Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers #1)(57)

“Few people do. The countess sometimes sits here when she is too infirm to go downstairs.” Hunt moved closer to her and slid his long fingers beneath her chin, coaxing her to meet his gaze. “Will you have dinner with me?”

Annabelle’s pulse throbbed so rapidly that she was certain he could feel it against his fingers. “I have no chaperone,” she half whispered.

Hunt smiled at that, his hand dropping from her chin. “You couldn’t be safer. I’m hardly going to seduce you while you’re obviously too weak to defend yourself.”

“That’s very gentlemanly of you.”

“I’ll seduce you when you’re feeling better.”

Biting back a smile, Annabelle raised a fine brow, and said, “You’re very sure of yourself. Should you have said you’re going to try to seduce me?”

” ‘Never anticipate failure’—that’s what my father always tells me.” Sliding a strong arm around her back, Hunt guided her to one of the chairs. “Will you have some wine?”

“I shouldn’t,” Annabelle said wistfully, sinking into the deeply upholstered chair. “It would probably go straight to my head.”

Hunt poured a glass and gave it to her, smiling with a wicked charm that Lucifer himself would have tried to emulate. “Go on,” he murmured. “I’ll take care of you if you get a bit tipsy.”

Sipping the smooth, soft vintage, Annabelle sent him a wry glance. “I wonder how often a lady’s downfall began with that exact promise from you…”

“I have yet to cause a lady’s downfall,” Hunt said, lifting the covers from the dishes and setting them aside. “I usually pursue them after they’ve already fallen.”

“Have there been many fallen ladies in your past?” Annabelle couldn’t keep from asking.

“I’ve had my fair share,” Hunt replied, looking neither apologetic nor boastful as he met her gaze directly. “Though lately my energies have been absorbed by a different pastime.”

“Which is?”

“I’m overseeing the development of a locomotive works that Westcliff and I have invested in.”

“Really?” Annabelle stared at him with kindling interest. “I’ve never been on a train before. What is it like?”

Hunt grinned, suddenly looking boyish in his barely suppressed enthusiasm. “Fast. Exciting. The average speed of a passenger locomotive is about fifty miles an hour, but Consolidated is building a six-coupled express engine design that should go up to seventy.”

“Seventy miles an hour?” Annabelle repeated, unable to imagine hurtling forward at such speed. “Wouldn’t that be uncomfortable for the passengers?”

The question made him smile. “Once the train reaches its traveling speed, you don’t feel the momentum.”

“What are the passenger cars like on the inside?”

“Not especially luxurious,” Hunt admitted, pouring more wine into his own glass. “I wouldn’t recommend traveling in anything other than a private car—especially for someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” Annabelle gave him a chiding smile. “If you’re implying that I’m spoiled, I assure you that I am not.”

“You should be.” His warm gaze slid over her pink-tinted face and slender upper body, then sought hers again. There was a note in his voice that gently robbed her of breath. “You could do with a bit of spoiling.”

Annabelle inhaled deeply, trying to restore the natural rhythm of her lungs. Desperately, she hoped that he wouldn’t touch her, that he would keep his promise not to seduce her. Because if he did…God help her…she wasn’t certain that she would be able to resist him.

“Consolidated is the name of your company?” she asked shakily, trying to retrieve the thread of conversation.

Hunt nodded. “It’s the British partner of Shaw Foundries.”

“Which belongs to Lady Olivia’s fiance, Mr. Shaw?”

“Exactly. Shaw is helping us to adapt to the American system of engine building, which is far more efficient and productive than the British method.”

“I’ve always heard that British-made machinery is the best in the world,” Annabelle commented.

“Arguable. But even so, it’s seldom standardized. No two locomotives built in Britain are exactly alike, which slows production considerably and makes repairs difficult. However, if we could follow the American example and produce uniform cast-molded parts, using standard gauges and templates, we can build an engine in a matter of weeks rather than months, and perform repairs with lightning speed.”

As they conversed, Annabelle watched Hunt with fascination, having never seen a man talk this way about his profession. In her experience, work was not something that men usually liked to discuss, as the very concept of laboring for one’s living was a distinct hallmark of the lower classes. If an upper-class gentleman was obliged to have a profession, he tried to be very discreet about it and pretend that most of his time was spent in leisure activities. But Simon Hunt made no effort to conceal his enjoyment of his work—and for some reason Annabelle found that strangely attractive.

At her urging, Hunt described the business further, telling her all about his negotiations for the purchase of a railway-owned foundry, which was being converted to the new American-inspired system. Two of the nine buildings on the five-acre site had already been transformed into a foundry that produced standardized bolts, pistons, rods, and valves. These, along with some parts that had been imported from Shaw Foundries in New York, were being assembled into a series of four-coupled and six-coupled engines that would be sold throughout Europe.