Page 7

FOUR

Briar

I flicked through the report, but didn’t take in a single word or figure. I couldn’t.

He was late.

“And your new advisor,” said Mr. Stephens delicately. “He’ll be arriving…?”

I hated the way the man always asked a question like that. He didn’t actually ask outright. He didn’t have to. All he had to do was start a sentence, allow it to trickle on as though it were the most natural thing in the world, then look at me and expect me to finish it.

As if I knew!

“When he deems fit, apparently,” I said as icily as I could manage.

A murmur rustled through my advisors. The actual words were spoken so quietly, I couldn’t actually hear what they were saying.

I didn’t need to. I knew precisely what my advisors were saying.

We’d met at Weatherford Place. It housed the headquarters of my trust, and I spent quite a lot of time here in meetings.

Meetings.

No one thought about meetings when they inherited a fortune, or started a business that became successful. They thought they’d be sipping brandy on their estate all year round.

Perhaps some of them were. When it came to me, however, I tried to be responsible with my wealth. Ensure it was invested in the right places. Not just to make money, but to do good.

My advisors, on the other hand…

I looked along the long table. Made of the most elegant mahogany, it currently had twenty people sitting at it. I wanted new ideas, fresh perspectives. The trouble was, they all seemed to think the same.

Play it safe. Long term, low risk. Don’t do anything your father wouldn’t have done…

I swallowed, and glanced down at the report I’d been handed twenty minutes ago.

I knew it almost off my heart. They’d delivered a copy to me ahead of time, as I requested, and had poured over the graphs and percentages, determined to come to this meeting with something useful to say.

And I did have useful things to say. Page 9, for example. The rates were far too conservative, and if applied correctly, investing in the new more efficient cotton mills was clearly better.

Or take page 46. Absolutely all of those companies employed children—children!—so I didn’t want to invest in them, even if their returns would be 12% above the average.

And yet despite all those thoughts, here I was, sitting in the large boardroom…saying nothing.

“Lady Briar,” one of my advisors said delicately. “All we need for you to do is approve?—”

“All we need you to do is trust us,” Mr. Stephens interrupted, glaring at the man on my left. “Please don’t worry yourself with any of the details, Lady Briar. We are here to make decisions for you, worry about the consequences for you. You don’t even need to?—”

“This is my money, Mr. Stephens,” I said shortly. “And I will play a part in how it is spent.”

He muttered something careful and respectful, I was sure, but I wasn’t listening. Not to him.

No, I was focused on the door behind me. Had it opened?

Where in God’s name was Lord Markham?

I thought we had a deal—I thought we understood each other. Once we’d got past the unnecessary misunderstanding about how I could take him as a lover to pay off his debt, the idiot.

I shifted uncomfortable in my seat. Not that it hadn’t been tempting.

But I needed him the most here. I’d been most clear about the time, date, and location of the meeting. It had been only three days ago that I’d told him—I’d even had one of my footmen send over the report ahead of time.

So where was he?

“It appears Lady Briar is too tired to make decisions today,” I heard Mr. Stephens murmur in a carrying whisper. “Poor dear. Perhaps we should just?—”

“Yes, let’s adjourn,” I said, rising to my feet.

All twenty advisors stared at me, agog with astonishment. It was probably the most direct thing I had ever said to them.

“A-Adjourn?”

I nodded, trying to fill myself with the confidence I knew I had, somewhere. Where had I found it last time?

“You’re leaving?”

“Of course. Do you want to come with me?”

My stomach lurched. Fine, perhaps that wasn’t the best example.

“Same time tomorrow, if that works for everyone,” I said sweetly.

I didn’t need to say that. I knew perfectly well that for each and every person around this table, I was their primary source of income. If I told them to come back to the board room at midnight wearing the formal wear of the Dutch in the 1700s, they’d somehow make it work.

Not that I would. But still.

I inclined my head graciously to my advisors as they rose and left, muttering between them words that I desperately wanted to hear, but couldn’t. Within another minute, I was alone.

Alone.

Yes, that’s about right, I thought as I stepped away from the table and across to the window.

From here you could see almost all of London, and the river. The Thames continued on, slowly but surely, as it had done for millennia.

And here I stood, alone.

No one to talk to. No one to confide in. No one to trust.

“Nice table,” said a voice I knew all too well.

I couldn’t help the glare as I turned on him.

The Duke of Markham.

“Where did you get it?” he said lazily, stepping out of the doorway and walking toward me, hands in pockets. “I just met a crowd of people, by the way. So boring.”

My glare deepened, but still I said nothing.

How could I? The man who had just entered the room was…

Well. Delicious. He was not just late, he was disheveled, in that way a truly handsome gentleman could be.

His stubble was still there, but neatened up a little around the jaw to emphasize his cutting physique. The breeches he was wearing looked the same as before, and a blue waistcoat was pulled taut across abs that wouldn’t quit and his arms?—

Arms that had held me, close, and made me feel…

I swallowed. “You’re late.”

“And you look good, Lady Briar,” Markham said, as though that was any way to reply.

I hated him. I hated how he was late, how he clearly didn’t value or respect my time.

I hated the fact he hadn’t bothered to wear a cravat pin, or even a hat.

And most of all, I hated how damned attractive he was.

How I was pulled to him, my body aching to be closer to him.

How I had missed him while facing my advisors.

How could a man I just met days ago have this impact on me?

“It doesn't matter what I look like,” I said, stepping away from the glass and toward him. “You’re late.”

“Well, I'm not exactly on time,” the Duke of Markham began.

“You’re not on time, so you’re late,” I snapped. “You just missed the entire meeting, Lord Markham, and I asked you to be here early so that I could get your thoughts on the report I sent over!”

“Haven’t read it,” he grinned.

I halted at the end of the table. Perhaps it was better I kept the heavy mahogany table between us. Right now, I could scream at the man for being so infuriating.

Hadn’t read it? Had he listened to a word I said?

I tried to take a deep breath. “And why haven’t you read it?”

“Lady Briar, I never read those kind of things—they’re the sort of thing people write to make sure no one asks them any difficult questions,” said the Duke of Markham, leaning on the table with a grin.

I did not look at his buttocks. I did not. Almost.

“If you really want your advisors to work for you, then you need to get them to tell you, in a minute or less, what you should do next,” the Duke of Markham continued with a knowing grin on his face. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you this, Lady Briar?”

I swallowed, the pain ricocheting through my shoulder blades and into my chest.

No. No, they hadn’t. Who would? I only had my advisors to tell me what to do, and they were hardly going to give me insight into how to deal with them.

This was precisely why I had wanted the Duke of Markham to work with me.

For me.

Even if he was a complete ass.

“I still don’t get why you want me here anyway,” said the Duke of Markham quietly, his face a little more serious. “I mean, you’re an heiress, right? Your father left you a significant income, and you’re the heiress to the Duke of Stanlow, aren’t you?”

I nodded. There was no point in hiding it. The whole of Society knew the truth.

“So why not just do whatever you want? Why not…I don’t know, travel around the world?”

I snorted. “Travel the world? Really? Do you know how expensive such an endeavor would be?”

“No! And neither should you,” the Duke of Markham said, his grin returning. “You have all the money in the world. You’re literally wealthier than the royal family. What do you care about the expense?”

I swallowed, but I couldn’t keep going without explaining. Though I hated to look so weak before anyone, let alone an idiot like the Duke of Markham, he had a point.

“Because…because everyone already thinks I'm stupid,” I said quietly. “I inherited a heap of money, and I am a woman—so people assume I have nothing going on between the ears.”

“You’ve got plenty going on between the legs,” the Duke of Markham said softly.

Flushing hard, I stepped around the table. “See what I mean? You’ve known me less than a week, and already you’ve reduced me to an object. One designed to give you pleasure. But I want to be taken seriously—I want my advisors to actually listen to me. I'm not as reckless as everyone thinks I am.”

Markham

Oh, cry me a river.

What, she thought the worst thing in the world was to inherit money?

I couldn’t stop myself from grinning. “I'm sorry, is this the part where I'm meant to feel sorry for you because you’ve never worked a day in your life?”

I didn’t wait for an answer—I knew what it was going to be.

Right on cue as I walked over to what looked like a drinks cabinet at one end of the room, there were splutterings of apoplectic rag going on behind me.

Looked like I had truly offended Lady Briar. Again.

“You can’t say that to me!”

“Why not?” I said, opening up the drinks cabinet and pulling out a bottle of whiskey. “You just complained to me that no one ever listens to what you say—but I think the problem is that no one ever says anything to you that you don’t want to hear.”