Lorcan’s palms were actually a bit damp as he reached into his coat for the sheets of foolscapcovered with notes and figures he’d prepared that afternoon.
And he showed them.
And told them.
And when he was done speaking there was a different silence.
The quality of hope had entered the room. And it was fast evolving into excitement.
“I suppose my question is...whydo you want to do this?” Hardy finally said. “When privateering is so profitable?”
When we havebeen more or lessenemies,was the unspoken question.
Pride was Lorcan’s very spine.
“I want Daphne to be happy. I want her to have everything out of life she desires, because in truth, that’s really all I want. And...”
Damn. It was never going to be easy to say this next thing aloud to Hardy. But he knew it was the one thing that would convince him of his sincerity. He took a breath. “I want a life a lot like this one.”
He gestured with his smoldering cheroot at the smoking room. His mouth dented at the corner, just a very little. Ruefully.
The faces around him were riveted. Bolt’s reflected compassion. Delacorte’s, pleasure—he loved it when other people admired The Grand Palace on the Thames.
Hardy remained interested and otherwise unreadable.
“All of this, mind you, hinges on whether it’s what Daphne wants. I will need to make sure she approves of it first. Because I want Daphneto always be able to hold her head high. I want to be proud of my work, and I want her to be proud of me. And mostly I... I just don’t want to ever leave her again.”
Lorcan delivered all of this in a steady voice. But by the time he’d reached those last words it had turned to gravel.
He schooled his features to stillness. Inwardly, every particle of his being was screaming to get to Daphne before she accepted the earl’s proposal.
Another wordless interval ensued. Lorcan maintained his game face in the face of three wondering, speculative expressions.
“Those sound like the best motivations in the world to do anything,” Hardy said quietly, finally.
He thrust out his hand.
Bolt and Delacorte followed suit.
And negotiations got underway.
Daphne was almost blackly amused at how quickly life returned to aggressively ordinary once outside the magical confines of the cozy Grand Palace on the Thames. After two days (which really ought to have been one day; a stuck wheel had kept them all overnight at a coaching inn, where passengers were fed a few careworn shreds of beef and assigned indifferently cleaned rooms) of somewhat shambolic traveling over rutted muddy roads, she finally arrived at the caretaker’s cottage where they lived in the shadow of her real home.
Exhausted, sweaty, still somewhat sore between her legs from wantonly rolling about with Lorcan, still numb and grieving and inwardly glowing from knowing she was loved, she tumbled out of the cart that had taken her from where the mail coach stopped, and walked the rest of the still somewhat muddy road to her door, carrying her portmanteau.
She paused. Suddenly reluctant to go in, as if the house was quicksand and the past, and duty, would engulf her once she stepped over the threshold.
The door was flung open and there in the doorway stood her brothers, Charles and Montague.
She gasped and flung herself at the nearest brother, and was scooped up and swung about.
“Daph, you look wonderful and... you need a bath!” Charles said.
She swatted him. “It was a rough trip home! Put me down.”
It was Monty’s turn to hug and give her a quick, critical inspection.
“Is that your sister finally returned from London?” her father called from inside.
