“It was a rather efficient use of our time, considering we started the evening as prisoners. They were brave lads.” He paused for a moment, smiling a small, sad smile. “They carried out my plan to the letter. The ruse was one half prison uprising, the other half stealth. And we lived to tell the tale. There’s a man on this mission, Declan Shaw, who was with me that night. Intuitive fighter, deuced good friend.”
He shook his head, turning again to the sea. The fading light had transformed the ocean from blue-gray to black.
Isobel studied his profile. Before tonight, he’d not indulged in philosophical musings, and he never stared into the distance. Staring and distances were endeavorstoo stillfor Jason Beckett, Duke of Northumberland—too still by half.
And he was usually very direct. Isobel valued directness, but the quiet musing allowed her to consider him in a new light. The pile of shimmers in the pit of her stomach popped and fluttered.
“I’m not certain I can give farming or forging steel its due,” he said. “I’m not sure I can be serious about anything if there is not some life-or-death stake to it.”
“You can,” Isobel heard herself say. She should not care about his future. He was one of the richest, most fortified men in England.She should not care.
He made a dismissive sound.
“Look at me,” she said, her words out before she’d considered them. “I never thought I would find myselfsailing from England, not ever. Now I’m embarking on a journey that makes me ill, returning to a country that harbors the most heartbreaking memories, and facing off with pirates. But here I am,doing it, out of necessity.
“Youcan dothings that you cannot imagine,” she said. “And if you don’t like it, you can... determine a new way to manage it. You will have choices, Your Grace, when you are duke. Management of the farms and the foundry can be hired out. People willwork for youif you wish to delegate.”
He was shaking his head. “This was never the way of my father or brothers. There are expectations. My mother has been through so much—to lose a husband and two sons? I cannot be derelict, or absent, or manage the estate halfway. And I cannot lead prisoner-of-war uprisings in Middlesex. For everything, there is a season, I suppose.” His voice was grim and tired and resigned.
“Do not reject it before you’ve even begun,” Isobel said lowly, reaching out. She wanted to spread her hand on his chest but she redirected to his arm. A friendly pat. A squeeze. Her fingers held on.
“Rejecting it is not a choice. And I refuse to complain. I am fortunate.”
“It’s obvious that you feel so very fortunate indeed.”
She patted him again. A double pat.Pat pat.
The arm beneath his coat was as hard as the railing, and it had a lovely little swell where the wool stretched over the muscle.
She gave it another pat. A very short little rub. Back and forth, a gesture of comfort.
Once more, back and forth.
Touching his arm was totally acceptable, she thought.She touched it like she might touch a very good book, as if she’d just read the last page, and gently closed the cover, and now she was . . . patting it. In fact—
She bit off her glove and returned her hand, rubbing the rough wool of his sleeve.
A squeeze.Such a good...
Man.
Not a book, she lectured herself,a man.
He’s a man. And I don’t care about his tortured view of retirement. And I will stop touching him. And I do not want him to touch me.
“Say something that will make me stop touching you,” she whispered.
“I, ah—?” He stared at her hand on his sleeve and then at her.
She couldn’t look at him. She also couldn’t seem to release him.
“You want me tomake youstop touching me?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“Are you mad?”
Her fingers moved down his arm to graze his wrist. There was a gap between the glove and his bare hand, and she slid her fingertip so that it nudged his skin. She wouldn’t look at his face.
