Chapter 8
It had become quickly evident over the weeks that Hester had not had fun in a very, very long time, and Calchas had needed a goal. And the goal of giving Hester fun was a very noble one indeed. Or at least, so he thought.
And so the adventure of building her shop had begun swiftly and had been going apace since.
He had wasted no time getting it started because he did not want her to think that he was prevaricating or that he was trying to get something from her that had nothing to do with his promise.
She had seemed confused when he’d suggested that he wanted to pursue things with her that had very little to do with tea, but he was willing to take his time.
The ever-present ache inside him that was the sea calling could not be ignored. The cutter at the East India dock awaited. He had visited it several times, and even had it manned with a potential crew, should he so desire to call on them and take off without notice to sail to unknown shores.
But with Hester in his life, he had no wish to go.
Not when he so clearly had work to be done.
A building had been selected. He had hired workers.
Well, he had not. He had taken the advice of his father’s dear friend, Hartigan Mulvaney, and had found a host of builders from Ireland to turn the place upside down and make it the most appealing shop possible.
It was already almost done.
The weeks that had gone by had been full to the brim with the choosing of colors, the choosing of furniture, the choosing of teacups, and well, Hester had reveled in every moment of it.
And she had been incredibly decisive once Calchas had made it absolutely plain that she was not to give too much consideration to the bills.
He had promised her that he would not produce anything that was outside of her price range, and he had made it clear to Hartigan Mulvaney and the workers that this was to be the case.
They were all honorable souls, not something that could always be said for builders, so things had been going just as Hester desired.
Part of him disliked the fact that it was going so quickly, so well, so easily, because surely once the shop was complete, he would have no excuse to take her by the arm, guide her down from her rooms in the evenings, and take her into dinner.
She fit in well at Heron House.
At first, she had been a trifle reticent to join in, but surrounded by the laughter and silliness of his family, she had slowly begun to open up, and it was one of the most beautiful things he had seen in his entire life.
At present, he stood eating one of her delightful pastries after supper, enjoying the feel of the crowded room as his cousins, his brother, his aunts, and his uncles all played instruments, danced, laughed, and sang.
She was sitting watching it all, and Ellen was in the corner sitting by Phoebe, drinking a pot of hot chocolate. Phoebe, his cousin, was an antidote for the world and had taken Ellen in hand.
He hoped that whoever Phoebe fell in love with would be worthy of her. Of course, this was true for every young Briarwood woman. But there was something truly special about Phoebe, the way she saw things, and the manner with which she had darted in to make Ellen feel at home.
“You’re in for it, aren’t you?”
He ground his teeth together. Oh, God. It was about to start. The classic Briarwood ribbing.
“In for what exactly?” he asked his uncle, Ajax. “Another pastry? I do think I might, except I’ll have to be very careful and do a great deal of boxing tomorrow.”
Ajax clapped him hard on the shoulder. “Puppy, you are gone. It is a delight. We have all been waiting for this. We do this with all our nieces and nephews, of course, but we’ve genuinely been watching you.”
“It’s true,” agreed Zephyr Briarwood, another uncle.
“Oh, waiting is not the precise word,” drawled Hector, a third uncle, stroking his square jaw. “We have all been begging for it, praying for it, hoping she would arrive on the horizon or in the sky like that twinkling North Star, which you sailors do seem to love.”
Ajax nodded. “That’s right. We had begun to fear it might never happen.”
“Or,” put in Hector, “that you would be an old man like ourselves before you found love.”
Zephyr punched Hector on the shoulder. “Old. Say that for yourself. Those gray hairs are telling.”
Hector waggled his brows. “They make me look quite noble, don’t they?”
Zephyr rolled his eyes. “If you can call it that.”
Calchas fought a grin. How he loved his uncles. They were a mad lot, an inspiration for the younger generations of Briarwoods. He sometimes swore that Laertes, Perseus, and Deimos insisted on acting exactly like his uncles because they liked them so well.
Or perhaps the family traits of the Briarwoods were just so intensely strong that they would keep producing this strange set of fellows and conversations once a generation until the end of time.
He rather liked the idea that there would be copies of Ajax, Hector, Zephyr, and even, of course, his own father, who was the maddest of the lot, echoed throughout time.
Would these loving ribbings still be being made one day, hundreds of years in the future?
He wondered what the dukedom of Westleigh would be like in two hundred years. As splendid as now, he hoped, and as peopled with as many wonderful family members as were present tonight.
“Go on then. Ask her to dance,” Hector urged.
Ajax snorted and said, “Ask her to marry you.”
He coughed on the pastry.
“Now, now, no choking tonight. Not allowed,” put in Zephyr.
“I’ve got a ring upstairs, you know,” the Duke of Westleigh, Calchas’s father, added with a good deal of mischief in his voice.
He winced. His father’s voice was the deepest and wildest of the lot.
He often wondered if he had inherited his own intense and wild nature from his beloved papa.
There was something inside him that drove him hard, not to the same intensity as his father, who sometimes did seem almost unhinged.
But he did find himself always looking for an exit, always wondering if he should be slipping off and escaping to the horizon.
Always wondering if the tide could pull him somewhere better than where he was.
At present, he was able to push that aside.
He didn’t know how long he could though.
“Should I go get it?” his father asked, clapping his strong hands together as if the idea filled him with joy.
“Don’t you think Mama might have something to say about that?” he returned.
His father tsked and tugged at his long crimson coat lined with black silk. “Oh no. There’s a host of them, you know. You could pick a sapphire, an emerald, a yellow diamond, a pink diamond. A—”
“Yes, Papa, thank you very much,” Calchas cut in. “I do not think the lady is interested in marrying again.”
“Well, make her so,” Ajax enthused, clearly impatient with his nephew.
“Do you think that every lady knows when a gentleman is head over heels for them?” asked Zephyr.
“No,” Hector added. “You must make it plain and then, of course, marriage will be appealing again. Who wouldn’t want to fall head over heels in love with you, lad?”
“She’s focused on her business,” Calchas defended. “As she should be. She’s not looking for love.”
“But love is the best solution to all dilemmas,” said Ajax.
“It’s the only solution,” said his father. “It is the only choice. Why don’t you tell her how you feel, my boy?”
He ground his teeth. “Papa,” he said, “that’s enough.”
“Oh dear, is it?” his father said, having the decency to look contrite, but then his gaze danced merrily. “We should hate to be too much.”
Calchas, just as Ajax had just done, snorted.
His father and his uncles adored being too much, as did he sometimes. And his cousins. It was perhaps the Briarwood maxim. We are too much. But the truth was that their too much was just the right amount.
He had become fairly certain of that when he had been a small boy and saw the way others secretly wished they were Briarwoods.
“I’m worried,” his father said suddenly.
“About, what?” he nearly yelped, shocked by his father’s admission.
His father scowled. “That you’re going to scupper off to parts unknown.”
Calchas winced at the accuracy of his father’s statement. He hadn’t realized that he’d been so transparent.
“It’s, all right, old boy,” his father said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We all know you’ve one foot in the sea and one foot on land, and at any moment, you might race off. We’re always going to be here.”
He winced. Would they really be all right if he suddenly departed? He’d convinced himself he couldn’t leave. “But Grandmama would hate it,” he said.
“Of course she would,” his father replied.
“Most definitely,” Ajax said.
“Yes. She’d write you a letter every day for weeks,” put in Zephyr.
“But she’d also be the first to tell you to go,” said Hector.
His father squeezed his shoulder, which was really a remarkable gesture of kindness, considering Calchas was as large as his sire. “It’s true, but be careful that you don’t run away from what you really want.”
“And what is it that I really want?” he gritted, sometimes finding the wisdom of the elder Briarwoods to be infuriating.
His father swung his gaze across the room to the young lady sitting on the settee by the fire, watching everyone make merry. “That one, of course. You’ve been struck. Cupid has found you, or the Briarwood blessing, which is really far better than any silly little fool with an arrow.”
Calchas swallowed. Could he have what his father and uncles had?
Could he settle down as they all had done?
But it seemed to suit them in a way he feared it could never suit him.
None of them had traveled the world for years on a ship meant for war.
Oh, they had gone on journeys, but he? He hadn’t stayed in one place for longer than a few months since he was a boy.
“Go over and ask her to dance, at the very least,” his father said softly, “if you can’t get the courage up to ask her to marry you.”
He blew out a breath. “Fine, fine. If it will make you all stop.”
“Stop?” Ajax echoed before letting out a booming laugh.
“Oh no,” put in Zephyr, his lips twitching with amusement.
“We’ll never stop,” said Hector, trying to keep a straight face but failing miserably.
His father smiled at him. “And you wouldn’t wish us to.”
“No, Papa,” he sighed. “I never would.”
And the truth was, he hoped his uncles and his father went on forever and forever because they had been the dearest and most wonderful of men in his life, and he really couldn’t imagine the world without them in it.
He didn’t want to.
He wanted to keep going forward with them at his back, his face to the wind, knowing that whatever gale shook him, his family was here, and he wanted the same thing for her.
He wanted her. Come squall or come calm, she was in his blood now. And that couldn’t be denied.
So, without another word, he squared his shoulders, crossed the room, stopped before her, and put his hand out. “I have been instructed to ask you to dance.”
Her brows shot up, but she looked quite pleased at his presence. “My goodness. Have you? Am I so very terrible that you must be instructed?”
He laughed. “No, but I wasn’t sure that you would actually dance with me if I asked you for my own personal interest.”
“Why?” She cocked her head to the side, causing her perfectly coifed hair, which his sister’s had insisted on doing, or so he’d heard, to dance against her neck. “Is your own personal interest nefarious?”
He hesitated, and her cheeks bloomed pink.
“Nefarious, no,” he rumbled, unable to keep a note of desire from his voice.
“What?” she breathed, gazing up at him, her breasts pressing at the cut of her gown as she drew in a deep breath.
The sight of it nearly undid him. She was so damned beautiful.
“Sinful,” he said softly.
She sucked in a gasp.
“Is that so very terrible?” he whispered.
“I don’t know,” she murmured. “The truth is I have not contemplated anything like that in a very long time.”
“Well then, let me help you to contemplate.” He bent a little bit lower. Bowing to her, hoping that she would stand, hoping that she would not run away. Hoping that she would take his meaning and not think the worst of him.
Now that he had dared to suggest that a little sin could be just the thing.
She slipped her hand into his and blew out a soft breath before she smiled slowly. “I don’t see how we can do anything sinful to a reel,” she pointed out.
He glanced over at his cousin Laertes, who was sitting at the piano playing most sprightly.
Laertes and he caught each other’s eye. Laertes looked to Hester, then back to Calchas. He stopped playing, gave him a wink, and started a waltz.
She made clear note of it and batted his shoulder. “You are very bad, sir.”
“I am,” he agreed. “But I’m going to be so bold as to suggest that you might like it. Just a little bit.”