A Lady Dares

by Bronwyn Scott

‘It’s beautiful,’ Elise managed. She bent under the prow, running a hand along the smooth side. ‘It’s just as I envisioned it.’ Long, lean and low in the water, every ounce designed for efficiency, every angle destined to drink the wind and ride the waters. ‘How much more time do you think?’

  ‘Two weeks, assuming all goes well.’ Dorian was watching her face and smiling softly as if he could read her mind—which would be a bit embarrassing because her first thought was that this meant two more weeks of Dorian.

  What She said out loud was, ‘The middle of April, in time for the Royal Yacht Club’s opening trip.’ She knew the club’s calendar as well as she knew her own. Her father’s life had revolved around the club and yachting season. The racing matches would begin soon afterwards. She’d been part of the boating trip since she was fourteen. She wasn’t going to miss it this year.

  Suddenly she brought her head up, her reveries interrupted by a smell, a smell inappropriate for the surroundings. At the same moment, a howl went up from the corner of the shipyard. Dorian’s dog, the identity registered briefly with her as she shot a look at Dorian. ‘Do you smell that?’

  ‘Smoke.’ Dorian’s eyes were alert, quartering the yard. She followed his lead and scanned, looking for signs of that smoke or, worse, flame. Fire was anathema to shipyards. Whole forests of lumber could be lost and coal-based tar burnt nastily and thoroughly, spreading fire of its own when ignited. Elise didn’t even want to think about what it did when it exploded. Her eyes went immediately to the barrels of tar lined along the perimeter.

  ‘There!’ She pointed to the beginnings of the flames a mere ten feet from the barrels. With all the other scents of the yard, the smoke had had plenty of time to gain momentum before they’d noticed it. ‘Dorian, if it explodes…’

  She—they—would lose everything. Dorian was off at a run, shedding his coat, before her sentence was finished. If the tar exploded, lives would be endangered along with the shipyard. ‘Water!’ he shouted orders. ‘Form a bucket brigade!’

  Fortunately, water was in good supply. Two huge barrels expressly for firefighting stood at the ready. But he could see flames travelling towards the tar as if guided there by a fuse. Dorian placed himself at the head of the line and threw the first bucket. If there was to be an explosion, he’d bear the brunt of it. He reached for a second bucket, positioning himself between the flames and the tar. ‘Faster!’ The water was slowing down the flames, but not dousing them. It wasn’t until the third bucket that he realised who handed them to him. Elise. She should have been ushered to safety by now or had the good sense to seek safety on her own.

  ‘Elise! Get out of here,’ he shouted. ‘There’s no guarantee we can stop the flames.’

  For an answer, she thrust a bucket into his hands. ‘We’ll stop them. Now, come on.’ Water sloshed on her green habit and her hair had come loose with the exertion of passing buckets heavy with water. She looked intent and wild, and really quite scandalous. That would please her. He’d tell her as much after he’d finished shouting at her.

  Ten minutes later, the fire was out, the remains nothing more than a smoky smoulder. The damage was thankfully minimal; a perimeter fence had been scorched where the fire had started, ostensibly the product of kerosene-soaked rags left out in the open and a carelessly dropped match.

  ‘How did this happen?’ Elise stood beside him, surveying what used to be the pile of rags. Her jacket was off and the white blouse she wore underneath was spotted with soot. She’d worked hard next to him. Her efforts and bravery were admirable. ‘One minute we were talking about the club’s opening trip and the next the yard was on fire.’

  Dorian bent to the ground, his hands digging through the ashy debris. The flames had run straight and true to their destination. He’d thought it the work of a fuse when he’d fought the fire. Now, as his hands ran across the tough, warm cording beneath the ash, he was certain. He held up the line. ‘Here’s your answer.’ He lifted it and followed its trail, tightly hidden away against the fence. They were lucky they hadn’t lost the fence. ‘It’s a fuse.’

  Elise’s face paled. ‘Fuses aren’t lit by accident.’

  ‘No,’ Dorian offered tersely. ‘They are not.’ He studied it for a moment. ‘It’s a miner’s fuse, the kind used in Cornwall for opening rock walls,’ he said quietly, letting her digest the implications. If it could open rock walls, it could easily have destroyed everything in the yard. And everyone. Dorian gauged its length. The fuse was relatively long. If someone had truly wanted to blow up anything, they’d have set a shorter fuse, one he couldn’t have reached in time.

  He took Elise’s arm. ‘Why don’t we go up to the office and discuss this latest occurrence? We were lucky this time because someone wanted us to be.’

  Chapter Twelve

  The office had changed in the week of her absence. It bore an indelible sense of him. Papers and drawings lay on the work table. His tools were here, too, hanging from a belt on the coat tree. Resentment flared. This was her space. It was full of her father, of the time they’d shared together. The thought of another claiming the space sat poorly with her, even if that person was Dorian. Especially if that person was Dorian. How was she supposed to forget him if his presence lingered?

  ‘I’m coming back to work, starting tomorrow,’ Elise blurted out. She hadn’t meant to begin the conversation that way, but memories and resentment had got the best of her in the aftershock of the fire. She would protect what was hers.

  ‘I won’t hear of it,’ Dorian growled. ‘You shouldn’t have been here today. I was wrong to bring you here. It put you in danger.’

  ‘You didn’t know there’d be a fire.’ Elise dismissed the comment impatiently. His logic was ridiculous.

  ‘Not a fire specifically, but we knew trouble was brewing. Tyne wouldn’t have risked a break-in and nothing more.’ Dorian paced the length of the office, agitated. ‘He was waiting and watching for the right moment.’ The man had given them a week to grow confident.

  ‘Fuses take premeditation.’ Elise followed him with her eyes. He was like a great tawny cat, restless in a cage. His broad shoulders were taut beneath the ruined linen of his shirt. His body fairly vibrated with the angry energy of him. How could anything hurt her with this lion on guard?

  Dorian nodded, pausing in his pacing long enough to swear. ‘Damn that man. Tyne has someone watching from the inside, someone who would know when the hull was done. That someone would be ready to put a damper on the festivities and would have advance knowledge of that timeline, plenty of time to plan.’

  Elise recalled the man with wandering eyes. ‘The man who doesn’t like you, perhaps? His gaze kept drifting.’ Now that she thought of it, the man’s gaze had kept going to the tar casks.

  In response, Dorian opened the top drawer of her father’s desk and pulled out the longest knife she’d ever seen. ‘Stay here, I’ll be back.’

  ‘Dorian, no!’ Elise put herself between him and the door. ‘You can’t go around threatening everyone with a knife.’

  ‘It’s not a knife, it’s a machete and I’m not threatening “everyone”, just him,’ Dorian corrected, his eyes flashing with angry determination. ‘Bent needs to learn he can’t go around sabotaging shipyards in a language he understands.’

  Elise wasn’t sure if the ‘he’ in that sentence denoted the worker or the elusive, villainous Damien Tyne, but she was pretty sure the language in question was ‘knife’. She stood her ground, arms crossed over her chest.

  ‘This is my shipyard and I say this type of behaviour will not be tolerated. I’m not moving.’

  ‘You will move, Elise, or I will move you.’ Dorian put the blade between his teeth, looking utterly piratical, and took a step towards her. She didn’t doubt he’d do it. She decided to move. The last thing she needed was to appear the fool and that was exactly what she’d look like trussed over his shoulder.

  He gave her a short nod as he passed. ‘Thank you. Now, stay put.’

 
Dorian wasn’t gone long, but he was none the happier when he returned, his knife looking suspiciously clean. ‘Our culprit has fled,’ he groused, throwing the knife back in the drawer.

  ‘We usually kept paper and ink in that drawer,’ Elise said pointedly.

  Dorian glared and continued, ‘In doing so, he has declared his guilt, but I’m sure there’s more he could have told us. Primarily, what purpose the fire was to serve. Fire is risky. If I hadn’t acted quickly, much could have been lost and that would have defeated Tyne’s purpose.’

  ‘If he’s after the boat, burning it makes little sense.’ A bit of hope took her. ‘This is good, then. The boat is safe. He won’t harm it. The fire was nothing more than a warning, hence the long fuse.’ There, logic had triumphed over the emotions of the moment to render a rational answer to their riddle of the fire.

  Dorian allowed her a moment’s peace before he pierced her with a hard blue stare. ‘But you’re not.’ He closed the distance between them, reminding her of his complete maleness and strength with his nearness ‘Have you thought of that? I’m safe for a while. If he wants the boat finished, he’s got to keep me alive a few weeks longer at least. But you…’ Dorian drew a long finger down the trail of her jaw and shook his head ‘…you are expendable, my love.’

  The words brought a chill to her, but she shrugged them off. ‘Kill me over a boat design? Over a yacht? A life for a boat? That’s preposterous, Dorian. People don’t trade lives over wood and sails. That’s far too extreme.’ But even as she said it, she doubted the strength of her conviction. She was remembering what Dorian had told her previously. Tyne was a gun runner, a man with no scruples.

  ‘Of course they do, Princess. Sometimes they do it for something even less tangible, something they can’t hold in their hands: speed. The history of nautical advancement, after all, has been centered on the acquisition of speed.’ Dorian gave a harsh chuckle. ‘If you don’t believe me, consider your yacht club’s races. Grown men ramming other boats’ hulls in a race to slow and disable, slicing sails all for the sake of speed. And that’s just to win a paltry silver cup. Think what men will do when wars and kingships are on the line.’

  ‘Thankfully, just a “paltry cup” is on the line then,’ Elise replied tartly. ‘I appreciate your insight, but I think the concern is exaggerated.’ He needed to understand she would not be frightened easily.

  Something flared in his eyes. ‘Then appreciate this, Elise.’ Dorian took her mouth in a bruising kiss, dancing her the short distance to the wall. Her back rammed up against its hard surface. This was harsh and punishing, nothing like the hot exploration of Vauxhall. Elise shoved at him, pushing with both her hands against his chest.

  ‘Stop it, Dorian. You’ve made your point.’

  ‘Have I?’ Dorian stepped back, fury still etched on the planes of his face. ‘I stopped. Don’t think for a moment Tyne will stop until he has what he wants, and he won’t let up simply because you’ve asked. You’re a clever woman, Elise. Don’t let stubbornness blind you to the realities. This world you’ve stepped into is dangerous and you are new come to it.’

  Elise summoned her confidence. She was a bit shaken; she wasn’t foolish enough not to be. Still, she didn’t want Dorian to see how exposed she felt. Danger was in motion, but she’d meet it as best she could without letting it rule her life. ‘My father survived it and so shall I.’

  Dorian’s brows went up. ‘Did he? As I recall, he’s dead as a result of a freak boating accident.’

  That was outside of enough. He was just being peevish now and those were cruel words. ‘What are you insinuating?’ Elise narrowed her eyes. It was just craziness, nothing more. He was angry with her; he didn’t mean anything by it. But her brain sped up anyway, unearthing the thoughts she had tried so hard to stifle. Dorian couldn’t possibly know how close to home the comment had struck, how many nights she’d lain awake, thinking the same thing. Only for her, it wasn’t an angry shot in the dark.

  ‘What do you think I’m suggesting?’ His words were slow and measured, the anger going out of him. His face echoed the query, his brows drawn in question, his blue eyes sharp.

  Elise shook her head. ‘Nothing. It was merely your choice of words.’ She was reading too much into a sharp rejoinder to an argument and words chosen in the heat of the moment.

  ‘I disagree.’ Dorian took up residence in a chair and settled in as if he didn’t mean to budge. ‘I think there’s something you’re not telling me.’

  She said nothing. What she thought was almost too horrible to say out loud. But Dorian was far more stubborn and persistent than she’d given him credit for.

  His voice was low and private, seductive almost. ‘Tell me about that day, Elise. What happened? What do you know?’

  ‘I know very little.’ She studied her hands. The lack of detail regarding her father’s death seemed like a great crime to her when it had occurred. Surely someone should know exactly what had happened. ‘They were out in open waters. They’d wanted to try the new steam engine in rougher sailing than the Thames. The engine exploded. That’s all. It was at sea, there was no one around.’

  ‘They? Your father wasn’t alone?’ Dorian pressed.

  ‘No, he was with a friend. The yacht was his and he’d wanted my father to test it.’ She shook her head, anticipating Dorian’s next question. ‘There were no survivors. They were both lost. The only reason we know anything at all about the accident is because a nearby cargo ship saw the explosion and lowered a boat to investigate. A Captain Brandon was kind enough to pick up the bodies.’

  ‘What else did he say?’

  ‘There was nothing more to say. He said the yacht was in shambles, just pieces of wood really, by the time they arrived. It gave every indication of having exploded from the inside.’

  ‘Steam engines blow up.’ Dorian laced his fingers across the flat of his abdomen and stretched out his legs, giving the appearance of a man who had no intention of leaving his chair in the near future.

  ‘Not my father’s.’ Elise bit her lip. She wished she hadn’t spoken so hastily. She saw too late that that had been Dorian’s plan. He’d meant to bait her with a statement she was loath to accept.

  ‘It wasn’t your father’s boat.’

  ‘My father would never have taken a boat out into open waters if he was not familiar with it,’ Elise answered sharply. She drew a breath. ‘I’m sorry. My mother says it’s been hard for me to accept that a man with my father’s skill would have been victim to an accident caused by his own ineptitude when he was an expert.’

  Dorian did leave his chair then. He crossed the room to her and knelt before her, taking her hands. ‘But you disagree?’

  ‘Maybe it’s just easier to disagree. Maybe thinking foul play was involved offers me the reasons I’m looking for to justify such a tragedy.’ Elise sighed. ‘There’s been a lot of drama today.’

  She said it as a way to excuse the conversation and move on, but Dorian seized the words as an opening. ‘Exactly, Elise. There has been drama today—a fire. After a break-in. A break-in after an unlikely death. Perhaps your suspicions are not so far-fetched. Have you asked yourself the necessary questions? Who would have wanted to see your father removed? What could they have gained that would have required a death to achieve it? There’s been a lot of drama in your life the last six months, all of it centered on letting go of this shipyard. Do you not feel it’s more than coincidence?’

  Elise pulled her hands free. She thought more clearly when he wasn’t touching her. ‘I think drama, as you put it, over the shipyard is a natural consequence of settling my father’s affairs.’

  ‘But we know Tyne is after the yacht at least. Why not the yard, too? I assure you he is definitely the sort to use extreme measures if there’s enough on the line,’ Dorian argued softly.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Elise answered.

  ‘Like what?’ A little smile played on his lips.

  Like I want to melt into yo
ur arms, lay every trouble at your feet and forget every silly vow I’ve ever taken about swearing off the need for a man. ‘Like you could solve my problems for me. I don’t want that. I don’t need that. I can solve my own problems.’ Moments like this made her doubt it, though, made her want to find the easy road, and that was so very dangerous. Even if she did a need a man, Dorian wasn’t precisely stable with his wandering ways and questionable lifestyle. He lived in her shed, for heaven’s sake. But it was so easy to forget that in moments like this. He’d certainly been reliable today, acting swiftly enough to save the shipyard.

  ‘We’re getting away from the issue.’ Dorian rose from his crouch. ‘I understand how wild your thoughts must have seemed earlier. You had no idea who an enemy might have been. But now you do. You may not know the reasons, but you do know that Damien Tyne—a confirmed villain, I might add—has arranged a break-in and most likely was the mastermind behind the fire today. It is not beyond the scope of reason that he started this game with your father’s death. That’s something you could not have considered until recently. It may be useful now with your new information to revisit your suspicions.’

  ‘I don’t know, Dorian. It seems useless to pursue it. There’s nothing left of the boat. What remained has sunk to the bottom of the ocean. We’ll never really know what happened.’ She was right. Her thoughts and the conclusions they led to were too terrible to have mentioned. Thoughts became much more real when spoken aloud to someone.

  ‘You’re right. We’ll never know,’ Dorian echoed, his eyes on her. ‘That’s awfully convenient, isn’t it?’

  ‘Awfully.’ It was positively horrific to think her father had been murdered—that was the only word for it if any of their suspicions bore merit—for a fast yacht and a shipyard.

  Dorian reached for his coat on the coat tree, his voice quiet. The mood in the office was solemn, a far more sombre atmosphere than the more volatile one in which they’d arrived. ‘I think we’ve had enough excitement for one day. I’ll see you home.’