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“The privateers that outmaneuvered the full-rigged British monsters in the War of 1812. That’s the lineage of a beauty like this.” He looked up. “A lot of sail to catch wind, she has.Alacrityis well named, Mr. Irons. She’s more responsive than any ship ever built.”
“And your lineage, Captain? You say it’s in the blood.”
Looking him in the eye, the moody man grinned. “When I sail back up the Thames in this ship doing something no one’s ever done before, it won’t be the first time a Miller has shown the Brits a thing or two.”
“Regaling Mr. Irons with the family history?”
Helen Gray’s voice carried notes of both bemusement and caution, but most of all, her voice was luscious. As if the anticipation of seeing her was all he needed to live, Nicholas's lungs stopped drawing air.
∞∞∞
Years of lumber- and shipyard dealings had accustomed Helen to all types of men of business. There were the oily ingratiators, the pushy bullies, the intractable donkeys, the detail-oriented obsessors, and so on. For each type, she had a strategy ready to deploy.
Nicholas Irons defied neat categorization, knocking Helen off center. His questions and commentaries were direct yet tactful, concise yet detailed. Irons’s attention moved between Helen and Elijah, and he addressed them both with the same tone and interest.
“Do you see a future for clippers in the North Atlantic passage?”
Elijah shook his head.
“Even after your rapid voyage?”
“Clippers aren’t suited to the conditions of the North Atlantic. Let the paddlewheel steamers dominate that route.”
Despite Irons’s presence onAlacrity, she wondered how seriously he was considering investing in their venture. All she was certain of was how striking his honey-colored eyes were out of doors, glowing in the winter sun. He managed to look dashing rather than sloppy when the breeze of the Thames ruffled his dark hair, no matter how many times those capable-looking hands swept it back.
Her annoyance at his effortless appeal built until she wanted to stomp her foot. Windblown herself, Helen's nails bit into her palms, sweaty with nerves. She refused to fix the wayward wisps of hair that had escaped—she wasn’t here to be on display!As he is not on display to you! He’s a path to silver, nothing more.
“You sailed here with mail but also timber, I hear. The timber serves both as ballast and a valuable import?”
Irons’s calmly confident tone impressed her as much as it vexed her.
“That’s right,” Elijah said, showing no signs of unease.
“Tea leaves are light. On the way back from China, what will prevent you from capsizing?”
Elijah smiled ear to ear. “Chinese porcelain. Weighty, resistant to water damage, and sells for a pretty penny, too.”
They ambled around the deck as they spoke, and Helen detected a pattern in Irons’s interrogation. He alternated subjects quickly, interspersing questions of importance to the tea venture with trivialities or mere curiosities.
He was testing them.
You’ll see what we’re made of!
Irons changed the topic again. “The hull is sheathed in metal?”
“Of course. And she had two layers of tarred felt applied before the yellow metal.”
“Rolled copper and zinc. No doubt imported to America from Liverpool.”
Irons’s statement sounded neutral, but she knew he meant to probe her brother’s patriotism.
“It was.”
She was relieved when Elijah looked as nonplussed as he sounded.
“One might say your ship is part English.”
“American with some English parts, like the Millers,” Helen interjected before annoyance could overtake her brother. “She also has Russian hemp rigging; decorative rosewood panels from Honduras; lifeboats fashioned of teak from East India. Whatever was needed to make her the finest was procured and used in her construction.”
