Prescott stalked down the street. Halfway back to the West India Docks, he’d sent his carriage away and walked. He needed the long walk to clear his head and control his racing thoughts. He didn’t care how the wind whipped around him or how a hint of more snow and ice clung to the air.
When he’d gone to Sarina’s this afternoon, he’d intended to inform her of his official courtship. He certainly hadn’t intended to make love to her on the floor of the front parlor moments after her revelation of these new circumstances with Hawksmoor.
By the time he reached the Isle of Dogs, where he and Liam had set up their offices, Prescott moved between anger at her cousins for pressuring Sarina to marry Hawksmoor and the need to turn around and remind her that she’d willingly given her body to both he and Liam. More than her body, she’d willingly given them her love.
Prescott took another deep breath of the cold winter’s air and ignored the scent of old ships and unwashed sailors. He supposed he should be pleased their business hadn’t suffered overmuch thanks to the extremely cold winter; in fact, they’d received more confirmations than expected for spring shipments.
None of that mattered to him at the moment. The building was busy, and he stood aside as a group of well-dressed gentlemen exited.
Nodding to them, Prescott turned from the building and looked over the docks. Despite the February ice and the frozen state of the Thames, ships were dry-docked to prepare them for the busy spring while others were being made ready for when the ice broke, which hopefully was in only a couple days.
His control slipped and he lashed out at a pile of empty crates stacked along the building. He kicked them hard, just once. Prescott watched them crash to the ground with an unsatisfying thump. Sucking in a deep breath of cold air, he harnessed his temper as best he could.
Breathing deeply to control himself, he let the normalcy of the scene play around him as he tried to organize his thoughts. Control his emotion. Before he saw Liam, he needed to know what to say. Even after all their careful consideration of friendships and business partnerships and planning for a future with Sarina, it still didn’t look like smooth sailing.
Prescott grimaced at the bad pun and focused on the matter at hand.
That first talk about Sarina and the very real fact they both loved her hadn’t been easy. Long before Kingsnorth and the fire that moved their relationship forward, they’d discussed it, however, and came to the only conclusion two friends who loved the same woman could.
Neither wanted lose her to the other, and subsequently ruin both their friendship and business partnership. Their choice had been clear: share her. Granted, the idea of sharing her hadn’t been an obvious first choice, or even second, but it was ultimately for the best.
Prescott liked and respected Liam, loved him even though not with passion—with shared mutual experiences and understanding. They truly were the closest of friends. Now, standing alongside the building, hidden from the blast of frigid wind that constantly moved along the docks, Prescott wondered how they hadn’t seen this option before.
Oh, he’d heard of ménage a trois before, in the army while in Portugal and especially in France, but never in proper society. The barest hint of it would scandalize the ton, the business, and likely the entirety of the country.
Prescott didn’t care.
He didn’t care what anyone else thought. Didn’t care who knew about his and Liam’s love for Sarina. He didn’t care if they had to leave London and begin again elsewhere—India or China or the Americas. All that mattered was Sarina.
After the other night and Sarina’s passionate surrender, there was no doubt as to Sarina’s feelings, either. She loved them both, had shown them as clearly as she’d told them previously. To make her choose only one had been selfish on both his and Liam’s part.
Pushing open the door, Prescott nodded absently to the secretaries and climbed the stairs to their second-floor offices. The many wood stoves only partially kept the bitter cold out of the busy building, and Prescott rubbed his leather-clad fingers together. The walk had done little to clear his head and even less to keep him warm, despite the brisk pace.
Damn, but he hated it’d come to this, Sarina put into this untenable position between he and Liam and Hawksmoor. That she was being pressured by her cousins based on family obligations.
Family obligations she shouldn’t be forced to honor.
Instead, she should be planning her wedding to him. They should be planning their lives, the three of them. Rolling his shoulders, he tried to relieve the tension there but it was useless.
Hell, it was only the fact that the Sinclair name was held in higher esteem in social circles than the Trevelyan’s that decided who was to marry Sarina. In the end it hadn’t mattered who married her in the eyes of society, only that she married one of them.
Frowning, his temper still beating through him, he stopped outside their offices. Of course, they still hadn’t quite worked out what the three of them would do after the wedding. But Prescott had full faith it would work out—assuming they could now avoid Sarina’s seemingly impending marriage to Hawksmoor.
With his fingers curled into tight fists, he pressed them against the wall, harder, wanting to punch his fist through the wall instead. But he needed to control himself. This afternoon was not going to be the last time he made love to Sarina. He’d see to that. Their first night with all three of them was not going to be their last night together.
Anger throbbed through him, and Prescott pushed it aside. He needed a clear head for speaking to Liam. Where he wanted to lash out, punch walls, and kick empty crates, he needed a calculating calmness instead. He consciously unclenched his jaw and took a moment to gather his thoughts. He needed to tell Liam what had happened, and they needed to devise a plan to extract Sarina from this marriage before she was forced to carry through with it.
Sarina was strong and practical, and it was that very part of her nature that scared Prescott.
She was oftentimes too practical. She’d see marrying Hawksmoor was the practical and obvious choice with her aunt’s death. The levelheaded way to keep the fortune in the family. The pragmatic answer to funding the Hawksmoor estate and title.
What he and Liam needed to do was move quickly—to remind her of her love for them and their willingness to do whatever it took to see to her happiness.
To do so, they both needed to think logically, though eloping with Sarina to Gretna Green did have its advantages, Prescott supposed. Still, he had no idea what to say to Liam. How to break this latest development to him in any sort of rational manner.
The two of them had known each other for so long that they could read each other without words. Doing so had helped them survive the war and then later begin and expand their business; their close understanding of the other had proven a most productive way to interpret potential customers.
The instant he entered the offices, Liam would know something was wrong.
Outside their office doors, he took one final deep breath, uncurled his fingers, and schooled his features into a blank mask. Taking another moment, he gathered his thoughts and tried to control the impotent anger at the situation. Anger that might’ve boiled over if not for making love to Sarina in her front parlor.
Even now, the taste of her skin tempted him to return to her. The feel of her shattering beneath him made him hard despite the cold hallway and the shadow brewing over their future. Prescott pushed open the door and ignored the secretary buried beneath ledgers and several merchants clearly waiting to speak with either him or Liam.
Not bothering to knock, Prescott walked into Liam’s office and shut the door with a decisive click.
The look on his closest friend’s face was anticipatory, eager. They both missed Sarina this last day and a half. But it had been Prescott who spent time with her, and who had made love to her. A fact he’d have to divulge to Liam for the sake of honesty and trust.
First things first. They needed absolute honest and openness between them.
Standing, Liam ignored the mound of papers and ships invoices on his desk. “How is she?” he asked quietly, despite the closed door.
The other man’s blue eyes lit with the same fire Prescott knew had burned in his when he’d first seen Sarina this afternoon. He hated to do this.
Clutching his gloves in one hand, he angrily tossed his hat into a corner chair. “She’s confused,” he began.
Hesitating again, he shrugged off his coat and dropped it into the same chair, his movement as controlled as possible. Instead of railing against Hawksmoor or Georgiana’s death, he should’ve used that walk to find the words to tell Liam of this development.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Liam admitted with a smile. His blue eyes were sharp as he studied him, and Prescott bit back a curse. “But she hasn’t expressed a desire to change our plans, has she?”
There was a glimmer of hope as well as concern in his friend’s voice. Prescott struggled with the words that needed to be said and finally admitted, “Not as such.” Another deep breath, full of burning wood from the small stove. “Something has happened, Liam.”
Liam took another step closer, his blue eyes icy and narrowing now. “Is she all right? What has transpired—”
Prescott interrupted him with a raised hand. He glanced at the door, but it was still closed. Swallowing hard against his own anger, he said, “More was lost than we thought in the village fire. Sarina’s aunt was lost as well. And as you know, her obligation to marry Hawksmoor…”
Liam drew in a sharp breath, his shoulders stiff, eyes incredulous. “Passes to Sarina.” Jaw clenched, his hands clasped behind his back, he continued. “We can’t allow this to happen.”
Prescott almost laughed. The sound burned his throat and he swallowed it. “I’m well aware of that,” he snapped. Then he took a step back and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. It wasn’t Liam’s fault.
“We must attack this as we do any business problem.” He paced to the small window overlooking the Thames. “This is far more important.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “It was all I thought of as I returned. My first suggestion was to convince Sarina to simply run off with us.”
Gretna Green had its advantages, though the damage to Sarina’s reputation would be significant. Still, better to deal with the consequences from an elopement than have her marry another. Liam looked over his shoulder, a brief, knowing grin on his face.
“I consider that the most reasonable solution,” Liam concurred. “However, I don’t believe Sarina would agree.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe she would, either. Though, it is something we could press her on. However, her familial obligation is very strong.”
“It is a hurdle we must overcome.” Liam turned and leaned against the windowpane, his arms folded across his chest.
“The hurdle is not truly her.” Prescott sighed in frustration. “It’s Hawksmoor.”
Liam pushed off the window and walked to his desk. “His estate is nearly bankrupt. And even with as much money as we’ve managed here, it would bankrupt us to take on an estate and a debt of that size.”
Prescott looked to his friend. “Perhaps we can set him up in his own endeavor. Show him how to make his own fortune.”
“If you were Hawksmoor,” Liam asked incredulously, “would you wait the years it’d take to make a fortune? Or would you simply marry it? No.” Liam scoffed. “These men don’t know how to do more than marry money. They’re soft.”
Frustration ate at him, and Prescott threw up his arms in annoyance. “Then it seems,” Prescott said slowly, “our only option is to find Hawksmoor money to marry. Money that isn’t Sarina’s.”
Allowing the frustration to overtake him, he rapped the head of his walking stick on Liam’s desk. The small exertion and heavy sound did nothing to ease him. Pressing his palms on the desktop, he leaned forward, his shoulders slumped.
“I hate this,” Prescott muttered. “This should be easier now that we’ve managed to convince Sarina.”
Liam snorted. “When has anything in our lives ever been easy? I worked my way up from practically nothing. And you worked from a deficit.” Liam shook his head ruefully. “Your father spent more money than the Sinclair estate ever had. What does Hawksmoor know about fighting for what you truly want? Of compromise? Hell, Prescott, you and I couldn’t even fall in love with a different woman.”
Prescott gave a short laugh over that, some of his irritation disappearing in light of his friend’s keen observations. Still, the entire situation ate at him, this knowledge that after he and Liam finally came to an agreement over Sarina, finally convinced her to accept the both of them, she threatened to slip through their fingers.
“Yes.” He sighed. “And we haven’t yet worked out all those details.”
They’d only just agreed it was possible to share Sarina’s love shortly before the Kingsnorth Winter Festival. The particulars of what happened after, well, they hadn’t exactly worked out yet.
Liam rocked back on his heels and nodded. His hands still clasped behind his back, he offered a very slight shrug, more telling over his state of mind than a wild thrashing. “I know. And normally I’d be concerned over such a thing.”
He walked around the desk and leaned against it, his arms folded over his chest now. Prescott straightened and watched his friend. “But I’m not,” Liam added with a sincerity Prescott witnessed only between them. “We came to an accord when it comes to Sarina. And neither jealousy nor mistrust is part of that accord. Whatever details have gone unspoken, make no difference to me.”
Offering the other man a half-smile, as a weight he hadn’t even been aware pressed against his chest finally lifted, Prescott admitted, “If I have to share the woman I love…”
Prescott nodded to Liam, unable to find words to fit this moment. But he knew Liam understood what remained unspoken. Their friendship had been tested enough, during the war, during the start of their business, with Sarina’s love. This, their new ménage, could work.
“Then it’s settled.” Liam nodded again and pushed off from the desk. “We do what we can to ensure the marriage between Hawksmoor and Sarina never happens.”
Prescott nodded. The two of them were usually so well prepared, able to strategize and execute a plan no matter the circumstances. Matters of the heart rarely, he knew, followed a plan. Well laid out or not.
“There’s no one else out there for either of us but her,” Liam added. “And we both knew that the moment we met her.”
He couldn’t help the fond smile and agreed. “She’s a lot like her brother was—practical.”
“And there might be the reason we both fell in love with her,” Liam pointed out. “She’s practical.”
Laughing, Prescott added, “And her beauty isn’t a detraction.”
Liam offered an amused snort to that observation. He and Liam had shared women during the war, but Sarina was above those camp followers and prostitutes. However, if they hadn’t shared those women, neither would have so much as envisioned this particular scheme now.
But then his friend scrubbed a hand down his face and stood once more by the windows. “We’ll figure this out,” he vowed. “We have to.”
Prescott could only agree. But he had a feeling that despite Liam’s unusual optimism, ensuring that marriage never happened would be harder than either he or Liam anticipated.