Peter rubbed his jaw, scrubbing at his beard with his nails. “The woman had a request. No, not a request. Bloody blackmail, using the last promise my mother asked of me to get it.”
“What does she want you doing? Manual labor? Riding through town naked? Slaying a dragon?”
“Nothing so easy, I assure you.” Peter sent his friend a frustrated glare. “She wishes me to stay on the Isle as her guest for a full month.”
The laugh Quincy let loose was long and loud. Peter watched him in stony silence, unable to find an ounce of humor in the situation. His mother’s face flashed through his mind again for what seemed the hundredth time that afternoon, the guilt he’d carried since her death roaring back as well. He had a chance to see her wishes through. Yet it didn’t sit any easier on his shoulders than it had when he was a boy.
Finally his friend’s chuckles died down. Quincy wiped at his eyes. “Well, you have to give her this; she could not have found a more uninterested houseguest.”
“Regardless of my personal feelings on the matter,” he gritted, “I cannot take that much time away. Lest you forget, we have a business to return to in Boston.”
“We deserve a holiday, I’m thinking, after all the hard work we’ve put into it these last years. Besides, Captain Adams’s children are grown now and more than capable of handling things, having cut their teeth on the business.” Here Quincy grinned. “And I’ve a mind to get to know some of the local ladies a bit better. All those fine, prim English manners make me wish we’d returned sooner.” He rubbed his hands together, his expression turning almost feral with anticipation.
“You think with your cock,” Peter said with disgust.
Quincy shrugged. “It’s never steered me wrong.”
Done with the ridiculous turn the conversation had taken, Peter erupted out of his chair. “I cannot stay for a month.”
“Come now, it’s not so bad as that here.”
“You don’t know what it’s like, returning to this place.”
Quincy sobered. “But I do,” he said quietly. “Or at least enough of it. Mine was the ear you bent when you needed a friend on the crossing. The one that listened to your feverish ravings about your guilt over your mother when you grew ill.” He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I know what that bastard Dane did, and why you hate him as you do. And with good reason. But I also know what Lady Tesh did. She doesn’t seem a bad sort. And while I think she’s mad for wanting your surly company for a month instead of a bag of gold”—here he smiled, humor flashing in his black eyes—“you can’t deny it says much about her character.”
Quincy was right, of course. Damn him. “So you would have me cave in to her demand?” he growled, holding on to his last shred of pride.
His friend leaned back. “If it will take away even a bit of the guilt you still harbor over leaving England against your mother’s wishes, then I say with complete confidence, yes, you should. Besides,” he continued, grinning, “I’ve a mind to join you.”
Peter stared at him. “You would accompany me?”
“And why the hell not? We can have a grand time, you and I. When you aren’t sulking and wreaking vengeance on a dying man, I mean.”
Caught between the desire to shake his friend’s hand and punch him in the face, Peter decided on the former. Standing, he held out his hand. “We are in it together then.”
Quincy followed suit, taking Peter’s hand in a crushing grip. “Together.” He grinned, flashing a dimple. “Though you may not be thanking me later for it.”
Chapter 4
Peter expected the shock in Lady Tesh’s expression as he stalked into her sitting room later that same afternoon.
The worry that colored it, however, was a surprise. Before he could wonder at it, however, the woman spoke.
“Peter, you’re back.”
“You ensured that, madam,” he snapped. Already the walls of the room were closing in on him. He clenched his jaw. The sooner he saw his damn promise fulfilled, the better.
She motioned to the same delicate chair he’d sat in earlier that day. Yet again he tried his luck with the flimsy piece of furniture. If he was to stay here an entire month, they would have to do something about the seating.
“I admit I did not think I would see you again,” she said.
“Then you have no notion of how important my mother was to me.”
“I think I do, Peter,” she murmured, the kindness in her voice making him squirm in his fragile seat. Yet he could not fail to see that her expression did not reflect her tone. Her lips were pressed tight, her brows knit with either displeasure or worry.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why do I get the impression that you would rather not have seen me back?” An idea took root. “Are you rescinding your demand? For I don’t mind saying that I will be happy to simply hand over the money.”
“No,” she said quickly. She regarded him with an odd mix of concern and frustration before, with a quickly indrawn breath, her expression hardened. “That is,” she continued, her voice firming with each word, “my request for you to stay here a month still stands.”
