with molecules, like cleaved to like while opposites repelled each other with ruthless efficiently. Immutable laws decreed that cobalt cleaved to nitrate, and vigorous, vital men of action, were drawn to curvaceous, vivacious, feminine women.
Not blue stockings.
Not scientists.
Ada stared up at the shadowed ceiling. Women who craved knowledge repelled those sorts of men as surely as oil repelled water.
Why that particular fact should cause a strange sort of bruising in the area of her heart, she didn’t care to examine.
She rolled onto her side and closed her eyes. Someday she might entertain the idea of a lover. While she didn’t care for fashion, couldn’t bother about hairstyles or jewelry or handbags, she did realize she wasn’t overly homely.
Someday she’d meet a man who excited her senses. A man of science. A man of wit and charm and warm, well-made hands. A man who made her body tingle with anticipation. He might be—</p>
A sharp crack and the tinkle of breaking glass hitting the ground interrupted her imaginings.
She flew to the window overlooking the gardens. Having just gone midnight it was darker, if that was possible, than when she and Sweet had wrestled around on the lawn. Still, she was able to discern movement outside her workshop, where the white edging of the windows highlighted the figures in front of them.
She growled. Twice in one night was the outside of enough. She whirled from the window and grabbed her wrapper off the bedpost, pulling it on as she raced for the door. She was halfway down the stairs when she realized she was barefoot and weaponless.
Sweet hadn’t seen fit to return her revolver.