“Why do I sense that your aunt wishes tae stir up trouble?” he finally said.
“Aunt Whipple?” Allie’s eyebrows rose. “Of a surety. She would love nothing more than to have delightful morsels of gossip to tell her friends. I should hate to disappoint her.” She pointed to the decanter of port. “May I?”
Ethan poured her a glass and passed it across the table. “Lady Whipple appears tae be a rather ineffective choice of chaperone.”
“Not at all. She is usually militant in her chaperonage.” Allie sipped her wine. “I merely think she has taken a rather strong liking to yourself. You are, after all, deadly charming.”
Ethan toyed with his own glass of port. “Should I be flattered or alarmed?”
“Both.”
“Ye are doing a rather poor job of easing my fears, lass. Will your brother kill me if he catches us closeted together?” he asked.
“Most probably.”
“Pistols at dawn, do ye ken?”
“Unlikely.” Allie laughed, sipping at her wine. “Kendall would hardly stoop to something so tawdry, particularly for a gentleman of no rank. He would merely hire a pair of thugs to, and I quote, ‘Teach you your proper place in society.’”
“Ouch.” Ethan mimed taking a fist to his chin.
“I have never been one to sugarcoat reality.”
“Nae, ye have not.” He saluted her with his glass. “It’s one of the reasons I let ye call me a friend.”
“I’m beginning to think you don’t have many of those, given how often you bring it up. Desperate, are you?”
His lips quirked. “The number of people who wish something from me is endless. But the onesIcall friend are few.”
That was his bare truth.
“And you have chosen me. I am honored.” She saluted him with her glass before adding, “Ethan.”
His Christian name on her lips loosed a stampede of emotions—elation, relief, desire.Finallyhe was making measurable progress in winning her trust.
“The pleasure is mine . . . Allie,” he replied, clinking his glass with hers.
She smiled and sipped her port.
“The innkeep mentioned that Captain Cook himself used to hire crew from this very room.” She surveyed the space with its low timber ceiling and smoke-stained fireplace. “Plucking friends from the masses, as it were. I gather that is what you have done with me.”
Ethan clasped his hands on the table, admiring how easily she threaded ideas through their conversations.
“I suppose, after a fashion,” he said. “I ken that the entire wealth of Britain has been built on meetings in rooms just like this one.”
“True.”
“Do ye wonder if powerful aristocrats ever think of all these people?” He waved a hand to indicate the inn and the working-class men and women who had passed through its doors over the years. “How the labor and industry of the masses fund the lifestyles of the wealthy?”
“Aristocrats like my brother, you mean?” She quirked an eyebrow at him.
“Well, I suppose I do.”
“You sound like a revolutionary,” she said. “Are you quite sure you don’t have sympathies withLa Giovine Italia?”
Ethan took a sip of his port. “Their ideas? Of a surety. Their methods, however? Perhaps not so much. For example, I find your Fabrizio to be a rather suspicious person. He seems the sort to have scarce loyalty for anyone but himself. Everything he does appears to have a selfish aim.”
“You are not wrong on that score. Fabrizio is a gambler and swindler at heart.”
