A Lady Dares. Bronwyn Scott

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ not at all what she wanted to hear.

      ‘It means let’s clear the debt and start a new life.’

      Oh, that was better. She breathed a sigh of relief. ‘A new line, yes, of course. I have a lot of ideas about yacht lines and how we can branch out into sailboats. I think racing will fully shift from rivers to open sea in the next few years. We might even think of relocating to Cowes to be closer to the Solent.’ She was babbling excitedly now, reaching for a tube containing rolls of her drawings, but a shake of William’s head stopped her.

      ‘No, Elise, I don’t mean to redefine the company. I mean we should close the book on the company once the debts are paid. There will be a little left over for you until you marry and you can always stay with me. I hope to find a living somewhere or take an associate’s post at Oxford.’

      It took a moment for William’s words to sink in. ‘Close the company?’ She sat down behind the desk, stunned. Had her brother been thinking this all along?

      ‘Well, what did you think we’d do after the yacht was finished?’ William pressed.

      ‘I thought we’d build more boats. You’ll see, William. After people view this yacht, there will be other orders. This yacht will relaunch us. It will show everyone we can turn out the same superior product we’ve always turned out. The investors will come back.’ It made so much sense to her. Surely William could see the logic in that?

      ‘How many master builders do you think I know?’ William gave a soft laugh.

      ‘I’m not sure how you knew this one.’ Elise put in tartly. ‘Care to explain?’

      William dismissed the question with a wave of his hand. ‘It was just a house party put on by the parents of a friend of mine. A few of us went to help balance out numbers and Rowland was there. One night, we started talking and discovered we both had a common interest in yachting.’

      Elise wrinkled her brow. ‘He hardly strikes me as the Oxford house-party type.’ Whatever Dorian Rowland was, she didn’t imagine he was the scholarly sort. Tan, blond and hard-bodied, he definitely didn’t spend his days poring over books in libraries.

      William was growing impatient with her prying. ‘Look, I don’t know what he was doing there. He said he’d made a delivery, brought something up from London. How I know him is not the point. The point is, I was lucky enough to know this one. He’ll finish your boat, but he won’t stay. You’ll be right back where you started.’

      ‘I’ll pay him more,’ Elise blurted out, looking for an easy solution. But inside her heart she knew her brother was right: Dorian Rowland wouldn’t stay. He’d made it clear he was a man who did what pleased him, when it pleased him. Her proposition suited him for the moment. That was the only reason he’d taken her offer.

      ‘Money won’t always be enough for a man like him,’ William said with a maturity that surprised her. ‘I’ve bought you time, Elise, to wrap up business and clear the bills, nothing more. Besides, you need to get on with your life, get out to parties and meet people.’ By meet people, he meant meet men who would be potential husbands. Elise frowned in disapproval. She’d seen those men and been disappointed with them and by them.

      When she didn’t respond he paused awkwardly, his tone softening. ‘Not every man is Robert Graves,’ William said quietly.

      Elise wasn’t quite ready to relent. ‘Well, thank goodness for that.’ Robert Graves, the biggest, worst mistake she’d ever made. She’d thought William might have been young enough to not remember him, or at least to not understand the depths of her mistake.

      ‘Charles Bradford has expressed an interest in you,’ William cajoled. Charles was the son of one of her father’s former investors. ‘He’s a very proper fellow.’

      ‘Sometimes too proper,’ Elise said briskly. She began looking needlessly through some papers on the desk, wanting to bring this conversation to a close. She wasn’t interested in a suitor. She was interested in building a yacht and getting the company back on its feet.

      William coughed awkwardly, taking her rather broad hint, once more the younger brother she knew. He made a 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 СКАЧАТЬ