Nicola could do was nod. The man was a force of nature.
Chapter 2
He’d been warned by friends that he’d be bored to tears here, but Lord Jonathan Haskell Ryder—Jack to his friends—was rarely bored anywhere. Curiosity was in his bones. He’d been the despair of his parents and teachers since he cut his leading strings, not willing to leave things be but to radically change them like some Victorian alchemist. As a child, he’d deconstructed anything with parts, and, much to everyone’s surprise, put them all back together with only the occasional loose screw or spring leftover. There were fewer mistakes like that as he’d aged, and he was considered by most to be kind of a mad genius.
To be sure, Jack didn’t think of himself in quite that way. But his mind had always seen the possibilities, whether they were mechanical or metaphysical. As a youth, he’d long outstripped the lecturers at university, and had gone on to considerable glory after he dropped out, founding foundries, inventing inventions, and wooing willing women.
The foundry, however, had been his undoing. It had been months since the depression had settled so deep in his curious bones a canny Welsh miner couldn’t have found it with a pickaxe. His numbers didn’t make sense anymore, he hadn’t invented anything interesting in ages, and as for women—well, the least said the better.
But here he was on the second day of his Puddling Program with a lissome blonde in his arms. Things were looking up.
He’d better look down, for this road was a nightmare of ice and dirty snow. What had this young woman been thinking of to come outside with flimsy footwear that was not meant for the outdoors? They looked like dancing slippers, for heaven’s sake.
Jack was pretty sure no dancing was on the menu in Puddling. He’d read over his ironically titled “Welcome Packet” and had felt most unwelcome, given the numerous rules and restrictions.
Foolish female and her foolish shoes. It’s not as if she could even call out for help. Jack wondered if she’d always been mute. His parents would certainly have approved of him being struck dumb by lightning and robbed of speech forever, for he had rambled on in his childish enthusiasm until his father caned him regularly into quiet.
Fighting with his father was over, however. Now it was just his mama who wanted him to behave according to her exacting standards.
Settle down. Slow down. Marry a suitable girl, sire a passel of ordinary children, stop being…different.
Almost impossible for a man like Jack, whose mind skittered from one thing to another with frightening speed.
His mother had been unsupportive when he told her what he was doing for his victims, reminding him he was not directly responsible for the accident. But he knew he was. If he’d not been so involved in other projects, he might have kept a closer eye on everything. Because of his negligence, two people had died.
Died. No amount of money would bring them back to life. And he had money. Tons of it. From patents and factories and investments, not counting his inheritance. Everything Jack Ryder had touched turned to gold, causing him to rest a little on his laurels. He’d wanted to prove that he was not just a baron, but a businessman, and he had.
The gods laughed. Hubris. A word with which he was now totally familiar.
True, the casting defect wasn’t his fault. Even if he’d been on the foundry floor, he might not have noticed the imperfection. The girders had passed through many hands and many inspections.
The result was the same.
Jack had divested himself of three-quarters of his holdings. Anything that could blow up, break, burn down, or cause possible harm to the general populace had been sold. He could now personally guarantee that such industrial carelessness would not continue on his watch. His money was now tied up in harmless, nonlethal endeavors.
It should have improved his spirits, but it did not. He’d sunk further and further—
There was an anxious tap on his shoulder. Ah. They had reached his passenger’s home. He carried her up the steps from the street and shouldered his way through a gate. A long slippery stone path led to a cottage. The sign near the door read Stonecrop. Much better than Tulip. More masculine-sounding. He knew next to nothing about plant life, could not have identified stonecrop if he were thrust headfirst in a bed of it, but that could be remedied by books.
If only he could get his hands on some. Tulip Cottage’s bookshelves held only musty sermons and other “improving” tracts. He’d been forced to take apart a butter churn before he could fall asleep last night.
“Here we are,” he said cheerfully. “Is the house locked?”
She shook her head.
He turned the knob and sudden warmth surrounded him in the hallway. To the left was a small conservatory, its glass door closed. Not much was growing within, save for a straggly fern. Maybe this young lady could do with some botany books as well. To the right, a parlor with a plush horsehair sofa. He deposited her on it and looked around the crowded little room. The appointments were superior to his cottage, newer. There was even a piano. Stonecrop didn’t feel quite so much like a prison as his pared-down abode.
“Shall I make you some tea before I fetch the doctor?”
More headshaking.
“You do want me to fetch him, don’t you?”
The blonde bit her lip.
“That’s it. I’m going.” He gave the fire a few sharp pokes before he left so the cottage would stay warm. “Don’t move. Not an inch.”
The blonde scowled at him. And then stuck out her tongue.
Jack laughed. “I know I’m bossy. But it’s for your own good. I’ll be right back.”
He remembered where the doctor lived, for he’d been given a map of the village yesterday in his packet. Once he read something, it tended to stick in his head. He usually could quote whole paragraphs of the most useless books and monographs without too much effort, one of the skills that had so frightened his teachers.
Jack could still see the newspaper headlines from last March all too clearly, even if his name had not been mentioned.
After making one wrong turn—he guessed he was a little worn out, for how could one get lost when there were only five streets, rambling though they were, to choose from?—he rapped on the door of the surgery. The brass plate read Charles Oakley, M.D. The man himself answered after the second knock.
“Lord Ryder, isn’t it? What can I do for you?”
“Nothing for me, sir. I found a young woman on the street. Wait, that sounds odd, doesn’t it? Anyway, she slipped and fell, and I picked her up and carried her home. She’s wrenched her ankle, and I think you should give it a look. I don’t know her name, but she lives at Stonecrop Cottage.”
“Is Mrs. Grace there now?”
Jack felt a stab of disappointment. So his lovely, silent blonde was married. Where was her husband? Had he throttled her so hard she couldn’t speak? People came to Puddling for a whole host of reasons, and Jack was naturally curious about hers.
“Yes.”
