Wasn’t she?
“Hmm.” John frowned. He tapped a fingernail against his tankard of beer. “I’m not so certain. You’re… different.”
“How so? I’m quite the same man I was all along.” What poppycock was his best friend attempting to put forth?
“Many little ways.” John leveled a speculative gaze on him then shrugged. “In any event, the three of us are willing to offer you the schooner—since you’ll head up the shipping company—on the condition that you can make Miss Hayhurst fall in love with you.” A twinkle appeared in the man’s eyes that sent cold foreboding down his spine.
“What?” Brand shook his head. He couldn’t believe the cheek of his friend. “I haven’t properly bedded her yet. Now this?” What did the three of them play at? How much of a commitment would such a thing require of him?
“Come now, Captain.” George leered and waggled his bushy eyebrows. “Do so quickly. Women like Miss Hayhurst confuse being bedded and love all the time.”
“Then we’ll sign over ownership of the schooner to you,” Philip added. “After that, our shipping outfit can get properly underway and we can set about to make our fortunes.”
“Exactly.” John nodded, but he didn’t lose his frown. “With the schooner, you’ll have the means to sail farther, acquire goods for our business and deliver them to more customers, plus find the adventure you crave. Philip means to keep the books. George and I can sail with you and be the face of the company.” He inclined an eyebrow. “It’s been our dream since leaving the Navy, as you know.”
“I do, of course, and I believe I was the one who put forth the idea once upon a time.” He rubbed his chin. “It’s a fantastic opportunity, to be sure.” To have a schooner, the very size ship he’d lusted over for nigh onto two years. It would give him the chance to show his family that he wasn’t good-for-nothing or a bounder. “I suppose I could make Elizabeth fall in love with me…” Yet, it smacked of deception. She was still an innocent in every way that mattered. Doing this went beyond winning a wager. He’d break her heart. His chest tightened.
What care I about that? Wasn’t the plan to bed her and leave her?
“Now you’re thinking like a businessman.” John grinned, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Does that mean you’re willing to take on the modified wager?”
It was on the tip of Brand’s tongue to agree, but a warning flared in his gut. Immediately, he was suspicious of the plan. “Why do you want me to do this so badly?”
“Why not?” John shrugged. “Pursuing Miss Hayhurst has seemed to make you, if not happy, then less lonely. Don’t try to deny that,” he added when Brand opened his mouth to protest. “Why not continue the wager and see where it leads?”
Of all things holy on land and sea!“Damnation, John.” He kept his voice low. Fury rang in those tones. He shoved back from the table and to his feet so fast the chair toppled. It crashed against the floor with a raucous clatter. “You wish to match me with the woman! You wrapped it into a dare you know I can’t refuse.”
The three men exchanged perplexing glances, for his outburst had nothing to do with them and everything to do with his own insecurities.
George waved a hand as if the conversation at hand wasn’t life changing. “Listen to what we’ve told you, Captain. She’s to fall, not you. There is no danger to your person.”
“Quite so.” Philip drained his tankard. “Besides, you’ve avoided such disasters for all these years. There’s no harm to you now.”
“Unless you wish for the same,” John added, his face carefully blank. “Unless you wish to make that descent yourself.”
Except he’d have to spend even more time in Elizabeth’s company and pretend he was enamored of her. Brand didn’t know how he felt about that. His chest ached from too many emotions he couldn’t put to words. In her he’d found a companion who liked much of the same things he did, who he enjoyed as company on his sloop, who he looked forward to seeing which each outing. In a perfect world, she might be a candidate for romance, if he were searching for one, and if he could overlook her horrid brother.
But love? Him falling in love? Absolutely not! He refused on principle. That wasn’t his style. A man in that state would need to upend his whole life and change nearly everything he was because the parson’s mousetrap demanded it.
Because she would want him to.
I’m not certain I can change.
The buxom barmaid entered the room with four tankards of beer on her wooden tray. All the frustration from the past few days collided with the exhilaration of perhaps owning a schooner and the annoyance at needing to further seduce an innocent woman to make a perfect storm of lust and need within him. After Molly served the men, Brand closed the distance between them, caught her into his arms, and then kissed her hard. Her tray dropped to the floor with a dull thud.
No, he wasn’t ready to change. Not for anyone, and certainly not for a woman with caramel-colored hair and who gained freckles over the bridge of her nose when in the sun too long. He released the barmaid, who stumbled, unsteady on her feet. “There’s more where that came from, if you’re willing.” The best thing to do was put Miss Hayhurst from his mind, for nothing good would come of dwelling on a woman so unattainably… good that the light which shone from within her acted as a damned beacon to his soul.
She can help me be… more, be… better.
Molly looked him over, and her grin was decidedly wicked. “Always, when it comes to you, Captain.” She retrieved her tray, giving him an unobstructed peek at her copious cleavage, and then sauntered from the room.
Ignoring the curious glances from his mates, Brand stifled a groan. I’m losing my damned mind. The way to chase a certain woman from his thoughts was to bed another one. He loped from the room and caught the barmaid in the hall. “Come here.” Emotion graveled his voice. He gripped her hips, planted her rear on a narrow table that rested flush against the wall, and he once more kissed her without any sort of tenderness or care. Her tray lay trapped between them. The feel of her lips against his was different than the kisses he’d shared with Elizabeth. Though she was experienced and knew exactly how to quickly arouse him, her exploring hands weren’t Elizabeth’s, who touched him with a timidity that drove him wild and close to the edge almost immediately.
Botheration!He needed Elizabeth to cease haunting him.
Renewing his kiss with Molly, he fondled her breast, and she slipped a hand to cup his throbbing equipage, but the sounds she made weren’t the moans of sweet surprise that Elizabeth’s had been. Damn, damn, damn. Murmured voices down the hall reached his ears, breaking his concentration. He turned his head and opened his eyes, glancing along the corridor. Bloody hell! Elizabeth and her brother were being shown into a private dining room at the end of the hall.
The urge to assert himself, cling to the life he’d lived and valued before meeting Lizzy died a swift death.