Bronwyn Scott - A Lady Dares

Charles set his jaw, looking fiercer than she’d ever seen him, a look at odds with his usually calm demeanour. ‘Of course you don’t know and understandably so. It’s hardly a topic of discussion worthy of a lady. I will say only this: he’s not fit company for you.’

The fervency in Charles’s eyes should have warmed her even if his sentiments did not. She ought to overlook his condescension in light of its motives: he was putting her honour first. He was thinking of her, concerned about who she associated with, even if the tone with which that care was voiced sounded a bit high in the instep. Her father had been a self-made peer, knighted for his efforts, and Charles’s own father was a baronet, neither family far removed from the efforts of work that had attained such positions. Yet she could not warm to Charles’s efforts with more than polite kindness. Her own body and mind were still engaged in recalling a less-decent gentleman with blunt manners and a blind eye for scandal.

‘I appreciate your concern, although it’s hardly fair to tell me he’s unsuitable and then not tell me why.’ As if she needed reasons other than the ones Dorian had already provided this very afternoon with his unorthodox kissing episode. Out of reflex and remembrance, Elise’s eyes dropped ever so briefly to Charles’s lips. She couldn’t imagine Charles behaving so outrageously. The thought was not well done of her. There could be no true comparison between the two. Charles was all a gentleman should be and Dorian Rowland simply was not. Charles would be eminently more preferable. Wouldn’t he? He was precisely the sort of man her brother wanted her to find: attractive, steady and financially secure. But even with all these credentials, Elise couldn’t help but feel Charles would still come out lacking.

Charles seemed to hold an internal debate with himself, his features suddenly relaxing, decision made. He leaned across the table in confidentiality. ‘He is Lord Ashdon’s son, second son,’ he offered in hushed tones as if that explained it all.

It certainly explained some, like how William might have encountered him at an Oxford house party. Even after William’s explanation, she’d been hard pressed to believe William had stumbled across a master shipbuilder in the course of his usual social routine. But the one word her brain kept coming back to was scandal . It was the very last thing she needed. Her father’s death had been sensational, but not scandalous. Dorian Rowland, however, was both. If society had seen him today, one of their own, half-naked and toting tools around the shipyard, shouting orders, it would be outraged. Then again, it already was. If Charles could be believed, Dorian’s transgressions preceded this latest. This venture into the shipyard was just one of many escapades for him. But she would be the one who suffered.

It was slowly coming to her that Dorian Rowland simply didn’t care who he perpetrated this fraud on. He could have told her who he was and he hadn’t. He’d let her believe he was a craftsman. And why not? He wasn’t received. He had nothing to lose, whereas she had everything to risk.

Her place in society was tenuous. She was the daughter of a dead man who possessed a non-hereditary title. Society had to acknowledge her father. It didn’t have to acknowledge her, especially if she put herself beyond the pale. She had only her virtue and reputation to speak for her if she wished to remain in society’s milieu. To be honest, her reputation wasn’t the best to start with and this latest effort to keep the shipyard open wouldn’t help, with or without Dorian Rowland’s presence.

Oblivious to the tumult of her thoughts, Charles leaned across the table ready to impart another confidence ‘Enough of such unpleasant things. I confess I had other reasons for seeing you. I wanted to ask if you might consider going for a drive some afternoon? I know you’re in mourning, but a drive wouldn’t be amiss.’

Hardly. Elise thought of her mother’s version of mourning in the countryside. A drive was nothing beside her mother’s card parties and dinners at the squire’s, and Elise had made no secret that she’d set many of the trappings of mourning aside. All right, all of them. She did wear half-mourning, but that was the only concession she continued to make and even that transition had been rushed by society’s standards. She returned Charles’s smile, but the offer raised little excitement. ‘I’d like that.’ She really should try harder to like him, to see him as more than a comfortable friend.

They finished lunch in companionable conversation, the subject of Dorian Rowland discarded until Charles dropped her off at the town house. He saw her to the door, his hand light at her elbow. ‘It was good to see you, Elise. I’m sorry if the news about Rowland disturbed you. Now that you know, I trust you’ll manage the situation appropriately.’

Somehow, Elise thought as the door shut behind her, she didn’t think ‘managing appropriately’ included afternoons pressed up against the office wall kissing her foreman with all the abandon of a wanton.

Dorian had abandoned all pretence of being in a good mood since the previous afternoon. The encounter with Elise had left him aroused with no hope of immediate satisfaction save that which he’d had to provide for himself. At the sight of a haphazard nailing job, he ripped the hammer out of one worker’s hand with a snarl. ‘Take it out and do it right.’ The others gave him a wide berth.

He didn’t blame them. Kissing Elise had put him out of sorts even though he’d got what he wanted. He shouldn’t have done it. Technically, he knew better but that had never stopped him before. He took what he liked and he’d liked her, a princess with her temper up, her professional reserve down. She’d been furious with him and it had done fabulous things to her, turning the green of her eyes to the shade of moss and staining her cheeks to a becoming pink. In his arms, she’d become a woman of fire, burning slow and hot, desperate to prove herself.

That made him chuckle. She’d not wanted him to think she was entirely inexperienced. Most decent girls were just the opposite, wanting to prove their virtue. Even so, there was no question Elise Sutton was a lady in spite of her adventurous streak. Men like him didn’t mess with ladies. Ladies came with expectations while a man like him came with none.

‘Lover girl’s here,’ one of the men called out, a surly fellow named Adam. He was not the sort Dorian preferred to hire, but choices had been few and he’d been eager to get the project under way.

‘Shut up and show some respect,’ Dorian growled. He looked up from his work on the hull to see Elise crossing the yard. The princess in her was intact this morning, helped along no doubt by a careful choice of dress. He knew very well that clothes were a woman’s armour. Elise was turned out to perfection in a lavender morning dress of figured silk, complemented by the soft grey of her shawl and the matching lace trim of her Victoria bonnet. The ensemble was very demure, very respectful, although not quite up to the standard for a daughter’s mourning. He wondered briefly if she’d forgone mourning altogether. Yet the subdued qualities of the outfit did not diminish her. Perhaps that was due to her walk, Dorian mused, watching the sway of her hips and not necessarily her clothes.

She crossed the yard with a purpose, hardly deigning to give any attention to the eyes attracted by her movement. Her superior attitude was for the best. Dorian felt a twinge of guilt over the sort of men he’d hired. These were rough men unaccustomed to ladies. But also he’d not expected her to make herself a daily fixture in the shipyard.

‘Clearly my message yesterday eluded you.’ Dorian set down the wrung staff he was using to attach planking on the hull.