He waited until she looked at him, and then he reached into his arsenal of persuasion.
A hard swallow, indicating a manful struggle with emotion.
An intense, searching gaze.
The husky whisper of a confession.
“Miss Mountbatten.” Hell, why not go for it all? “Alexandra. I need you.”
There. That line worked on every woman.
It didn’t work on her.
“No, you don’t.” A flash of irony crossed her face. “Don’t worry. You’ll forget me soon enough.”
And then she did what Chase yearned to do, often. She flung open the door, fled the house, and didn’t once look back.
Two hours later, Alexandra found herself standing on a Billingsgate dock.
Terrified.
The June morning was soaked with sunshine, but she’d left Mr. Reynaud’s house in a mental fog. Her distraction was such that she’d made two wrong turnings on her well-trod path to London Bridge, and now she had missed the noon coach to Greenwich.
The rational solution was to take a wherry down the Thames. However, the mere sight of the boat sent an irrational shiver rippling down her spine.
I can’t. I just can’t.
But what were her alternatives?
If she risked waiting for a later coach, the bridge would be madness, crushed with carts going nowhere. She’d never make it home before dark.
She could call off the journey entirely. However, calibrating the chronometer once a fortnight was her signature promise to customers. They paid for precise Greenwich time, and she delivered it, without fail.
Just do it, she told herself. It’s time to move past this, you ninny. You were raised on a ship, after all. A merchant frigate was your cradle.
Yes. But it had nearly been her coffin, too.
Nevertheless, here she stood ten years later. Alive. She could survive a brief jaunt down the Thames to Greenwich.
She could do this.
As the boatman loaded bundles and helped passengers into the wherry, she hung back, waiting until the last possible moment.
“Are you coming, miss, or ain’t ye?”
“I’m coming.” Alex accepted his hand and boarded the boat, wedging herself on a plank between two older women and settling her satchel on her lap.
When the boatman cast off the ropes mooring the wherry to the dock, she decided to set her mind on something else. Now that she knew better than to fantasize about Chase Reynaud, a good portion of her brain was suddenly available for other pursuits. Naming all the constellations bordering Ursa Major, perhaps.
Drat. Too easy. She rattled through the list in moments—Draco, Camelopardalis, Lynx, Leo Minor, Leo, Coma Berenices, Canes Venatici, Boötes—and there her concentration fractured. Once the first oar hit water, she couldn’t piece a single thought together.
She balled her hands in fists and dug her nails into her palms, attempting to distract herself by means of pain. That didn’t work, either. She felt nothing but the lift and roll of water beneath the craft. That terrifying sensation of coming unmoored. Drifting untethered.
No. She couldn’t do this after all.
Alex pushed to her feet, making her way to the edge of the boat. They hadn’t yet pushed off. Still just a foot from the dock. “Wait,” she told the boatman. “I’ve just recalled something. I need to disembark.”
“Too late, miss. You can cross again when the boat comes back.” He moved to push off with the oar.
“Please.” She was begging now, her voice cracking. “It’s urgent. I must get off the boat. I . . .”
“Sit down, woman,” he barked, bracing his oar to push off.
Alex was frantic, wild. She scrambled atop the rail of the boat, wavering on her toes. The other passengers cried out in alarm as the boat tipped to one side. The boatman gripped the hem of her frock, attempting to yank her down into the boat. His grasping only increased her desperation.
She quickly judged the distance between the wherry and the dock. She could make it, she thought, but only if she jumped.
And jumped now.
She made the leap.
Her judgment wasn’t faulty. If not for her boot slipping on the wherry’s edge, she would have made the jump cleanly. Instead, she plunged into the water with a splash, gasping as she went and catching a foul, wretched mouthful of the Thames.
When she surfaced, a man on the dock caught her under the arm, pulling her up and helping her scramble out of the river.
On the dock at last, she sputtered and choked with relief.
That’s when she noticed it had gone missing. Her satchel. The chronometer. When she’d tumbled into the river, it had fallen from her grip and sunk into the depths.
Her livelihood, gone.
A sob wrenched from her body, like a droplet wrung from damp cloth.
One more thing the water had taken from her. It was the insatiable monster in her life. Jonah’s whale. Devouring everything she loved, but spitting her back out, again and again, more lost and lonely than ever.
And once more, there was nothing to do but pick herself up and start over.
“Well? What do you think?” Chase spread his arms and turned slowly, putting on a display of his unfinished apartment. “I’m remaking it into a manly retreat.”
Barrow stared at the shambles of what had formerly been the housekeeper’s quarters. “Where are Mrs. Greeley’s things?”
“I’ve moved her to a bedchamber on the second floor. Far superior accommodations.”
“Dare I ask the reason behind this renovation?”
Chase went to pour them two tumblers of brandy. “Until Rosamund and Daisy go off to school, I need somewhere to escape.”
“A grown man escaping from two little girls. Now that’s rather pathetic, isn’t it?”
“Come now. I don’t know what to do with children. There’s no point in troubling to learn. I’m not going to sire any of the grimy things. Even if I wished to marry, there’s no use searching for a wife. You’ve laid claim to the best woman in England.”
“This is true.”
John Barrow Sr. had been Chase’s father’s solicitor, and from the time Chase and John Jr. had been boys, it was understood they would continue the family tradition. Also understood, but never spoken of, was the reason why. They were half brothers. Chase’s father had impregnated a local gentleman’s daughter, and his loyal solicitor had taken it upon himself to marry her and raise the child as his own.
So Chase and John had grown up together, sharing both tutors and paddlings. Squabbling over horses and girls. Despite the disparity in their social ranks, they’d maintained a close friendship through school and beyond. A damned lucky thing, on Chase’s part. Now, with a dukedom at stake, he needed a trusted friend to help manage the estate.
“How is my godson?” Chase asked. “Speaking of grimy things.”
“Charles is living up to his namesake, unfortunately.”
“Ah.