A Lady Dares (18 page)

‘I should have come back. I thought about it. I stood at the lamplight on the corner for a long time, thinking about just that.’

‘I meant to come sooner, but I couldn’t get away.’

‘How are repairs going?’

‘Good—noisy, but good. They’ll be done soon.’ She waved the subject away. She didn’t want to talk about repairs. ‘This…’ she made a gesture between them with her hand ‘…doesn’t mean we don’t have to talk about what happened.’ She didn’t want him to think an implied apology on both their parts was enough. Rapprochement was only one of the reasons she’d come down here.

Dorian’s answer was quiet and sincere. ‘I know.’

By the saints, it was good to see her! He wasn’t relishing the upcoming conversation, but he was relishing this moment. She’d come.
He’d begun to fear she wouldn’t. He’d thrown himself and his men into work on the yacht, keeping long hours to get it done. It had become a personal labour for him. This would be his gift to her. He would make her the most beautiful of racing boats, the fastest and the sleekest. Whatever he couldn’t say to her, couldn’t give to her, he could pour into the boat.

By tacit agreement, they waited until they were settled on the bluff, the picnic spread out before them while they watched the boat traffic on the water. He waited for Elise to start. He would let her lead the conversation. Would she start with business or pleasure?

‘I received an offer for the yacht and the shipyard today. Charles brought it just this morning. It was not from Damien Tyne.’ Business and pleasure mixed, then. He knew what she implied.

She was watching him for signs of surprise or something else. He kept his features neutral. ‘You think I lied about Tyne.’ It was not a question.

Her answer was just as careful. ‘I think I was surprised the offer wasn’t from him after all the trouble he’s put us through.’
Hypothetically
.
The word hung unspoken between them. She wasn’t sure any more that he’d told her the truth. The doubt stung.

‘Who did the offer come from?’ Dorian ventured. Damien Tyne didn’t necessarily have to offer directly, all the better to protect his involvement.

‘Maxwell Hart. I’m not familiar with him, but Charles’s father knows of him. He has a boat works in Wapping.’

Dorian felt as if he’d been punched in the gut: clarity at last. ‘That gives Charles and me something in common,’ he said drily. ‘It just so happens that I know Maxwell Hart, too.’ Hart. Of course. Tyne had worked with Hart before.
Boat works
was a rather liberal term for what Hart had in Wapping. he had a warehouse that stored goods of a questionable nature. The boat-works portion was where he outfitted ships for dangerous adventures before sending them south with Tyne.

Dorian watched Elise swallow, disappointment shadowing her face. ‘You
were
thinking of selling,’ Dorian said in soft amazement.

‘Thinking only,’ Elise said quickly. ‘Nothing has been decided.’ She plucked at a grass stem. ‘It was just an idea. I wanted to talk
to you first.’ It was an implicit statement of trust and absolutely the best thing she could have said to him. She didn’t completely doubt him. Normally, he wouldn’t care what anyone thought, but when it came to Elise, everything was different. He cared very much. She was looking at him, those green eyes demanding an answer when all he wanted to do was roll her under him and bury himself in her until they both forgot all the difficulties and impossibilities that lay between them.

‘Is it really a bad idea? Hart wants the yacht, too, that’s why the price is so high.’

Dorian set aside his baser urges. ‘Yes, it’s a bad idea.’

‘Are you going to tell me why?’ She threw down the ultimate gauntlet. This had always been the sticking point between them. It was what she’d wanted from the start—to know him, to know what he knew. She still wanted it. It had been at the heart of their recent quarrel.

Dorian lay back on the grass, his head propped against a boulder. ‘I’ll tell you, Elise, although you might regret it. You’d better open that bottle of wine in the hamper. It’s a long story.’ When it was over, she might not
be the only one regretting it. Yet this was the only way forwards, painful as it might be. What better way to prove to her he was sorry for the other night than to tell her about Hart and Tyne? Of course, the opposite was also true. What better way to lose her for good? He couldn’t tell her about Hart and Tyne without telling her about himself.

‘T
yne and Hart were the ones who took the
Queen Maeve
and scuttled her before my eyes. I watched her burn.’ He’d watched more than a ship burn that night. He’d watched his livelihood, his dreams, everything go up in smoke, down with the ship. It didn’t matter which cliché one used, in the end there still was nothing left.

‘Why?’ Elise was looking at him with something akin to pity in her eyes. He didn’t want her sympathy. She’d lose it soon enough when she heard the rest. There were plenty of people who thought he’d got what he’d deserved and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t known the risks.

‘I crossed them.’ Just as Elise was crossing
them now with her refusal to sell the yacht. ‘I’ve told you before that Tyne was an arms dealer. He did the dirty work, the meetings with the pashas and chieftains, he made the actual deliveries. But Hart was the supplier. Hart never leaves England. he sets up the shipments, finds the arms—good solid British arms or sometimes French—and he sends them to Tyne. That’s what he’s got up at his warehouse in Wapping.’

‘Then what’s Tyne doing here? Shouldn’t he be sailing his ship somewhere?’ Elise’s mind was running ahead of the story.

Dorian drew a breath. ‘He doesn’t have one at present because I sunk it in revenge for the
Queen.’
If there was a touch of manly pride in his tone, so be it. He might have been bound and helpless the night the
Queen
burnt, but he did not let anyone harm what was his without retribution.

Elise’s expression grew masked. ‘What happened? We seem to have skipped over the part about why you crossed them.’

This was the harder part to tell, the part where he wouldn’t seem so heroic. Perhaps he’d look no better to her than Tyne and Hart. ‘Arms are a lucrative and arguably legal market
in the Mediterranean. I saw a chance to make money and I took it. It’s not just Turkey where there’s military unrest. There’s Egypt, too, and Greece and amongst the desert chieftains along the north of Africa in Algiers and Morocco—parts of Spain, too.’ He gave a grimace. ‘Not everyone is happy with the return of the Spanish monarch, and for whatever else the French liked or didn’t like about Napoleon, he’s made them greedy. They see the profit of colonies close to home. Algiers and Morocco are just across the sea and the French are drooling already at the thought. The British will never tolerate simply handing those ports to the French so we’ve moved inland, thinking to rally the sheikhs to our cause, convincing them the French will take their independence.’

Dorian shrugged. ‘It’s a lie, of course. It will be some time before anyone actually threatens the independence of the nomad sheikhs.’

‘You’ve seen them?’

‘Yes, I had to journey inland quite a way to make my deliveries. But that’s not the point. The point is, I sold arms, too. Mostly, I operated out of Gibraltar and made small runs to
Algiers. But as time went on and my reputation for quality arms grew, I began to see the allure of moving further east.’

Elise nodded, the pieces coming together. ‘That’s how you crossed them. You became too big, too successful, and then you infringed on their territory.’

Dorian pushed a hand through his hair. ‘Exactly. There were warnings—a little accident here and there meant to encourage my leaving. I retaliated by being bigger and bolder.’ He told her of the pasha’s daughter and stealing the arsenal in order to sell it to his rival. ‘Of course, the best part to me was that the arsenal had been supplied by Tyne.’ It had seemed symbolic at the time. Tyne had been furious.

‘Tyne offered to buy the
Queen
, several times. But I was too proud. I couldn’t sell her. I had built her. I’d paid for her with my own money saved from my runs. She was the one thing I had that truly belonged to me.’ His eyes were on the sky, but his thoughts were much further away.

‘One night, Tyne came after me. He seized or killed most of my crew. We did try to resist, but we were outnumbered. I suffered a
blow to the head and when I recovered consciousness, I found myself bound to a tree on a bluff overlooking the harbour. I had a perfect view to watch my ship burn.’

Elise fiddled with the grass, twisting the blades into little wreaths. ‘Why didn’t Tyne kill you? That would have solved his problems.’

‘Dead men can’t be broken and Tyne does like to break a man. Besides, I think he worried about repercussions in England. My father likes to pretend I don’t exist, but if anything did happen to me my father might suddenly get paternal again. Tyne didn’t want to risk it.’ Dorian sighed. There was more to tell, but perhaps this was enough for now. Perhaps she’d spare him and puzzle the rest out.

‘You do see why I’ve told you all this?’ Dorian rolled to his side and propped himself up on one elbow. ‘You are crossing him now. He’s issued his warnings and yet you do not relent. He’s behind Hart’s offer. The offer is your last chance. Tyne will come for your boat, and maybe even for you.’ There was no maybe about it; he just couldn’t bring himself to say the words.

The thought was enough to make him
shiver. For all her boldness, Elise was no match for Tyne. ‘He most certainly will come for me, though.’ On his own, Dorian could handle Tyne. But Elise complicated things. She could be used against him, making her doubly valuable to Tyne.

‘Then it’s good I’m alone.’ Elise looked up at him with a forced smile. ‘With my mother and William away from London it will be harder for him to reach them.’

She was starting to understand. Dorian reached up his free hand to push a strand of hair out of her face. ‘You’re not alone, Elise.’ She had him for whatever that was worth. He definitely came with disadvantages. He was a magnet for Tyne. He’d cost Tyne his ship and an expensive cargo of Russian guns for the Turks, a deal that had taken over a year to put together. But he could defend her. ‘I’m here.’

‘For how long?’ The question was ruthless. In one simple question she’d united the business and pleasure sides of their relationship, linking them irrevocably together once more.

‘For as long as it takes, Elise.’ It was the best answer, the most honest answer he could give. He would not leave her open to Tyne’s treachery, but neither could he articulate anything
permanent about their relationship. Nor could he articulate anything temporary. He wondered if she’d thought of that.

‘And then?’ Elise pushed on, seeing only the temporary nature of his answer. ‘Where will you go after this?’

‘It will depend.’ Dorian shrugged. ‘It’s not a priority right now and it won’t be a priority until Tyne is dealt with and you’re safe.’ He wanted to kiss her, wanted her to stop thinking about the future and start thinking about right now.

A coy smile hinted at her lips. ‘What is a priority, Dorian Rowland?’

‘You.’ He was hungry for her. He had to know she’d let him protect her, that his disclosures hadn’t driven her off.

‘Right here? Out in the open?’ The prospect of something so risky spoke to her. Her pupils widened, her pulse quickened.

‘Yes.’ Dorian kissed her neck, his free hand in her hair, drawing her, urging her close to him. They had all afternoon. He would take this nice and slow.

‘No.’ He felt her body tense in resistance, a mirror to her words.

‘No?’

She gave a rueful smile. ‘Apparently there’s one woman in the world who can resist Dorian Rowland.’ She looked down, away from his face. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t.’

Dorian blew out a breath. ‘Is it because of the things I said that night? I had no right. They were unconscionable and they were untrue.’ He’d regretted those harsh words the moment he’d spoke them.

‘No. We were both angry.’

‘Then what? Don’t you trust me, Elise?’ The words sounded ridiculous coming from him after all he’d told her. He’d run arms, he’d stolen arms, he’d destroyed another man’s ship in retribution. Why
should
she trust him?

Elise scooted away from him and stood, surely a bad sign. Most of what he wanted to do on a picnic blanket required sitting down at least.

‘I trust you to protect me against Tyne.’ But not from himself. He thought he understood. He rose, too, prepared to persuade her otherwise. Her next words stalled him full force. ‘Dorian, there’s something else. Charles came with two offers today. The other was a proposal. Charles has asked me to marry him.’

And she was considering it. He wanted
to shout, ‘No, you’re mine!’ but he had no idea what that meant—did it mean
he
wanted to marry her, or merely that he wanted to sail away with her and make love on sandy beaches until they tired of one another? How could he promise anything to her?

Dorian schooled his features into bland neutrality and cocked an eyebrow. ‘Are congratulations in order? Have you accepted him?’ Surely his instincts weren’t wrong. She couldn’t have, not when she’d been his not so very long ago.

Her own features mimicked his in their neutrality, some of the earlier stiffness returning to their conversation. ‘No, I have not. I just thought you should know.’
I will not be sleeping with you or kissing you, putting my mouth on you, or anything else until the situation with Charles is resolved
.

Dorian studied her face, watching for some telltale give-away. ‘
Will
you accept?’

‘I don’t know,’ Elise answered slowly. ‘It will depend on what happens with the shipyard, I suppose.’ There was a flicker of hope in her eyes that suggested it depended on more than the shipyard, that it might depend on him.

‘We haven’t done very well today.’ Elise gave a little laugh. ‘I still don’t know whether or not to take the offer. Either of them.’

Dorian laughed. At least she wasn’t going to run home and accept Charles’s proposal. He still had a chance if he wanted to take it. ‘We might be doing better than you think.’

She shot him a dubious look. ‘I would hardly call inviting all-out war with an arms dealer doing “better than we think”.’

‘If you sell, it’s more than understandable.’ He would hate that decision, though, and she would come to hate it, too. It would haunt him all his days to see that yacht in Tyne’s filthy hands, but if it kept Elise safe, he would live with it. ‘If you choose to resist, I’ll protect you to the best of my abilities. Either way, I can’t make that decision for you, Elise…’ he gave a wicked smile and leaned in close to her ‘…but I can do this.’ His hand cupped the sweep of her jaw, just before he kissed her.

He tasted the sweetness of her, the strawberries and wine mingled on her lips, he felt the small straight ridges of her teeth where his tongue ran over them. Most of all, he felt compliance, ever so briefly, before she remembered
her resolve, but it was there. And that meant there was hope indeed.

‘I told you, I can’t,’ Elise protested softly.

‘But I can. Charles didn’t propose to me.’ Dorian kissed her again just to prove his point.

Elise stood at the launch gate of the shipyard. In her hand was the rope cord that would send the bottle of champagne sailing into the side of the yacht. Excitement and trepidation coursed through her in equal parts. The breeze off the water toyed with her hat and she reached a hand up to steady it. The wind was good. In spite of overcast skies, conditions for the test sail couldn’t be better.

The momentous day was finally here. She was well past the point of no return and had been for much longer than she’d realised. Since the beginning there had been no question of selling the yard, or even of selling the boat, even if she was only now coming to realise it. She understood it now, though, standing on the launch site while the sun rose with Dorian beside her. This boat
belonged
to her, it was a product of her plans, her designs, her efforts.

Yet for all the pride she felt in the moment, there was a loneliness, too. Past launch days had been huge festive events, her father a great showman. The launch gate had been crowded with invited guests. Other yachts of invited celebrants had been moored in the river to join the sailing, and a select few would be aboard the prized vessel. There’d been food and champagne and a rousing speech from her father. Even the members of the royal family were present on occasion.

Today there was no such pomp. Today there were only a handful of people: herself and Dorian and enough crew to get the boat launched. She’d named the yacht
Sutton’s Hope
and Dorian had made her hold up a lantern last night so he could see well enough to paint the name along the prow. The paint had dried just in time.

‘This is it, Elise, give the rope a good yank.’ Dorian came to stand beside her, the last of the preparations done. Dorian,
not
Charles, was here with her, came the reminder. Dorian had helped her realise this moment, a moment Charles had not been in favour of from the start. Charles had scoffed at her ambitions.
Dorian had embraced them. That should count for something.

Dorian was dressed in buff breeches and a thick sweater against the early morning chill. He looked well rested in spite of the late night. Elise knew she did not. She’d hardly slept with her mind so occupied with the yacht launch, the contretemps of Damien Tyne and Charles’s proposal. She’d spent most of the night weighing Charles against Dorian, although her practical side didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if she had to choose. Charles had asked for her hand, Dorian had asked for nothing.

‘Elise, the rope,’ Dorian prompted again with a smile.

She let go and watched the bottle give a satisfying smash against the side. Her father would have loved to have been here. She’d not dared to write to William or her mother with an update. William didn’t know yet that he’d signed on for a membership with the yacht club.

Elise helped Dorian and the other two crew members get the yacht under way in the river, but she was eager to stand at the railing and feel the wind in her face and feel the roll of
the boat beneath her. She was nervous, too. Would the great experiment with the buoyancy bags compensate for the narrowness through the centre of the boat? It would be absolutely tragic if, after all this, the design simply didn’t work.

For the trial, they’d planned to sail down the Thames to Gravesend. The route was the standard below-the-bridge racing course used by the yacht club. It would be a good chance to see how the sails tacked in the wind. Already she could feel the cutter rigging picking up the breeze. The boat
felt
fast. She could hear Dorian calling out instructions. She didn’t remember the point at which everything fell silent on board, only that Dorian had come up behind her and boldly wrapped his arms about her, his body warm and comforting.