A Lady Dares (19 page)

‘She’s doing magnificently,’ Dorian reported. ‘The cutter rigging was exactly the right way to go. The new cut on the sails has made an enormous difference with the windage.’

Elise smiled. ‘That’s precisely what I wanted to hear.’

‘The
Hope
is fast, Elise.’ Dorian’s voice
was at her ear, low and intimate. she should dissuade him from such liberties. It wasn’t fair to Charles or to Dorian or to her. If she meant to accept Charles, it was the height of cruelty to tempt herself like this. She didn’t need to compare kisses to know Charles did not rouse her,
could not
rouse her, like Dorian did. There would be none of the pleasure, none of the fire she felt with Dorian. But there would be honour and Charles would respect her. No, that would be misleading to think so. What kind of respect? Respect only if she acceded to his wishes. He would never countenance something like today.

‘How fast?’ She was fishing for compliments now.

‘Fast enough to outrun them all.’ Dorian blew in her ear. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.’ She’d thought about it all last night in the long dark hours: about keeping the yacht, about rejecting Charles, about sailing away from London. Let Tyne and Hart have the shipyard if she could have Dorian. Fanciful notions all. If Dorian was right about Tyne and Hart, her ethical conscience wouldn’t allow conceding to such blackguards.

‘Thought about what?’ She breathed in the wind-tinged scent of him, a man out of doors and in his element.

‘About keeping the yacht and racing it on your own.’

‘Oh, that.’ So not about keeping him, then. What would he say if she said she’d thought of sailing away with him?

‘You could pay the workers from prize money.’

‘That’s a big risk. What if we didn’t win?’ She had no cash reserves to pay those wages. She was worried enough about paying them in the very near future. She had no buyer. She’d have to sell off furnishings if one didn’t materialise soon.

‘We’d win, Elise. She’s a champion in the water.’ Dorian sounded confident. It made her want to believe in so many impossible things.

‘There’s a regatta right after the opening trip, with a four-hundred-pound purse and a silver cup, sponsored by the royal family. They’re calling it the Saxe-Coburg Cup in Albert’s honour.’

‘You are surprisingly well informed for someone who shuns polite society.’ Elise gave him a suspicious smile. This was the perfect
opportunity to bind him to her just a little longer if she dared. ‘To do such a thing, I’d need you at the helm. Would you do it?’ They’d not finished that discussion the night of the fire and he’d been reticent. She turned in his embrace, her arms about his neck, Charles forgotten for the moment. It was hard to remember much of anything when she was with Dorian.

Dorian swallowed hard, his jaw clenching. ‘If it’s what you want, I’ll do it.’ She didn’t pretend to understand all the reasons why he was so reticent to associate with society, but she knew the decision cost him mightily.

Elise beamed and rose up on her tiptoes to kiss him full on the mouth. ‘Can we sail the yacht ourselves?’ she asked softly, her mouth inches from his.

‘We could manage.’ He gave her a teasing wink. ‘You’re not the only one who can innovate. I borrowed some mechanics from ketch rigging and adapted them to your cutter rigging to make the yacht more efficient for a small crew.’

‘I am suitably impressed. Put the crew aside at Gravesend with fare to get home and I’ll give you a proper thank you.’

Dorian grinned. ‘And Charles? Does this mean you’ve refused his offer?’

Elise nodded, more solemn now. ‘I don’t think I ever could have accepted him, not when I really thought about it.’ There was more to it than that, but for now she was interested in kissing Dorian with the wind in her hair and her decisions made. There would still be a fight ahead of her. She didn’t believe for a moment simply making decisions solved her problems. She would continue to persevere. Maybe there was a miracle out there for her where she could keep the shipyard, keep the boat and maybe, just maybe, she’d find a way to keep Dorian without needing him too much.

‘She’s a beauty.’ Damien Tyne handed off the binoculars to Maxwell Hart. ‘Just look at her.’

‘That’s my fiancée you’re talking about,’ Charles said tersely, raising his own binoculars to his eyes, his horse shifting under him on the bluff as they watched
Sutton’s Hope
pass in the sunrise.

‘I meant the boat, but the comment suits either way,’ Tyne teased meanly. ‘I don’t know
if I’d use the binoculars if I were you. You might not like what you see. It appears Rowland shares our assessment of the latter.’ He elbowed Hart and the two of them laughed.

Charles grimaced, his anger rising as he stared through the eye piece, watching Dorian come up behind Elise and wrap her in his arms. ‘How dare he!’ Charles spluttered. No gentleman behaved so boldly with a woman.

‘How dare
she?’
Tyne inserted with a sideways glance in his direction. ‘It doesn’t look to me like she’s overly upset. In fact, they look quite cosy, quite comfortable with one another as if…’

‘Don’t even say it,’ Charles ground out. He’d thought the same thing. They looked much too easy together for this to have been the first time. The way Rowland was whispering in her ear, the way she turned in his arms, laughing up at him, confirmed those jealous suspicions. Rage boiled through Charles. ‘I’d like to see him dead.’

Tyne laughed. ‘That can be arranged, my young friend. That most
definitely
can be arranged.’

‘Not yet,’ Hart cut in sharply in a tone that made Charles think Tyne wasn’t truly joking.
‘There’s still a chance she might accept the offer and then any nasty conclusions to our business with her can be avoided.’

‘Always the optimist, aren’t you, Maxwell?’ Tyne shook his head. Charles looked between the two. When he was with them, he always felt as if there was another game going on between them that he and the others weren’t privy to; that somehow this was about more than a simple business venture to build fast boats.

‘I can’t afford not to be. I have to live here after you leave to soak up the rays of the Mediterranean,’ Hart reminded Tyne. ‘Raising the ire of the Duke of Ashdon might not bother you, but it will make business on this end deuced difficult for the rest of us. It won’t matter if we have the yard and a fast boat once Ashdon gets done.’ That was more like it. Charles understood that sort of rationale. Hart knew what was good for business.

Tyne groused and scuffed the toe of his boot through the dirt. ‘When’s the opening trip?’

‘Five days, why?’ Hart asked.

‘Let’s give her until then. If she’s not responded
to the offer affirmatively by the opening trip, I get to work my magic.’

Charles felt a shiver. He didn’t mind Tyne and Hart carving up Rowland between them, but now they were dragging Elise in, too. ‘Now see here, Tyne, my father and I won’t stand for seeing Elise hurt.’

Tyne gave a cold smile, his gaze fixed on the boat growing smaller in the distance. ‘She’ll come out of it all right if she’s smart. So will you, Bradford.’ Tyne turned and fixed him with a stare. ‘Don’t get any ideas about betraying us at this late date. She’s not the only one who needs to play this smart.’ He paused for a moment. ‘Are we agreed then, Maxwell? Opening trip?’

Maxwell Hart gave a nearly imperceptible nod, the line of his jaw set grim and tense. ‘Opening trip it is.’

‘I
’ve put the crew off. I gave them money for fare back and a pint or two.’ Dorian came up behind Elise and wrapped her in his arms, enjoying the feel of her as she sank into his body. This was one of his favourite positions with her—his arms about her, the two of them at the rail of a boat. They had stood this way, too, the night they’d gone to Vauxhall.

‘We have the boat to ourselves,’ he murmured in her ear. She turned and put her arms about his neck, her eyes dancing with life, her cheeks flushed from the wind. She looked utterly alive in his arms. There would be seduction today. Their bodies were primed for it with the thrill of the morning sail. The privacy of the cove he had anchored them in
ensured it. But he was going to have to decide very soon what to do about her. Their time together
would
end. After the opening trip there was nothing to hold him here except the personal. Would she ask him to stay? Would he be willing to pay the price staying demanded? Or would she come with him if he asked? Could he make her happy in Gibraltar? That was a fantasy that had taken up far too much of his nights lately—sailing away with Elise and finding the happy ever after.

‘I do not like the look in your eyes one bit.’ Elise laughed up at him, but he feared she’d seen too much. Perhaps she understood, too, that this affair could not go on indefinitely without reaching a resolution. It was time to redirect. ‘Come eat, Elise. I’ve got our picnic laid out.’

She’d been lost in thought when he’d returned. He’d left her at the rail with those thoughts and taken time to spread the blanket on the deck and lay out the picnic: cheese and bread, apples and, best of all, champagne. Elise loved champagne, loved to do wicked things with it.

‘You’ve been busy.’ Elise sat and tucked her skirts around her. He joined her, pulling
off his boots. The sun had broken through the clouds and the blanket was warm. The boat bobbed gently beneath them. For the moment, everything was perfect.

‘My father would have loved today,’ Elise said softly, as unwilling as he to disrupt the peace around them. He’d guessed she’d been thinking of her father. How could she not on such an important day? Whether she knew it or not, Elise Sutton had an enormous capacity for love. He suspected, however, it was a capacity she guarded carefully.

‘Sutton’s
Hope
would have made him proud.’ Dorian popped the cork on the bottle and poured out two glasses. ‘You would have made him proud.’ He handed her a glass. ‘Shall we have a toast? To Richard Sutton, to his vision and to his daughter.’

Elise blushed, her eyes watering a little at the tribute. He was glad she understood he was sincere. ‘Thank you.’ She touched her glass to his. ‘How about a toast to the builder? To Dorian Rowland, a most extraordinary man.’ Her eyes met his, and he let their gaze hold, a feat more difficult than he would have thought. Of all the things they’d said to
one another over the past weeks, these toasts might have been the boldest.

These words were the closest they’d come to any verbal expression of their feelings. They’d done things together: rash things, intimate things, dangerous things. But never once had they spoken of how each made the other feel, as if saying the words signified a commitment neither were prepared to make.

‘People say things like this when they believe someone is leaving, perhaps never to be seen again. It’s one of the reasons I hate farewells.’ Dorian set down his glass and reached for the wheel of cheese. ‘Do you think I am leaving, Elise?’ He passed her a chunk of cheese and slice of bread. He’d not planned to address their future today, but perhaps now was the right time after all.

Elise took the slice of cheese and bread from him, gathering her thoughts. Her answer, when she made it, would be careful. ‘I think your business obligations to me are nearly over. If you stay, it will be out of something more. Staying will require some decisions.’

‘We are dancing around it again.’ Dorian gave a wry smile. ‘It was one thing to use me
for sex before the Season, but once everyone comes to town you’ll need something more substantial. Is that it?’

He watched her swallow the champagne hastily to keep from choking on it. The bolder turn of the conversation had caught her off guard. ‘Yes, something like that. Sex is fine for now, but eventually it has to mean something.’ She stared into her glass, watching the bubbles disappearing. ‘I’m afraid that’s my fatal flaw, Dorian. You should know it before it’s too late. Sex has to mean something to me. It can’t just be for fun, not always. If we were to continue, eventually, I fear I would expect from you more than you might be prepared to give.’

How could he answer that for her when he wasn’t sure he could answer it for himself? What was he willing to give? It was easier to know that answer if she’d come away with him. But what if the only way to have her was to stay? Her shipyard was here, everything she wanted was here. Would she leave it all for him? Would it be fair to expect that from her when he wasn’t sure he could give it in return? But that wasn’t all she was asking him with the revelation.

She was telling him something else, too—that
this
had happened before. He’d known, of course, he wasn’t her first lover. There’d been someone else who’d tempted her and failed her. She’d expected love where there’d been none. A spurt of anger went through him, anger directed at the nameless man who’d teased her so carelessly. Dorian’s thumb was under her chin, tipping her face up, forcing their gazes to meet when she would have preferred to have avoided it. ‘Is that what happened the last time?’

‘Yes.’ She met his gaze evenly. There was defiance in her tone. ‘I was more emotionally invested. He was more physically invested. At the time, I didn’t understand the difference until it was too late.’

‘Do you think that will happen here? That you are invested, but I am not?’

She gave him a wry smile. ‘It would be too easy to love you, Dorian, even though I know what kind of man you are. On occasion, I suspect I’m already halfway there. After all, I’ve turned down a perfectly good suitor for you on my own volition.’ Then she shook her head, ‘But, no, Dorian. I don’t think it could happen here. I’m smarter and wiser and
you’ve made no secret about your intentions and that makes all the difference.’

Leave it to Elise to mingle compliments with a scold, but he was moved all the same. What would he do with that affection should she let it loose? Could he be trusted with it? Dorian rocked back on his heels and cut more bread while his mind reeled. She loved him. He wanted to celebrate that, wanted to jump up and down with the thrill of that knowledge. But the last part held him back, the part about intentions. He sensed the crux of the story lay there. ‘Why don’t you tell me about secret intentions? We’re well fortified if this is a long story.’

‘There’s not much to tell. I was eighteen. I was in the throes of my first Season. My father’s social circle extended to the lower rungs of the peerage and we had the royal patronage by then. It enabled me to garner the attention of a different kind of gentleman, the sons of barons, which meant there were titles to go with the estates. Before, the most I could have expected were the attentions of nice gentry farmers with lands and a comfortable income. I became infatuated with a Mr Robert Graves, heir to a baronetcy in Devonshire.
He was dashing, a little wild, but it appeared he liked me, too. Before I knew it, we were dancing together every night, he was driving me in the park and we were sneaking out to the gardens for kisses.’

‘Kisses?’ Dorian waggled his eyebrows, pretending shock. A little levity was not amiss. She was starting to relax.

‘Well, considerably more than kisses. We became intimately involved. I had no qualms over it. I was certain he had marriage in mind and we wouldn’t have been the first couple to anticipate matrimony. He talked about plans and I assumed those plans were for us.’

Dorian’s anger flared. ‘Who were they for?’ He’d like to wring the bounder’s neck.

‘For his fourth cousin, Miss Mary Southmore,’ Elise said quietly. ‘What hurt most was the way he broke it to me. He said he had never harboured any intentions of marrying me. I was a craftsman’s daughter when all was said and done. My family built boats. I never should have believed anything more could come of it.’

‘I’m truly sorry.’ It explained much about Elise, about the guard she kept on her feelings, not willing to reveal too much.

‘Fortunately, what I felt for him wasn’t real love and I learned from that mistake.’ Elise gave a sad smile.

‘Not every man sees the world as Robert Graves does,’ Dorian put in softly. He stretched out on his side, drawing her to him, wanting to show her there was honour in him yet, that he could be trusted to deal honestly with her.

‘No, but a good lesson all the same.’ She snuggled down beside him, their faces close.

He pushed a strand of hair back out of her face. ‘We both know I’m not Robert Graves, Elise, not in temperament or in practice.’

‘I know,’ she whispered, her breath catching as he moved against her ever so slightly, enough to close the gap between their bodies and to make his arousal known. Her hand slipped between them, finding the length of him. Lord, he loved the feel of her hand on him.

‘Now there’s something else we both know, Elise. I’m dying to make love to you.’

She smiled. ‘I thought you’d never ask.’

He leaned over, raising himself above her, hands braced on either side. She was beautiful beneath him, her hair falling down about her
shoulders, her green eyes looking up at him full of desire, a desire for
him
that was nearly overwhelming. Her hands were at the waistband of his trousers, unfastening, freeing. He managed her skirts and undergarments with a hand, his mouth trailing kisses down her throat, need rising with each touch. The wanting of her consumed him.

‘God, how I want you, Elise. You don’t know, you just don’t know.’ He was mumbling incoherent phrases against her throat, his breathing ragged. He moved, positioning himself. He was sliding home into the depths of her and nothing had ever felt this right. She was locked about him, holding him, rocking with him in his rhythm as he slid and thrust, pushing them towards the release he desperately wanted and never wanted; how he’d love to stay like this with her forever! In these moments there was no threat from Tyne, no social dilemmas to unravel regarding their future. There was only the knowledge that he was made for this moment and she was made for him and that was all that mattered, until it shattered into a million shards of pleasure, peace and perfection.

In the aftermath of that release, one question
intruded: what would he be willing to do to have such a moment again? Could he stay for her? for this?

He’d stayed for her! Today, Dorian would be at the helm of the boat and at her side. He would stand with her on one of the most important days of her life: the day she showed the world Elise Sutton could build a yacht.

That one thought raced through Elise as she made her way through the streets leading to the docks. It was the opening trip and the streets were crowded with people anticipating the start of the yacht season. Spectators gathered along the waterfront to see the boats, sails hoisted, preparing to set out. Elise understood their excitement. She felt it, too. After a long bleak winter, there was an undeniable thrill at seeing the Commodore’s pennant flying from his yacht at Blackwell as it had in seasons past, a sign that while some things change, not all things change.

She let the excitement of the opening trip fill the pit in her stomach. Even if there was just the opening trip to worry about, she’d still have had butterflies. It was her first official outing since her father’s death. There
would be those who would look askance at such behaviour.

But there was so much more. There’d been an ugly scene with Charles the day before. She had officially rejected his suit and he’d shown himself to be a poor loser. There was Tyne and Hart to worry about. She couldn’t keep them dangling much longer, but to refuse them outright put her in harm’s way. Then there was Dorian and the host of feelings and dilemmas he raised.

He was here for now, but for how much longer? Had they really reached any sort of consensus on the boat in spite of their disclosures and torrid lovemaking? Charles had not been wrong when he’d accused her of being infatuated with Dorian. She was and quite possibly more. Charles had insinuated Dorian had put her up to this nonsense with the yacht, but Elise knew better. She’d have ended up here, flaunting convention, with or without Dorian. Dorian simply made it easier. With Dorian, she had an ally.

Dorian was waiting for her beside the yacht, a welcome sight in the press of people. He was dressed in the new outfit she’d had sent over: spotless white trousers and a navy-blue
jacket. He looked like the other captains, only
more
—more alive, more vibrant.

‘Miss Sutton, your yacht awaits.’ Dorian handed her up with grave formality that she might have believed if it hadn’t been for the familiar twinkle of mischief in his eye. ‘Several people have been eyeing the boat.’

‘Jealous, were they?’ Elise laughed, forcing herself to relax. She’d worked hard for this day. She
wanted
to enjoy it. Ladies passed by on the arms of gentlemen, many of them casting coy glances in Dorian’s direction. ‘I wonder if it was the yacht everyone was looking at?’ she teased Dorian.

‘Probably not,’ he admitted honestly, taking his place at the helm. ‘You’d better be prepared for scandal by dinner.’

Scandal would be better than some of the other options she’d mentally braced for. Elise went to stand at the railing and looked out over the river at all the boats assembled. She recognised several of them; the
Lady Louisa
, the
Brilliant
, the
Phantom
. All of them had been her father’s competitors and friends over the years. She waved to a few acquaintances on boats nearby. Some of them waved back.

Well, Charles had warned her. Dorian had
warned her. She’d built a boat, she’d forgone mourning and she’d hired a scandalous captain. What should she have expected? Still, it was one thing to anticipate being snubbed—it was another to actually have it happen. It was rather eye-opening to realise that she would be the larger source of scandal than Dorian.