Tall, Dark and Disreputable by Deb Marlowe Page A

and children do not eat.’ He shrugged. ‘Yet our port has fallen into an unprofitable pattern of revival and depression that must be broken.’
    ‘And you have an idea how to do that?’ She sounded interested, despite herself.
    ‘Everybody does,’ he snorted. ‘Many of my competitors have turned their backs on the sea altogether and now they ship coal from the interior on crude, box-like boats.’ He shuddered. ‘I have done what I can, what my stubborn father would allow me to do. I have searched out new markets. I fought to establish a presence in Baltimore’s rising hold on foreign goods.’ He paused to look over his shoulder and catch her eye. ‘Now Cardea Shipping is on the eve of its most important venture.’
    He breathed deep. ‘Ships from Philadelphia were the first to break the monopoly of the East India Trading Company. Twenty years ago there were forty of our vessels engaged exclusively in regular trade with the East. It is a difficult market, yet the rewards are great. And I mean to revive it.’
    He gripped the frame hard in his passion. ‘Any day now the Sophia Marie will be beating her way home. Near a year and a halfshe’s been gone. Mycousin Giorgiocaptains her—he and her crew will be weary from the long trip from the northwest and the difficult journey around Cape Horn, but her holds will be stacked high with the deep-piled furs that the Chinese adore. I have a warehouse stocked high with the ginseng they crave.’
    He turned back to face her. ‘The risks are high in a voyage like this, but the odds become more favourable for a caravan of ships. For several years I have toiled, putting together this enterprise. I have spoken endlessly, cajoled shamelessly and forced compromise on a handful of uneasy, rival merchants. I’ve battled my father and risked my reputation putting this arrangement together. It was to be the biggest opportunity of my lifetime.’
    He could see the comprehension in her eyes. ‘Until the reading of your father’s will.’
    He nodded. ‘Until I was no longer the head of Cardea Shipping, nor even the eventual heir to the business. I was only a man whose own father had passed him over, whose father had given control of his business into the hands of a woman a continent away rather than see his son take over.’
    ‘Oh, dear. Oh, Mateo,’ she breathed. ‘I am sorry.’
    ‘You can imagine the value my judgement holds now. The caravan, the entire Eastern enterprise, began to unravel. My investors have fallen away. The insurers will no longer do business with Cardea Shipping until they hear from you .’
    She bit her lip, but he pressed on. ‘Do you understand now why I must finish our transactions as quickly as possible? Cardea Shipping began generations ago inSicily. My grandfather brought it to the New World. All my life I’ve planned to carry on the tradition left by countless Cardea men. This was meant to be the making of the business, setting us up for success for years to come.’
    She exhaled slowly. ‘I begin to see just why you were so angry with me.’
    ‘I was laughed out of port, Portia, for losing my business to a woman,’ he said bitterly. ‘I am anxious to restore my reputation, yes.’ He met her gaze with a hard, direct stare. ‘And what do you think would be said of me, should it became known thatwe…’ he gestured ‘…were involved.’
    ‘That you were a man of great good taste and refinement?’
    He did not smile. ‘No, and you are naïve to think so. I have no wish to for ever be the man who prostituted himself to regain his legacy.’
    She shrugged. ‘It happens every day in the aristocracy.’
    He began to grow impatient. ‘It does not in my world. And even were we to remove that consideration, still it would not be a good idea.’
    Mute, she looked away from him.
    ‘Your father and mine might be gone,’ he said, folding his arms in front of him. ‘And I have more than a passing suspicion that my father’s mind was running