“But why?” she rasped.
“I’ve told you. I need your help.”I want you, I want you, I want you, he thought, and he realized this was his purest reason why.
“But it cannot mean so very much as all this. It cannot.” She released the fence and took two tentative steps inside the gate.
“What is the value of a favorite cousin?” he mused philosophically. “His life in peril?”
“You would have found another way,” she said.
“What is the value of keeping England out of a dispute with Denmark?” he speculated.
“But a wholebuilding?”
“What is the value of my finally settling in as duke?” This question held less drama and more obligation. A question just as much for himself. “The sooner I return, the sooner I can install myself in Syon Hall. Do my duty. No more ‘derring-do’ as my aunt terms it.”
The words were painful to say, and he wondered how he’d stumbled upon an informant for whom the price of cooperation was his own painful admissions.
Luckily (and oddly, now that he considered it), he didn’t seem to mind the admissions. He found himself wanting to admit to the world if she was willing to listen.
He finished with, “I do not want the dukedom, but I’ve put it off long enough. My mother and sisters need me. The estate and tenants need me. I cannot devote another year to, er, saving the world. Or even to saving Reggie.”
She stared at him. She began, “I—”
She stopped.
She appeared to run out of excuses.
She started again, “I promised myself I would never go back.” She spoke to herself more than him.
And now it was his turn to resist, to be stalwart and not give in to her appeal for mercy.
“The building is yours,” he said, the most he could give her under the circumstances. “Plus local tradesmen for whatever modifications you might require to set up shop.”
She took three quick breaths. She shoved away from the fence. She closed her eyes and squeezed her hands at her sides—she was the figure of someone wringing consent from their very soul. She exhaled and opened her eyes. She blinked.
Jason said nothing, waiting and watching.
“Fine,” she called. Her voice held a new steeliness. She clipped up the steps and sailed through the door. Her green skirts swished against his boot as she went.
“You win,” she called from the darkness within. “Show me every building. If one of them is suitable, I’ll do it. I’ll make the trade.”
Chapter Eight
Five days later, Isobel stood on the planks of the West India Company docks, staring up at a towering brigantine crawling with activity. Sailors scaled masts, swabbed decks, and maneuvered rigging while dockworkers heaved provisions up gangplanks.
The mild August weather had turned wet and windy just in time for her to embark on her first sea voyage in seven years. An omen, perhaps; her stomach would pitch into misery as soon as they made open water.
For the moment, she stood on solid ground; beside her, Samantha wrestled with an umbrella.
“You packed the fan with the sharp spines?” Samantha confirmed. “The one that leaves a mark if you...” She made a slapping motion.
“Yes,” confirmed Isobel.
“And the cloak that keeps out the water?”
“Yes.”
“And what about the—?”
