A Lady Dares. Bronwyn Scott
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with her father. The yacht company was as much hers as it had been his. It was part of her and she would not let it go, not without a fight.
At the moment she had admittedly few tools to fight with. The investors had gone, unconvinced the company could produce a worthy product without her father at the helm. The craftsmen and master builder had gone next. The presence of females had long been anathema in the nautical world and no reassurance on her part could induce them to stay. Even her mother was gone. Playing the devastated widow to the hilt, Olivia Sutton had retreated to the country after the funeral and simply disappeared.
Elise had told enquiring souls that her mother was taking her father’s death very poorly. Secretly, Elise thought her mother was managing quite well, too well for her personal tastes. In the months since the funeral, her mother’s letters from the country had become increasingly upbeat. There were quiet card parties and dinners to attend and everyone was so kind, now there was no longer an often absent husband to consider.
Her mother had loved Richard Sutton’s title; Sir Richard Sutton had been knighted two years prior for services to the Royal Thames Yacht Club, but Olivia Sutton hadn’t loved the work that had driven and absorbed him, taking him away from her. The marriage had been a convenient arrangement for years. Olivia had been more than happy to leave her daughter and son to manage the business of coping with solicitors, creditors and the other sundry visitors who hovered over a death like vultures.
The pencil in Elise’s hand snapped, the fifth one today. The sound drew her brother’s attention from the window overlooking the shipyard. ‘Is it as bad as all that?’
Elise pushed the pieces into the little pile on the corner of her desk with the remains of their fellow brethren. ‘It’s worse.’ She rose and joined William at the window. The normally bustling shipyard below them was silent and empty, a sight she was still having a hard time adjusting to. ‘I’ve sold anything of value associated with the business.’
There hadn’t been that much to sell, but that was only partially true. The shipyard itself was a valuable piece of property for its location on the Thames. She wasn’t sure she could face the prospect of giving up the business entirely. This had been her life. What would she do every day if she didn’t design yachts? Where would she go if she didn’t come here? Giving up the yard would be akin to giving up a piece of her soul. In society’s eyes she’d already done that once when she’d chosen to follow her father and not the pathway trod by other gently reared girls with means.
William sighed, pushing a hand through his blond hair, the gesture so much like their father it made her heart ache. At nineteen, William was a taller, lankier version of him, a living memory of the man they’d lost. ‘How much are we short?’
‘Twelve thousand pounds.’ Just saying the words hurt. No one had that kind of money except noblemen. Elise thought of the crumpled letter. She’d been counting on that. Royal patronage would have sustained them.
William whistled. ‘That’s not exactly pocket change.’
‘You could always marry an heiress.’ Elise elbowed him and tried for levity. William didn’t love the business as she did, but he’d loved Father and he’d been her supporter these past months, taking time away from his beloved studies to visit.
‘I could leave my studies.’ William said seriously. He was starting his third term at Oxford and thriving in the academic atmosphere. They’d been over this before. She wouldn’t hear of it.
‘No, Father wanted his son educated,’ Elise argued firmly. ‘Besides, it wouldn’t be enough.’ She didn’t want to be cruel, she appreciated her brother’s offer, but the money would hardly make a difference. Since it didn’t, it seemed unfair for William to make a useless sacrifice even if it was a noble offer.
‘What about the investors—perhaps they would advance funds?’ William suggested. The last time he’d been home, there’d still been a few remaining who had not yet discreetly weaned themselves from the company, still hoping there might be a way yet to continue with the latest project.
Elise shook her head. ‘They’ve all pulled out. No one wants to invest in a company that can’t produce a product.’ They’d more than pulled out. It was largely the investors’ faults she was in such a pickle. Her father had not been debt ridden, but neither had he been wallowing in assets. The investors had withdrawn their support and asked for their money returned, unconvinced the latest project they’d financed would see completion.
Said project lay below them in the quiet yard—the half-completed shell of her father’s latest design for a racing yacht, planned with new innovations in mind, lay dormant. For the last several weeks, the investors were proven right. Supplies purchased with the investors’ money from the outset lined the lonely perimeter, tarp covered and forgotten. ‘A pity the investors didn’t want to be paid in timber and pitch,’ Elise muttered. ‘I’ve got plenty of that.’
William’s eyes settled on her, brown and thoughtful. ‘All the supplies have been purchased?’
‘Yes. Father buys—bought,’ Elise corrected herself, ‘everything up front, it makes production faster and we don’t have to worry about running out at a crucial point.’
William nodded absently, his mind racing behind his eyes. ‘How much would the yacht have brought?’
She smiled wryly. ‘Enough. It would have been plenty.’ It wouldn’t have been just about the yacht. There would have been other orders, too. This yacht was meant to be a prototype. Rich men would have seen it and wanted one for themselves. But it was no use now counting hypothetical pounds.
‘You could finish the boat,’ William suggested.
Elise furrowed her brow and studied her brother carefully. Was that a joke? Had he been listening to anything she’d said? Her temper snapped. ‘I can’t finish the boat, William. I don’t know the first thing about actually using hammer and nails. And in case you haven’t noticed, there are no men down there, no master builder.’
She regretted the sarcasm immediately. William looked hurt. It wasn’t fair to take her agitation out on him. He was suffering, too. He knew what people had said about him behind their hands at the funeral. ‘There’s the son, but he’s too young to take over the company. If only he was a couple years older, then things might have come out all right.’ That was usually followed up by the other unfriendly speculation. ‘Too bad the daughter doesn’t have a husband. A husband would know what to do.’ Husbands solved everything in their little worlds.
‘I’m sorry, William.’ Elise laid a conciliatory hand on his sleeve. ‘It’s a nice theory. Even if I had the men, I couldn’t finish that yacht. The innovations require the knowledge of a master builder. More than that, I’d need the best.’ They would have managed without a master builder if her father had been there to oversee the project, as he so often had been, but no workers were going to take orders from a woman even if she had been instrumental in the boat’s design.
She needed a master builder more than anything else to finish that boat. Beyond her father, she didn’t have a clue who the best was when it came to ship design. Her own talent notwithstanding, she was female and thus excluded from that circle. It had not bothered her unduly in the past. She’d had her father and he’d given her every opportunity she’d desired to advance her skill even if it was often anonymously. She’d never thought further than that. Why should she have? Her father had been in his late forties, in excellent health and at the top of his game. She’d not appreciated by how slim a thread the privilege to indulge her passion had hung until it had been destroyed in one precarious accident.
‘What if I could get you the best?’ William persisted in earnest.
Finish the yacht? He was absolutely serious. It was crazy. The idea started to take hold along with the most dangerous of games, what if? If she had a master builder, workmen would come. If those men came, she could pay them with the proceeds from the sale of the yacht. It could be done. There was less than a month’s worth of work to finish. It was March