Free I Thee Wed by Celeste Bradley Page B

directly in the draft, and she liked the way the golden warmth of Italy shimmered from the stone, even in gray, rainy England. If she kept a beaker filled with flowers on her laboratory table, it was only to test their viability as possible food for her specimens, or so she informed Sir Geoffrey when he gazed disdainfully at them.
    As if an appreciation for the beauty of nature made her less of a scientist!
    As she worked, she heard the door to the laboratory open behind her. Without turning, she knew it was the new assistant, Mr. Worthington. Perhaps it was intuition, or maybe she noticed something special about his step, or it could be that she could see his tall shadow fill the door reflected in the copper housing of the distillation device next to her.
    He ducked slightly when he entered. It wasn’t quite necessary, for the doors were nearly seven feet in height. It spoke more of a lifetime of gawky stature, which warmed her thoughts to him considerably, or at least to the gangling boy he must have been.
    Then the rectangle of outside brightness disappeared as the door latch clicked shut once more. She was alone in the laboratory with him.
    By some arbitrary and incomprehensible British social custom, it was likely inappropriate for them to be alone in the laboratory together—a young man and an unmarried young woman, as if in staid British minds, there might immediately ensue a riot of lascivious behavior, unleashed by the lack of proper supervision!
    Francesca rolled her eyes at the oddness of EnglishSociety and turned her attention back to examining her specimen as she tried mightily to dispel the images that the thought of “lascivious behavior” had planted in her mind.
    â€œWhat are you doing, Miss Penrose?”
    Although his tone seemed genuinely curious, Francesca stiffened. “I am documenting traits of this specimen, in order to chart the biological repetitions through generations.”
    â€œAh.”
    This time his voice came from just over her right shoulder. Now she could feel him there as well, the heat of his body warming her where she had not realized she’d been chilled. His height allowed him to look down at the top of her head, and at what her hands were doing.
    He went on. “Documenting traits looks rather like petting a bunny.”
    Francesca looked down at her hands, which had begun to stroke the young black-and-white rabbit soothingly, although the creature itself did not seem at all alarmed.
    Are you soothing the rabbit or yourself?
    Fine. So Mr. Worthington managed to set off a few female-response triggers. What of it? She was a young, healthy person, at the beginning of her prime reproductive years. It was only natural that she should be physically aware of young, healthy male persons in her near vicinity!
    â€œAffection makes them easier to handle,” she pointed out coolly. “Otherwise I should have a much harder time getting my hands on the new litters.” Lifting her chin, she scooped up Herbert—er, her specimen!—and turned on Mr. Worthington. “I suppose you are opposed to the theories of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck?”
    He frowned down at her thoughtfully. Heavens, he was handsome! The light from the great tall windows made his cheekbones and jaw look as if they were cut from fine marble. His bone structure would be an Italian sculptor’s dream. She had seen Michelangelo’s
David
. It was a heart-wrenchingly beautiful sculpture of a perfect youngman.
    Yet,
David
would have disappeared next to Mr. Orion Worthington!
    But that was simply her instinctive female response talking. Symmetry of features and intensity of the coloration of irises of the eyes—those were all just inherited traits, not earned and not worth more than any finely shaped hound or filly.
    Or stallion . . .
    He was talking to her now. She forced herself not to relish the way the deepness of his voice resonated through her body and to listen to his