Unraveled (Turner #3)(36)

The city was just coming to life. The brewery across the harbor had begun to belch smoke into the sky. Ghost came barreling back through the mist, a stick in his mouth. He tossed it on the ground before Smite and danced back, eagerly waiting.

“Very well, you wretched animal,” Smite said. He picked it up and hurled it as far as it would go.

He was watching his dog run in great bounding leaps, when he heard a delighted laugh beside him.

“He led me to you, you know.”

He turned.

Miranda Darling was standing behind him, one hand on the ruined stone wall. She was smiling at him.

“By Robbie’s message, I thought you meant us to meet more by the bridge. Whatever you intended to say came somewhat garbled from the messenger.” She gestured. “I was quite put out at having got up so early, only to be snubbed.”

It was too early for sun, but her hair under her bonnet was as brilliant as a summer sunrise. She probably wasn’t pretty, at least not in the classical sense of pristine English beauty. Her mouth was too wide; her nose too snub. And there was that profusion of freckles that covered her nose.

Classical English beauty could go hang, for all Smite cared. His mouth dried.

“And then I saw your dog bounding up out of the mist,” she continued.

A ways off, Ghost pounced on the stick and shook it vigorously. “Good dog,” Smite said approvingly.

“Robbie told me what you did for him. Thank—”

He cut her off with a decisive chop of his hand. “Don’t thank me.”

“But I must. It may have meant very little to you, but to me, to Robbie, it means everything.” Her gown was tied with a simple fabric sash. She rubbed the ends between her fingers, not meeting his eyes.

“That was not a selfish attempt to coerce you into singing my praises. I shouldn’t have done it. It was wrong for me to act in my capacity as magistrate when I knew my decision could be biased by personal inclination. I will not do it again.”

“Oh,” she said. “Then…I’m sorry?”

He leaned down, retrieved Ghost’s stick, and threw it once more. “Don’t apologize, either. I don’t make a habit of fostering regrets.”

She appeared to be only mildly taken aback, which seemed quite promising. His heart was laboring. His pulse beat heavily. There was no right way to proceed, and it seemed suddenly insupportable that this conversation would end any other way than what he’d envisioned last night.

“I surmised, based on our prior conversation, that Robbie might profit from an apprenticeship to a shipwright.”

“I know. But the expense…”

“Is nothing. I’ve taken care of it.”

She didn’t burst into raptures, thank God. Instead, she stared at him suspiciously. “Why would you do that?” she asked. “I’m a little wary of accepting such a favor when I don’t know how it can ever be repaid.”

“This isn’t commerce. I don’t require payment, and I certainly don’t expect it of you.”

But she simply tapped her foot and glowered. “If you didn’t expect anything of me, you’d have done it anonymously. You’d not have asked me to meet you. You expect something. What is it?”

He was a magistrate, and what’s more, he had all the money. No wonder she was nervous.

He met her eyes once more. “If you insist on repaying me, I ask only that you hear my next proposition in its entirety before you slap my face.”

She drew in a breath. “Am I going to want to slap your face?”

He rather hoped not. There had to be some way to put her at ease, but he didn’t know it. Instead he shrugged.

“It’s like this: I can’t put you out of my mind.”

She’d not been expecting that. Her eyes widened. To tell the truth, he hadn’t expected to start that way, either.

“I think of you in my free moments,” he said. The words came faster. “I think of you in moments that ought to be taken up by work. It’s affecting my judgment—witness what happened with Robbie yesterday. I keep thinking of what I could do for you. No—I must be perfectly frank—what I want to do to you.”

She hadn’t moved. But at that, she wet her lips with her tongue. “To be clear,” she said, “when you talk about what you want to do, you are talking about kissing me. You are not talking about throwing me in gaol.”

“To be clear,” Smite countered, “I am talking about having you as my mistress. About having you in every way possible.”

She didn’t slap his face or shriek in horror. Instead, she shook her head. “Then the answer is no. I’ve already said so. There’s too much risk for me.”

Ghost brought back the stick and dropped it once more. Smite ignored the dog. “I’m not proposing a one-time liaison. You’ll have a house. Servants. New clothing.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, Lord Justice, you do know how to woo a woman. Tell me more.”

“Precisely,” he agreed. “I’m not given to effusive sentiment. I’m not good at it, and you mustn’t expect it. It’s best we start as we mean to go on. I don’t need false protestations of love. I ask only for fidelity for the term of the arrangement and basic honesty.”

“And what is the term of the arrangement you’re proposing?”