Who Wants to Marry a Duke - Sabrina Jeffries Page 0,50

“So are you.”

Like any other typical young miss, she wore some gossamer muslin gown, beautiful and fragile. But the sturdy shawl of green wool she’d draped around it showed her to be more resilient than the typical young miss. Here she stood itching to go on, even after what had happened to her laboratory . . . even with the destruction laid out before her.

It reminded him of the first time they’d met . . . and last night’s revelations about that first meeting. She was never exactly what she seemed. Best to remember that.

“Did you get any sleep?” he asked.

“A little. Did you?”

“Some,” he lied. He and Grey had stayed up quite a bit longer figuring out what to do, and now he had to tell her what they’d decided without her. He wasn’t sure she’d go along with their new plan. But before he revealed it . . . “What do you think? Is the fire mostly out?”

“It seems to be.”

“Is it safe to go near? Grey has a bag of salt over there,” he said, pointing to a spot a little way from the fire, “but sand isn’t easy to come by here. We’d have to send to the coast.”

“No need for that. The salt should be enough to extinguish the last bits if Grey wants his footmen to spread it over what’s still smoldering.”

“Good.”

She stared at the embers a while, then straightened her shoulders. “Now that Grey knows the dangers, does he have any other buildings on his property I could use for a laboratory? When I couldn’t sleep last night, I made a list of chemicals and laboratory equipment, but I was careful to pare it down now that I know precisely what to test and how, so—”

“We’re not staying,” he broke in.

She looked stricken. “What do you mean?”

“Someone clearly wants to make sure you don’t do these tests,” he said. “Grey and I think that the lad who smashed up your laboratory, whoever he is, was hired by the person who poisoned Grey’s father. So as long as you stay here, you’re in danger.”

“I don’t see why I am—”

“You could have been inside when that devil broke in,” he said hoarsely. The thought of anybody daring to murder her turned his blood to ice. “You could be lying in those embers right now.”

She laid her hand on his arm. “Yes, but I wasn’t, and I’m not.”

“Not yet. But after finding out that you mean to continue, this . . . this arse may decide to do worse than destroy your laboratory. He might decide to destroy you.” He caught her by the shoulders, barely resisting the urge to shake her. “And that’s a chance neither Grey nor I wish to take.”

Hurt glinted in her eyes. “You’ll put an end to my experiments just like that, without giving me a say in it?”

It took him a minute to realize how she’d taken what he’d said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t explain myself very well. We’re not putting an end to anything. We’re simply spiriting you away to do the experiments elsewhere.”

Her face cleared. “Oh.” She walked over to view the destruction more closely. “And you’re sure the explosion was caused by some villainous ‘lad’? That it wasn’t anything I failed to do properly or some residual chemical I overlooked in my tests that ignited on its own?”

“We’re sure. Although the broken glass and emptied containers could conceivably have resulted from the explosion, the dairy’s lock, found beneath the intact door and door frame, was clearly busted apart by a sledgehammer before the explosion. We know that because we found the hammer in the wreckage. Apparently, the lad left it behind in his hurry to escape with his life. He probably saw a chemical catch fire and then ran out, in fear that the whole place might burn. I doubt he had any idea that it would explode.”

“Neither did I.”

“We realize that.”

“Thank heavens it wasn’t my fault.” Then, as if realizing how callous that sounded, she grimaced. “I—I only meant—”

“I know what you meant. No one wants to be responsible for this level of destruction . . . or for possibly exposing innocent people to caustic chemicals. And you would never behave so recklessly.”

He hoped not, anyway. Because she had no idea how dangerous this whole venture could turn out to be. He and his brothers already believed that four men might have died to serve the villain’s purpose, whatever it was. One woman more would mean