A Lady Dares

by Bronwyn Scott

  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 danci
ng towards reconciliation with their careful words.

  ‘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.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ‘Tyne 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.