Page 89 of Secrets Between Lovers

“You’d better put away such radical talk, darling. We’re entering the lion’s den.” Tobias ushered her through the door into the drawing room, blazing in light and echoing with Henrietta’s laughter.

“There you are,” Mr. Blake said gruffly.

Maggie smiled. “Yes, here we are.”

“But we could be somewhere else,” Tobias drawled.

Mr. Blake scowled. “I’m pretending you said something sensible.”

Tobias clutched his heart. “You? Pretend? Quick, Mother, call the doctor!”

“Do sit, Tobias,” his mother urged.

Tobias found a seat near Grayson, who poured him a tumbler of something amber.

Maggie sat with Henrietta near the edge of the circle and watched them all. Henrietta was with child. She hadn’t told anyone yet, but Maggie had observed the signs. Even now her hand rested on her waist. Tobias had brought on another master weaver, but that, too, was a secret for the moment. He wanted to wait until he could shock the world with the weaver’s genius bolt of silk.

Mr. Blake had a secret, too, but he kept it ill. The evidence was strewn about his study on cushions, and she’d seen the gift he’d given his wife last Christmas—a dressing gown of pink silk with an exaggerated floral pattern embroidered in shimmering gold thread. And there—when the man moved, the bottom of his waistcoat flipped up, revealing a crimson-red silk lining. Maggie did not wonder where it came from. She smiled.

Mr. Blake had one more secret no one knew but her. She could not tell, not yet. She was helping him with more than a school. He’d banned children from his mills and had joined a committee to make such bans widespread, to make such child labor illegal.

Her heart called out to tell Tobias all. But it would be better for the two men to tell each other their secrets. She could wait.

Tobias looked at her, as if her contemplation of his profile drew his attention like a lodestone. He winked. And her body flamed, as it always did. Her heart thumped at his slow-simmering smile. Everyone else could have their little intrigues and reveal them in their own time. Between her heart and his, there were no more secrets, only open and loving air, as warm as their bodies tangled together in sleep.

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