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 Her father was dead, her brother not prepared or interested in taking over the business, investors withdrawn and no obvious funds to continue on her own.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 just as badly for the future of his more private, less legitimate side of business with Tyne. Tyne could have the yacht. He wanted the plans. The key to any business venture was the ability to reproduce success.
‘I’m thinking,’ Damien drawled, his dark eyebrows looking particularly satanic in the coffee house’s uneven lighting, ‘our Miss Sutton is not going quietly. Nothing she’s done in the last months has suggested she is closing up the business as we’d hoped.’
‘She has to, there’s no money, no workers,’ Charles protested. Young and smitten with Miss Sutton, he was also a bit obtuse, a literal fellow who saw only the obvious. ‘I should know. My father was a former investor. We were at the funeral.’
Damien smiled patiently at the young cub. ‘We know that, but does she? Maybe there’s something she knows that we don’t, which seems likely.’ He nodded towards Maxwell. ‘She’s held on to the two things that matter most right now: the property and the last yacht. It seems to me that she means to try something before the end.’
‘Impossible. The yacht isn’t finished,’ Charles argued sceptically. ‘There’s nothing to try.’
‘Unless she has a builder,’ Maxwell put in bitterly. That would drag things out. He had no doubt Miss Sutton would fail in the end, but prolonging that end didn’t help his cause. The group had wanted to be in position by the time yachting season opened in May. Back in October when the opportunity had first presented itself, the objective to take over the shipyard had seemed perfectly reasonable. Now, with a month to go, it seemed far more unlikely.
Maxwell pushed a hand through his hair and sighed. ‘We have to be certain. Charles, of all of us here, you are closest to the family. Perhaps it’s time to pay a friendly visit to see how the daughter of your father’s friend is coping with her grief?’ He winked at the young man. Everyone in the group knew Elise Sutton had set aside mourning weeks ago, but the subtle sarcasm had flown right over Charles.
Maxwell hoped Charles’s decent good looks and refined manners would encourage Miss Sutton to disclose her plans. Even beyond that, he hoped Charles would be able to give Miss Sutton a gentle nudge in the right direction through whatever means of persuasion possible.
Maxwell preferred to accomplish his goals subtly and without any overt force. He was happy to play nice until it was time not to, and that time was rapidly approaching. He and Tyne had money, time and pride wrapped up in this venture the others knew nothing about. He meant to see it succeed. Failure meant he’d lose a lot more than his shirt.
Chapter Four
His shirt was off! It was the first thing Elise noticed when she arrived at the yard late in the morning. For the first time since her father’s death, she’d actually slept late. And look what happened. Her master builder was running around without his shirt on. Her mother would have shrieked it wasn’t ladylike to notice, but how could she not? The sight was just so riveting.
Elise knew she was staring, but she could hardly look away. His chest was nothing like the average Englishman’s. Gone was the pasty skin and skeletal lankiness, replaced by a smooth, tanned expanse of torso. It was quite possibly the most perfect chest she’d ever seen. Not that she was a connoisseur of men’s chests, but working around the shipyard, she’d caught accidental glimpses on rare occasions.
She might have been able to pull her gaze away if that had been all, but it wasn’t simply his chest. There were arms and shoulders to consider, perfectly moulded with muscle, to say nothing of his lean hips where his culottes hung tantalisingly low on his waist, revealing the secret aspects of male musculature and hinting at even more. All this masculinity had been pressed against her yesterday. It was somewhat shocking to see it on such bold display without the buffer of clothing to mute the reality. She was still gaping when he sauntered over, an adze dangling negligently from one hand, that impertinent grin of his on his face.
‘Good day,
