“Tomorrow at first light.”
Peter cleared his throat. “Tell me the name of the ship and I’ll book passage with you.”
A pause. And then, “No.”
Peter looked at him, stunned. Here he thought they had gotten past the rocks their friendship had nearly been wrecked on. Yet Quincy was serious, his eyes pained, his mouth a thin, firm line. “Perhaps I didn’t apologize as I should have,” Peter stammered. “I am sorry, Quincy, more than you know—”
Quincy slashed a hand through the air. “I know you are, you daft man. And I forgive your idiocy, fully and completely.”
Peter blinked in confusion. “Then why…?”
“Because you’re not going back to Boston. At all.”
It was Peter’s turn to frown. “I have to. My place is there, the business—”
“Will not collapse without you. The Adams children are grown, and are more than capable of handling things now.”
“But my home is in Boston. You, Captain Adams, his family—”
“We will miss you, with all our hearts.”
Peter shook his head, utterly confused. “I don’t understand.”
Quincy’s fierce expression finally softened. “You always were a dumb bastard. You’re not coming back to Boston with me because your place is back on the Isle, at Danesford.” He smiled. “With Miss Hartley.”
Peter was already shaking his head. “She’s marrying Redburn.”
“Yes, she will. If you don’t put a stop to it.”
Anger ran hot under Peter’s skin. “You make it sound easy.”
“It is easy. You love her, Peter. And I know she cares for you. Do you think she wants to marry Redburn when you hold her heart?”
He’d seen her face that day when Redburn arrived, her eyes shining with unshed tears, her voice a mere whisper as she’d asked him,“And you, Peter? Did you have a near miss?”
He cursed. “She will not have me now. Not after the arse I made of myself.”
“Oh, I’m sure she already knew you were an arse, Peter,” Quincy drawled.
But he could not be waylaid so easily. “I’m not right for her. I’m too rough, a brute, an uncultured swine who brawls with men in public. She would be miserable with me.”
The humor only increased in Quincy’s laughing dark eyes. “Hmm, yes, miserable being loved by the man she loves herself. What a horrid fate.”
Aggravation surged, that his very real concerns were being so easily dismissed. “Stop patronizing me,” he growled.
“Then stop being a stupid prick!” When Peter gaped at him, he launched on. “You’ve always taken the helm, helping me and Captain Adams and his family, making the decisions, pulling us from the brink of poverty more than once. And we are so damn grateful to you for it.” He put a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “But for once in your life, you need to take a chance on more than our finances. You need to take a chance on trusting someone else, and let Miss Hartley make her own decisions. You cannot take that away from her, or you will be no better than her father and Redburn. Besides,” he continued, his expression more serious than Peter had ever seen it, “do you really want to be like that fool Ivar? He left Synne, broke her heart, and she married another. All because he was too damn stupid to stay with the woman he loved. Would you follow the same path he did? Or will you learn from his mistake, and hold on to happiness with both hands?”
A spark lit in Peter’s chest, a tiny flame in the darkness that was his heart. It took a moment to realize it was hope.
He rubbed at his aching chest, trying to snuff out the longing Quincy’s words were bringing to life. “She will say no,” he replied gruffly.
Quincy shrugged. “Perhaps. And she might say yes, and give you both lifelong happiness. Isn’t the possibility of her rejection worth the chance of loving her for the rest of your days?”
Yes.The word, silent in his own head, nevertheless filled him. The spark of hope burst into a raging flame. Yes, the chance of loving her, of making her his wife, was worth any amount of pain. And this time, he would not let anyone, be it Redburn or her father, stop him from trying.
Damn, but he loved her. And if she accepted him, he would do everything in his power to make certain she never, not for one minute, ever doubted it.
“Quincy?”
