Joseph gritted his teeth, furious with himself for his reaction. He’d only glanced at her for a split second, for God’s sake, and from the width of the road.
This,he thought, was why he had planned to stay away as long as he could.
Thiswas why her interference infuriated him.
“Go, Stoker,” Joseph said, not looking away from her.
“Gladly. But Joe—”
“Go,”Joseph repeated.
Stoker eyed him for a second, glanced at Tessa, whistled low under his breath, and was gone.
Chapter Eight
Mrs. Tessa Chance had embarked upon her new life in London by devising two lists. The first list outlined all the ways she would no longer behave. It covered affectations such as eyelash batting, pouting, playful, lingering taps with her fan, and the long, slow controlled fall she affected when a gentleman lifted her from a horse.
The second list comprised all the things shewoulddo. She would be serious, she would be reserved, she would be discreet and detached. She would be all the things that would never invite a man to attack her against a tree. Or marry her because she was tricking him into doing it.
In short, the lists were meant to repel men who might betray her and keep her away from men that she, herself, might betray.
She had worked many days devising the lists and even more days, weeks, and months adhering to them. She had made such progress.
Until.
Until her estranged husband stepped before her in West Halkin Street and called her name, setting off a jolt of reactions that were theoppositeof progress.
“Tessa?” Joseph Chance said, Tessa looked up, and there he was.
Or rather, there was an (unbelievably) more rugged and handsome version of him. His skin was as tan as the pelt of a buck. His shoulders were broader—work-muscled shoulders—his waist leaner. His hair was streaked with shades of white-blond. He must not have shaved for a week.
The sight of him set off the cold tingle of shock, as if all the blood had been drained from her veins. She stopped breathing. She somehow managed to stop her beating heart.
Joseph is home.
Home, standing before her, tanned skin and dusty clothes and all the rest. After ten months.
She struggled to catch her breath. Blood and heat rushed quickly back in a rolling wave. She clung to her packages like buoys in the surf.
“You’ve returned,” she heard herself say. Her voice was an airy little gasp, winded, absolutely nothing like she had planned.
“Well, I’mendeavoringto return.” He raised his eyebrows. He waited. He sounded... sardonic? His voice was as flat and cool as the surface of a brick.
Tessa was confused. She’d prepared herself for him to return when she least expected it, and she’d prepared for his residual anger. But she did not expect him to stand in the road, raise his eyebrows, and speak to her as if he was throwing down a gauntlet.
A small wagon pulled between them, and she held her breath, waiting for it to pass. She tried to think of what reserved, measured thing she would say next. She took a step toward him.
“But have you all come?” she asked. “Cassin and Stoker, too? You’ve sailed the brig back to England?”
“Yes,” Joseph said, “back to England.” He frowned as the tail of the wagon rumbled past. He moved around it and stepped closer, but not close. It was a cautious distance, an uncivil, suspicious distance. She stared at the four feet of gravel between them. It seemed as wide as the Atlantic.
“Look,” he said, crossing his arms, “you’ll have to forgive my directness, but what the bloody hell have you done to the slip I arranged at the West India Docks?”
She blinked. She had anticipated a great many things, but she had not prepared for him toaccuseher. If she was being honest, she had not been prepared for him to fail to say hello.
He went on, “The mooring officer has turned me away, namingmy wifeas the reason. We’ve dropped anchor in the estuary, but we can hardly remain there. I hope you can tell me why I have sailed for five weeks across the bloody Atlantic, carrying a fortune in cargo, only to reach London and have nowhere to dock the brig?”
“But did the steam tug not give you my letter?” she said, trying to catch up.
