“Don’t sayno,” he said quickly, dropping her shoulders and putting his fingers over her mouth as though to shove theword back in, his fingers lingering over her lips, warm and dry and salt-touched from the pickles and the briny air. “Don’t say anything. Just… Just sleep on it, all right? Just sleep on it.”
And before she could reply, he yawned so loudly, broadly, and deeply that she couldn’t help but yawn right back at him.
And after a yawn like that, sleeping did sound more appealing than arguing. It sounded more appealing than much of anything else the world might have offered, in that moment.
“Fine,” she said. “Shut up and get in the house. I’m exhausted.”
“As my princess commands,” he replied, and then he stepped too far away to get swatted for the cheek of it.
Part II
To Be or Not to Be?
Chapter Four
Waking up aftera full night of revelry was always a bit of a squeamish endeavor at the best of times. Doing it in a parlor with whisper-thin window coverings after chasing down your ale with salt-infused-withered cucumber dregs was another matter entirely.
But the church bells had just chimed eight times. That was a summons of no ambiguous order. Voices were rising and footfalls passed the parlor archway. And most damning of all, Jasper smelled coffee.
There was no resisting that last call to rousing.
The problem, as it happened, was opening his eyes to find Malcolm Lennox’s well-chiseled face half an inch away from his nose, glowering down at him like he was sleeping in an offensive manner.
He shot up in alarm, his hat flying across the room, barking “Poseidon’s left tit!” in a ragged voice of shock, loud enough to at least send Mal stumbling back a few steps, coffee sloshing out of both of the mugs he was carrying in his clenched, manicured hands. “The absolute devil is wrong with you, Lennox?!”
“Withme?!” Mal snarled back, jutting out one of the coffee mugs in the world’s angriest offering of joy. “Templeton-Rath?!”
Jasper froze, hands halfway out to accepting the drink, his heart sinking into the pit of his ribs. “She told you?”
“She didn’t have to,” Malcolm snapped, shoving the cup into Jasper’s extended hands and stalking over to take the opposite armchair. “She asked me if I knew what it was and I immediately knew what you were about. Of course, I should have guessed. I’d heard the rumors too, about the forwarding office. Limestone too mundane for the likes of you, Townsend? Can’t stomach the thought of trading anything less fine than cinnamon and sapphires?”
Jasper’s ribs unclenched, allowing his heart to float up an inch or two, back toward its usual resting place. “Oh,” he said, blinking. “No, it isn’t that. Limestone’s… fine.”
Mal grimaced at him, flashing his teeth like an angry dog. “Fine, is it? It’s not just the rocks, you know, though the rocks are literally what England is built upon! It’s limewash, Jasper. It’s quicklime. It’s chalk. It’squartzif you need something sparkly.”
“Will you please unclench your arse?” Jasper replied, sipping at his coffee with a roll of his eyes. “It’s got nothing to do with your precious bloody limestone. I turned you down because I don’t want to be your subordinate and because your partners, particularly the Holloways, are intolerable fools.”
“‘Intolerable foo…’” Malcolm started to repeat, eyes scrunching up as he frowned. “So what? What’s that got to do with business?”
Jasper sighed. Heavily.
“You forgot to put sugar in this,” he told his friend.
“Because it doesn’t need sugar, you philistine,” Mal replied testily. “Coffee is meant for cream or milk only. Christ.”
“Now, see,” Jasper said, knowing he was only antagonizing the other man, “Templeton-Rath would never deny me a cube of sugar.”
Mal’s eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring. “I know what you’re picturing,” he said, utterly confident in his incorrectness. “Amahogany desk with brass fittings overlooking the wharf, is it? An ivory globe to spin when you get bored counting your cinnamon money and sending smug updates off to Ceylon? Stockton, Holloway, and Lennox might have plain oaken furniture, Jasper, but what we also have is—”
“Will you please stop?” Jasper sighed, closing one eye under which a throbbing pain was beginning to build. “I never insulted your damned rock-trading enterprise. Not once.”
“Oh, certainly not,” Mal mocked. “Especially not in how you just described it.”
Jasper groaned. “Six months ago, you had a townhouse in Mayfair and a job at a bank,” he reminded his best friend. “If I’d approached you then singing the praises of limestone, you’d have sent me to a doctor on suspicion that someone had hit me in the sconce.”
That did shut him up, at least for a moment, but it didn’t erase the petulant frown.
“So what if I put myself forward for the new office?” Jasper said in the blessed pocket of silence. “I might not even get it. There’s no harm in trying, and I won’t lose my factor position at East India in the meantime.”
