Page 36

Mrs. Kemeys had tried to bait Anne with Mrs. Hawkins’s son as if she were a kestrel on the hunt. And May Powell, far from envying Anne’s looks or gown or family name, was delivering a glare that said she wished the floor would open and the devil take Miss Sutton to the fiery furnace of hell.

“Anne. This is Mr. David Edwards, the engineer working on the new bridge.” Hew tucked his hand beneath Anne’s elbow and drew her to his side.

Her gloves were three-quarter, a barrier between his hand and her skin, and yet his heat sank through.

The breath left her body, exactly like the time she and Gwen had been playing lawn tennis and Anne took a ball straight in the belly.

“Mr. Edwards. We’ve been watching the work progress. It seems quite an ambitious project.” Anne managed a correct response, even though her head whirled at Hew’s touch, the citrus notes of his cologne.

“I told him what I think of the Fourteen Locks,” Hew said. “Dadford’s construction is brilliant, no one’s denying that, but if some of the locks were widened, more water could support heavier boats.”

He smiled down at her, his features animated with the delight of having a mechanical problem to solve. He was more unguarded than she’d ever seen him, and the absent stroke of his thumb over her forearm shot every thought from Anne’s mind like a hound flushing a covey of pheasants.

“I take it you had some engineering training, Captain,” Edwards remarked. “Yet I thought you were a gunner in the Artillery, not a sapper with the Engineers?”

“Our training at Woolwich was thorough, and necessity can call upon a man to play many roles, especially in a place like Acre.” Hew’s manner was easy, but he rolled his shoulders back as if consciously loosening tension.

“The question is, how to determine how much more volume is needed, and how to test a new design? Is Dadford even available to oversee renovations? He left for another project when the Crumlin Arm was declared finished. And there will be no little expense to the new work, so we must ask if the original investors are willing to buy more shares.”

He’d been one of those investors. “You said the Cefn Flight is one of the highest rises in the country, and one of the most complicated,” Anne remembered. “Shall you have to fix all of it, or merely certain parts?”

“That,” Hew said, “is an excellent question.” He beamed at her, and she found herself leaning toward him, soaking up his approval like butter on toast.

“Mr. Vaughn, I thought you were a military man, not a builder. You were telling us how you meant to organize a new company of militia to protect us from invasion from France.” May Powell, with a playful pout, tapped her fan on the back of Hew’s shoulder, teasing the sticks along a slope of muscle.

Hew didn’t acknowledge the bold touch, though he shrugged his shoulders again, a flicker of unease crossing his brow.

“That is my charge from my superiors, and I ought not neglect it,” he replied.

“Which is why I cannot resist hearing what Mr. Edwards has to say about his bridge and the traffic it might support when finished. Heavy enough to handle a train of sixteen-pounders, along with shot? What about twenty-four pounders, in the event Newport must man defenses against a siege?”

Anne settled her arm against the crook of Hew’s, surrendering to his possessive touch. Let May Powell try to peel him from her, the little cat.

“How are you to take an artillery train through these roads, Captain?” she teased Hew. “The road to Cardiff is but a narrow track, and I can’t image the road to Christchurch is much better.”

Hew’s grin widened. “And you’ve come to know this area, have you, Miss Sutton?”

She only knew Cardiff and Christchurch thanks to Eilian and Dovey as they chattered their way through the garden, identifying plants with their properties and whom in the area they’d helped. Hew’s approval made her unfurl like a dove preening her feathers.

“You’d be bringing this artillery up the river, I assume?” Edwards asked. “You could fit Royal Navy ships in our channel, I’d warrant, and make use of their carronades.”

Hew turned to him. “Where’s a ship of the line to dock in the Usk? We have one wharf at the Town Pill, and that’s stone. We need more wharves, wooden ones, with cranes and moveable walkways.”

“You said they need to extend the canal down to Pillgwenlly and build wharves there, too,” Anne reminded him.

“That I did.” Hew spared her another approving glance, and Anne tucked in a smile of satisfaction as May Powell glared. “Have you an interest in building more than bridges, Edwards?”

“These Welsh names are such a mouthful, Mr. Vaughn.” Margaret Griffith gave a trill of laughter and tapped her fan on Hew’s other arm. “I wonder that Miss Sutton can pronounce them. I own I cannot manage such barbaric syllables.”

“Captain Vaughn,” Mr. Edwards said, with a quizzical smile at the girl. “You know, I hope, that this man is a hero of Acre?”

May Powell, not to be outdone, turned wide brown eyes on Hew, her voice breathy. “Do tell us about your heroics, Captain.”

Hew’s arm went hard as steel beneath Anne’s fingers. She smelled his own scent, the way she had in his bedchamber, that rich blend of cloves and pine and summer earth. He was sweating.

“There is little to discuss. The forces of the British Navy turned back the French, and Napoleon slunk back in defeat to Egypt. If he abandons his hopes of conquering the Middle East entirely, he is like to return to France and take an interest in the Directory’s wars on the Continent.

Or,” Hew turned back to Edwards, “take an interest in our prosperous isles. Have you heard of the new fortifications going up at Dover? I’m wondering if we should do something similar here with the sea wall at Goldcliff. ”

“If you’re going to build us wharves, build a racecourse!

You’ll get in the way of the free traders do you shift things about at Goldcliff,” John Jones said, sliding into the conversation with the arrogance of a young man who expected to be welcomed anywhere.

“I hope your forts won’t go driving up the cost of brandy and tobacco, Vaughn. ”

“Captain Vaughn,” Mr. Edwards said with a trace of annoyance, “and I would think you would take his advice on fortifications. When Commodore Smith seized half a dozen French ships trying to reach Acre, this man took their own artillery and deployed it against them. The little general spent a month drilling through Acre’s walls, and what did he find?

Captain Vaughn had built another wall and mounted their cannon upon it.

The French were beaten back by their own guns. ”

“And the plague,” Hew said. “The second wall was really Farhi’s idea—he was advisor to the Pasha Jezzar. And Antoine de Phélippeaux designed the wall. I aided only in the heavy lifting.”

“The papers gave you more credit than you give yourself, Captain,” Edwards noted.

May Powell widened her eyes. “Captain Vaughn. How cunning you are.”

“And how brave.” Margaret Griffith batted her eyelashes.

“How did you manage to mount cannon upon the wall?” Anne asked, curious. “I’d imagine they’re rather heavy.”

“Ramps, ropes, and pulleys,” Hew said, turning to Anne.

“The French have designed a lighter carriage which can fire heavier shot than ours. We put the four-pound cannons and six-pound howitzers on the walls, with some of the heavier guns behind. I can explain Gribeauval’s system of artillery to you, if you wish. ”

A light kindled in his eyes that she hadn’t seen directed at the other girls. Anne gave him a provocative smile. “Shall I have use for that knowledge at any time?”

“Not with me around to defend you.” He held her arm against his side, the pressure light and somehow shattering. A gust moved through her body, lifting her like a flower petal in the breeze.

“A Frenchman helping you against the French? A traitor to his people,” Jones drawled.

“Antoine escaped to Britain early on in the Revolution,” Hew said.

“A monarchist in his sympathies, and an antagonist of Napoleon’s from their days at school.

He and Smith were great friends after Antoine broke the commodore out of prison in Paris.

He was the engineer among us. I merely did as he instructed. ”

He rolled his shoulder again, throwing off some harsh memory. Anne’s arm moved with his.

She slid her fingers beneath his palm, where he held her arm tucked against his side. “You must not discount what it meant to keep Acre. The Pasha Jezzar still holds his territory, and Napoleon will not be Emperor of the Orient, thanks to you.”

He squeezed her fingers, briefly, as if her touch anchored him. She felt again the emotion that swept her when Eilian placed a minute-old newborn infant in Anne’s arms. As if she’d been born for this precise place, this exact moment.

As if up until now she’d been a laurel tree, and his touch turned her into a woman.

“I thought Lord St. Vincent said Vaughn was a traitor.” Daron butted into their circle. His eyes glittered, his cheeks held a hectic flush, and even from this distance, Anne smelled drink on his breath. “Weren’t you thrown in prison, Captain ?”

Hew’s easy manner turned to an iron as hard as his guns.

“At the order of my major, yes, I was imprisoned for a time.” He spoke evenly, but his expression showed every defense dropping into place: the straight shoulders, tensed eyelids, grim mouth.

Anne wished she could reach out and hold that coldness at bay, bring the easy, smiling Hew back to her.

“And the charge?” Daron taunted.

Hew snapped out the word. “Insubordination.”

May Powell took a slight step backward and opened the leaf of her fan. Margaret Griffith rearranged her skirts so they no longer brushed against Hew’s boot.

“And that’s why you’re up for a court-martial now.” Daron sneered.

“For building a wall?” Edwards’ brows rose in confusion.