A Lady Dares (17 page)

He could picture her slitting open the envelope, her green eyes scanning the letter, the pulse at the base of her neck leaping in surprise, shock or excitement. He could picture her doing other things, too. Unfortunately, she’d been doing those things with Dorian Rowland. But very soon, she would be doing those things with him, for him and he would have his revenge on them both at last.

E
lise studied the sheaf of documents in her hand, unsure what to make of them. They contained an offer for the shipyard, now of all times. Charles stood at the French doors leading out to the rose garden, patiently letting her peruse the paperwork. He’d been the harbinger of this latest development, arriving with the papers shortly after eleven that morning and turned out in his daytime best.

She had not seen him since the day Dorian had all but driven him out, but Charles didn’t seem to hold that against her. He was the epitome of concern, exclaiming over the fire damage and worried for her safety. He said he’d been away on some business for his father in Southampton. She hoped that was the
truth. She didn’t want Dorian to have alienated him. She might not be head-over-heels in love with Charles Bradford, but her friends were few and far between these days. It made her question the offer all the more. Should she view it with suspicion or serendipity? Beyond the sitting room she’d taken over as her office at the back of the house, repairs continued on the town house—repairs that strained her budget. This offer would solve that financial need and more.

Elise’s eyes returned to the final number at the bottom of the last page. With that kind of money, she could easily pay Dorian and his crew for their work on the yacht and walk away with a sum that would keep her and her family comfortably. For her part, she would not need to worry about relying on her mother or brother for funds. She could continue to live in the style to which she’d been raised and maintain her independence.

To do what? What would she use that independence for? Without a shipyard, there’d be no point in designing yachts that would never be built. She knew what her brother would say and her mother, too.

‘It’s a good deal, Elise. It’s more money
than the investors offered to pay.’ Charles turned from the doors, ready to engage in persuasive conversation.

‘Is that what you are to convince me of?’ Elise gave him a thin smile. She understood the role Charles was sent to play. He was the messenger, chosen carefully to use his leverage as her friend to bring back an affirmative decision to this business man, Maxwell Hart.

‘Anyone would tell you the same,’ Charles replied. ‘I’m not here to mislead you, but to help you if you have questions and to offer my opinion if you ask for it.’

That was a more pliable, gentler side of Charles, Elise noted. Usually, he was very rigid with his black-and-white views on life. Her own smile softened in answer. ‘I appreciate that, Charles. I do have questions. Who is Maxwell Hart and how do you know him? I don’t recall him from my father’s associations.’

‘My father knows him through some shipping arrangements. He’s wealthy. As an importer, Hart knows the value in the shipyard’s position. He has a warehouse and a boat works over in Wapping, but he’s looking to move to
a better location and your location is the best there is, as you well know.’

Charles fiddled with a porcelain figurine on the fireplace mantel. ‘Personally, I think he’s given up hope that a cut-through will ever be built at Wapping.’

Elise could understand that. The cut-through had never materialised and the difference between the more tedious waterways at Wapping and the efficiencies of the East and West India docks with their modern developments was quite marked. ‘The offer seems straightforward,’ Elise began, unwilling to share everything that had occurred lately, ‘but It comes at a most interesting time.’

Interesting
was a delicate way of putting things. It came at a time when a dangerous man was attempting to damage the yard and steal her boat. It would be all too easy to sell out and pass Damien Tyne on to the new owner. But selling out came with a price, too. She suspected the offer was so high because of the yacht. The documents clearly stated the yacht was to remain with the yard.

‘It seems to me that it comes at a most opportune time,’ Charles corrected. He made a gesture towards the door. It stood half-open,
not entirely blocking out the sounds of repairs being done in the front room. ‘You’ve had a run of bad luck these last months, Elise. The tide could be starting to turn in your favour.’

‘That’s just it, Charles. Perhaps this seems too perfect, too suspicious.’

Charles looked affronted. ‘Are you implying Maxwell Hart is attempting to force you out through coercion? Do you really think a man willing to pay such a sum would resort to throwing rocks through your windows or lighting the very shipyard he wants on fire?’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t see the logic.’

Put that way, she didn’t see the logic, either. Charles was right. It made no sense to think this man would ruin the property he wanted to acquire. It made even less sense when she knew, as Charles did not, that Damien Tyne was behind the attacks. Unless Dorian had been wrong all along about Tyne and about Tyne’s motives.

It had occurred to her in the days since her quarrel with Dorian that she’d accepted his explanations at face value. Perhaps he’d lied about the thugs’ reasons for breaking into the shipyard. Perhaps they hadn’t been there looking at her yacht, but had come for him. She’d
mentioned as much the night he’d first told her of the break-in.

‘It’s a difficult decision to walk away from all I know and everything my father worked for,’ Elise said slowly, trying to articulate the hollowness that filled her at the thought. She didn’t expect Charles to understand.

Charles took the seat across from her, an earnest look on his face. ‘Think of it this way, Elise. You can walk away now and make a
lot
of money, or you can wait until the last moment and be politely forced out when the shipyard can no longer sustain itself. If so, you’ll end up with nothing except for the yacht and that’s
if
you can find a buyer in time. Hart is willing to pay you for the shipyard, the boat and the contents of the shipyard if you walk away now.’ Charles loved numbers. His whole face lit up when he talked about projected profits.

There was sense in that. The offer was tempting. She saw the profit in it. It was why she hadn’t immediately discarded the option. Her dream of building her father’s last boat and selling it had been financially motivated. She’d hoped to use the money to keep the boat
works open for herself. If she sold to Hart, she wouldn’t
need
the company to support herself.

Then Dorian had come along and filled her head with the idea of keeping the boat at a time when she’d been susceptible to such a concept. After seeing the hull completed, it was harder to imagine letting someone else take the boat. But Dorian had filled her head with a lot of other unworthy notions, too, and in the end it hadn’t got her anything but heartache and disappointment. Charles had real numbers and results to support his position.

‘You may tell Mr Hart that I will think about it.’ Elise clenched her hands in her lap, willing herself to speak the words before she could change her mind. ‘I will let him know in a couple of days.’

Charles nodded neutrally. ‘He will be pleased to know you are considering it. May I give you something else to consider? Perhaps something of a more personal nature? It cannot have escaped your notice, my dear Elise, that I have held you in great esteem for some time now and that esteem has grown into affection.’

Oh, lord, he was going to propose. Elise felt her stomach tighten into a ball. He was
outlining his prospects which, she thought cynically, would look a lot better once he calculated in her profit from the shipyard. ‘I had wanted to wait a decent interval, Elise, but I think now is the better time,’ Charles went on. ‘After all this to-do with Rowland and the shipyard, I think the sooner we can marry the better.’

In other words, she needed a husband to bring her into line. Elise bristled at the very idea she couldn’t manage her own life, not that she’d done a great job of it to date. But she could hear the lifeline Charles was throwing her in the proposal. She knew she had to consider this offer as carefully as the one that had come from Maxwell Hart. Marriage to Charles was her last chance to claim respectability. This was society’s way of letting her know they would not hesitate setting her aside if she continued down this current path of independence and the flaunting of convention.

Elise looked down at her hands, clenched to whiteness in her lap. ‘I am honoured, Charles, and yet surprised by the suddenness of your offer. It bears thinking about and I must ask you to give me some time to do that thinking. It would not be fair to you otherwise.’

He looked more disappointed over this pronouncement than the one she’d given him over Hart’s offer. ‘What would not be fair, Elise, is to leave you at the mercy of that bounder, Rowland. He is a bad influence.’ A bit of anger fired in Charles’s eyes. ‘In the absence of any female companionship at the moment, or any family members to guide you, I fear he’s convinced you to court scandal by leaving off your mourning and by continuing your efforts at the shipyard. He has clouded your good judgement; perhaps he has even turned your head. But you are smarter than that.’

Was she? Elise thought Charles might be wrong there. She saw him to the door personally, effusing her thanks for his visit and going through the motions of farewell, but most of her mind was focused on Dorian. It had been difficult to sit through the interview with Charles and not wonder what Dorian would have made of it all. What would Dorian think of Hart’s offer? What would Dorian think of Charles’s proposal and the exigencies behind it?

Elise shut the door behind Charles and pressed her forehead to the cool wood. She hadn’t seen Dorian since the night of the fire.
Good lord, it had been only four days! She was acting as if it were months. She’d not meant for even four days to pass, but the hiring of workmen and overseeing repairs had kept her here when she’d wanted to be at the shipyard. There’d been no chance to apologise and she hadn’t wanted to do it in a note. She doubted what she needed to say could be said accurately in writing anyway.

Elise drew a breath. There was no time like the present. She would take Dorian’s lunch down personally and then they would talk.

Elise came to an abrupt halt inside the shipyard. She shielded her eyes against the bright sky and looked up. It was amazing what four days could do. The mast, the rigging, was all complete. Men climbed the boat, hanging sails, and at the top of it all was Dorian, in culottes, sans shirt and shoes, swinging from the lines with the ease of a trapeze artist. She’d only seen circus performers with that kind of grace. Watching him now, seeing her yacht so near completion, was enough to make her want to forgive him on the spot. Really, it was enough to make her want to beg his forgiveness.

She had to be cautious with such emotions. He’d built her boat, that was all. She had to be careful the accomplishment didn’t unduly outshine their differences. She’d had doubts about him once again just this morning and those doubts were justified. And there were harsh accusations between them, proof they didn’t know each other as well as they should. Just because he’d finished her yacht, didn’t mean he was off the hook.

She caught his eye and waved up at him, pointing to the hamper at her side, and then enjoyed the sight of him shimmying down a rope to the boat deck. He sauntered towards her, his culottes low on his hips, his hair loose. She should be used to the sight of him by now. She’d seen him naked, for heaven’s sake. But her heart did a somersault anyway at the blatant sensuality on display.

‘I brought lunch. I hoped we could talk. There are things that need to be said.’ They weren’t the most elegant words. She hoped they’d be enough. She bit her lip, waiting for his response. Was he still angry? She’d accused him of trying to steal her boat. Would his answer be something flippant and crude?
She’d not realised until now how much she wanted, needed, to talk with him.

She knew a moment’s relief when Dorian nodded and called over to a tall young man working at the helm, ‘Johnny, I’ve got business to take care of, you’re in charge.’ He looked at her. ‘Will I need my shirt for this?’

‘Unless you want to talk in the office? I have the carriage. I thought we might drive out towards Greenwich.’

‘Give me a moment to change.’

Dorian returned quickly, dressed in trousers, boots, shirt, the appropriate coats and an expression far too serious for her liking. He picked up the hamper. ‘Shall we?’

The formality of his tone hurt. It made it difficult to find her tongue, to start the conversation she’d come to have. But she didn’t want to start it in the carriage. She wanted to start it at lunch, on the grass on the bluff overlooking the river with the whole afternoon spread out before them. For now, she opted for small talk. ‘The yacht’s nearly done.’ She started with something positive.

Dorian gave a thin smile so different from
his usual grin. ‘It is done. We just need to name it and take it for a trial.’

A month ago those words would have filled her with elation. Today, her first reaction was sadness. Dorian’s job was complete. He would be free to leave.

‘It’s a good thing. The yacht club’s trip is next week.’ Elise offered a smile. Good lord, this conversation was stilted. She wanted their former easiness back, she wanted his shocking bluntness back. She wanted it all back. Had their quarrel really ruined everything? How could she not have realised what was at stake? If she had, Elise doubted she’d have chosen to rip it apart with callous words.

Dorian stretched his long legs, his gaze lingering on her face. ‘Is this how you want our discussion to go? Short factual sentences or are you hoping for something more?’

There was a hint of his old seduction in those words and her hopes rose. She was tempted to play with those words and come up with a witty response, but it was too soon. She had made her move by coming down here. He needed to make the next one.

He did. ‘As for me, I am hoping for something more.’ He paused and she held her
breath. ‘It does me good to see you, Elise. I regretted our parting the moment I left.’

‘I should not have let you go like that.’ Elise felt relief course through her. They were dancing towards reconciliation with their careful words.