A Lady Dares. Bronwyn Scott

stammering exit. ‘Errm…um…I have some errands to run. I’ll see you at home, don’t stay too late.’

      Elise sank down in the chair behind the desk and blew out a breath. Welcome to the world of men, you can begin by following our orders and forgetting to think for yourself, Elise thought uncharitably. In the last months she’d become heartily tired of men.

      She was starting to understand all the ways in which her father had shielded her and she’d been unaware. Oh, how she missed him! She thought the missing would get easier with time, not harder. But everywhere she looked, everywhere she went, she was reminded of his absence. Even here, the one place where she’d felt truly at home.

      When she’d been with her father at the shipyards no one had questioned her opinions on yacht design; no one had contradicted her numbers in the ledger. People did what she told them to do. Right up until his death, she’d believed they’d done those things because she’d earned their respect with her hard work and intelligence. Then they’d deserted one by one: the workmen, the investors. The message could not be any more concise. We listened to you because we wanted to please your father so he’d build us fast boats and pay our salaries. Listening to you was just part of the game. Elise put her head in her hands. It was a cruel blow.

      Today had been more of the same, just to make the point in case she’d missed it the first time around. Dorian Rowland had walked in and assumed an attitude of control as if he had a right to this place in his rough shirt and trousers. Her brother had stealthily issued an edict—she was to give up yacht design after this boat and resign her life to one of three unappealing options: marriage, keeping house for her brother or living with her mother. She was to be passed from man to man, father to brother, brother to husband. She’d had fun playing at design, but now it was time to put away her childish things.

      She wouldn’t do it. Elise squeezed her eyes tight, pressing back tears. Closing the company would be like forgetting her father, as if his life hadn’t mattered. This place was his legacy and she would not discard it so easily. There were more selfish reasons, too. She needed this. She never felt as alive as when she was designing a model and watching it come to life from her ideas. What would she be without that? The answer frightened her too much to thoroughly contemplate it for long. Well, there was nothing for it; if she wasn’t going to contemplate it, she’d simply have to conquer it.

      Alone at last! Dorian flashed a lantern up in the direction of the dark office window as he shut the heavy gate to the yard behind him and breathed a relieved sigh. Elise Sutton had finally gone home for the evening and he’d returned successfully from his little foray on to the docks. After the day he’d had, he couldn’t ask for much more.

      Dorian set down the heavy bag he carried and rubbed his shoulder. When it had become apparent Miss Sutton planned on staying either because she didn’t want to go home in a snit or because she didn’t want to leave him alone in her shipyard, he’d decided to go out and take care of his business in the hopes it would convince her he’d gone home or wherever it was she imagined he went when the sun went down. Whether the princess knew it or not, this was his home now—that nice little shed in the corner of the lot.

      He’d gone back to his now-former room, paid the landlady his paltry rent with the few remaining coins he had and gathered up his clothes and tools and made arrangements for his trunk to be delivered in the morning. It was far too heavy and too conspicuous to haul through the streets. No matter, it didn’t contain anything he considered absolutely essential. Those items were already packed away in a black-cloth sack. Still, between a single trunk and one black satchel, it was humbling to think they made up the sum of his worldly goods in England, but it had made packing easy.

      It also made getting away easy. The last thing he wanted was to be noticed by Halsey’s thugs. On the way back, he’d stopped at a few taverns, looking for likely workers. In this case, ‘likely’ meant whoever would be willing to show up and work for future pay. He just had to get them here. Once they saw the yacht, the project would speak for itself.

      Dorian raised the lantern higher to cast the light on the boat. It was showing itself to be an absolute beauty. Longer and leaner than most yachts, it would be fast in the water. He recognised the influence of the American Joshua Humphreys in the design.

      He hung the lantern on a nearby peg and reached into his sack for a drawing knife with its two handles and slender blade. The tool felt good in his hands as he slid it against the hull, scraping roughness away from the surface of the wood. There wasn’t much to catch—the finished portion of the hull was smooth already—but it felt good to work. Dorian let the rhythm of the drawing motion absorb him. The only thing better was standing at the wheel of a boat feeling the water buck beneath him like a woman finding her pleasure—perhaps a particular black-haired woman with green eyes.

      When he’d awakened this morning, he’d never dreamed he’d be building a ship by evening. The arrangement might be a good one. He could hide out from Halsey until he made back his money or until Halsey forgot he owed him. In the meanwhile, he could work a new angle. There was plenty of potential here in the shipyard. Dorian ran a hand over the surface he’d finished scraping. He could make plans for this boat. If the finished yacht was as promising as the shell, he might just find a way to talk Miss Sutton out of selling. It might mean cosying up to the ice princess, but he’d never been above a little sweet talk to get what he wanted. With a boat of his own, he’d be back in business and the possibilities would be limitless.

      The possibilities should have been limitless, Maxwell Hart mused dispassionately as he listened to young Charles Bradford report his latest news concerning the Sutton shipyard. Elise Sutton had become a thorn in his side instead of bowing to the dictates of the inevitable. Her father was dead, her brother not prepared or interested in taking over the business, investors withdrawn and no obvious funds to continue on her own. All the pieces were in place for her to abdicate quietly, gracefully, to those with the means to run the shipyard. Instead, she had not relinquished the property, had not sought out a buyer for the plans to her father’s last coveted design. In short, she had done nothing as expected. Now there was this latest development.

      ‘There were lights at the shipyard tonight,’ young Charles Bradford told the small group of four assembled.

      ‘Do you think it could be vagrants?’ Harlan Fox suggested from his chair, looking around for validation. Fox had pockets that went deeper than his intelligence. Those pockets were his primary recommendation for inclusion in this little group of ambitious yachtsmen. ‘It’s been several months, after all. It’s about time for the vultures to settle, eh?’

      Maxwell shook his head. ‘No, she’s been going to the office regularly. She probably worked late.’ He spat the pronouns with distaste. The best thing to do with thorns was to pluck them.

      Charles Bradford interrupted uncharacteristically. ‘I beg your pardon, sir. It couldn’t have been Miss Sutton. She left around five o’clock and she was the last to leave. There were two other men, her brother and a man I didn’t recognise. But they’d both gone by then.’

      Damien Tyne, the fourth gentleman present, said, ‘Any of them could have come back.’

      ‘It wasn’t likely to have been her or the brother,’ Charles pressed. ‘There was no carriage. Whoever returned came back on foot.’

      ‘I still vote for vagrants,’ Fox insisted.

      But Damien Tyne leaned forwards, curiosity piqued. When Damien was intrigued, Maxwell had learned to pay attention. He and Tyne had made a tidy profit off those instincts and they were unerringly good. ‘What are you thinking, Tyne?’

      Miss Sutton needed to be prodded in the right direction and in short order. He wanted that shipyard. It held a prime spot on the Thames and he’d coveted it for years. It would be the perfect place to move his own more obscure yacht-building operation and his warehouses. A good location would garner him the notice which to date had eluded him from his current locale in Wapping.

      Obtaining the shipyard would just be the start. Hart also wanted to get his hands on the plans to Sutton’s last yacht