Murphy looked at Tom a long time until Tom looked his sire in the eye and nodded. Murphy’s shoulders relaxed and he turned to Shaw. “John, why don’t you talk to your daughter first. We can wait to have my solicitor draw up the paperwork. Perhaps you could arrange a dinner sometime this week so my brother and your daughter could meet? I think we’d all like to meet Miss Shaw.”

“CHRIST, Tom. Did you have to go and offer for the spinster?” Declan stormed into the room while Murphy and Tom were throwing back a pint of ale. Declan had stayed behind, talking to Shaw’s family solicitor.

“Did you have to act like marrying the woman was such a torture?” Tom asked. “You’d have thrown the whole deal off with your clumsy excuses, Dec.”

His brother pointed at him. “You’ve no business marrying the girl. Sure, we can fool Shaw and avoid the daylight when we do business with him, but have you thought about the consequences of trying to fool a wife? She’ll have a staff. Servants. What the hell do you think you’re going to do?”

“Be very careful,” Murphy said. “This is Tom, Declan. Who’s more careful than Tom?”

Tom didn’t feel very careful, and for the first time in thirty years, he wished he could fall into the sweet oblivion liquor had once brought him and not just taste it. For the first ten years of immortality, it had haunted him. He still had all the same reasons to drink with none of the relief alcohol had once afforded.

When he’d finally turned his mind to controlling the baser urges that had driven him as a human, he’d found some peace. Now he was voluntarily taking on the care of a wife. A sick wife. He had no business taking care of anyone, much less a sick spinster.

Murphy looked at him with an expression that said he could hear all Tom’s doubts rising to the surface. “It’ll be fine, Tom,” his sire said. “If you need to, you can touch her mind. Or have Anne do it. She has the most control.”

“Jayzuz,” Declan groaned. “What’s Anne going to say? She’ll have your head for this, Murphy.”

“She’ll not,” Tom said. “I’m the one that put us all in this by offering. I’ll tell Anne.”

None of them wanted to anger Murphy’s mate. She was the glue that held their small family together. But Tom knew she’d be keen to protect a vulnerable human woman, even if it meant inconvenience for the rest of them for a couple of years. Anne had a soft heart.

“I’m going out,” Tom said, placing his glass carefully on the bar in Murphy’s office.

“I saw some of Beecham’s crew on the way here,” Declan said. “Be careful. They’re sniffing.”

Murphy had taken the space near the docks because Beecham never dirtied his fine leather shoes by the waterfront. Their crew could operate with some amount of discretion there away from the finer eyes of Dublin immortal society and the corruption of its lord.

And Tom’s upcoming marriage might blow that all to hell.

“Don’t think of it,” Murphy said, reading Tom’s mind. “We always knew we’d attract attention with a move to take over Shaw’s boat works. There was no avoiding this. Marriage to the Shaw girl won’t make that any better or worse.”

Declan shrugged. “At least she’s not popular in society. She won’t have to explain your lack of social graces. I inquired discreetly after you both left. The woman is practically an invalid. Twenty-eight years old, but her health started failing soon after she came out in society. Most of her education was in England. She maintains correspondence but hardly leaves the grounds unless she’s going to their house by the sea for her lungs. Very few callers. No one mentioned her looks, which means she’s plain. Probably dim too. Otherwise she’d have an offer of marriage, even if she was on the edge of death, solely for her fortune.” Declan laughed. “Probably more than one.”

“She went to school,” Tom said, already feeling protective of the lady. “I highly doubt any daughter of Shaw’s is a dullard. Besides that, how do you know she hasn’t had an offer? Shaw said she never wanted a husband. Said she was ‘independent.’”

He found himself admiring her for it, even though independent might be polite society code for foolish and stubborn. As long as the girl had her wits, Tom wouldn’t be miserable. He could respect a stubborn woman. He was no pushover himself.

“Why don’t we all withhold judgment until we’ve met the woman?” Murphy said. “If she’s anything like her father, I expect she and Tom will get along well. The details can be worked out in time. Tom, take your walk if you’ve a mind, but keep an eye out for Beecham’s lads.”

“Will do, boss.”

Tom left the warehouse, slipping down the back alleys along the river and heading south toward the Shaws’ fine house on Merrion Square. He had a mind to watch it. Why? He didn’t exactly know.

He wasn’t in any kind of rush, so he stretched the walk out for an hour or so, plenty of time for most of the city to fall asleep. Tom liked the silence. He was a quiet man and always had been, even in human life. It was hard enough to avoid gathering notice when you were over six feet tall and built like a brick wall, as his mam had told him. He was only ever going to be a brute with size like that.

It was pure luck he’d fallen into boxing as a human. More luck that when his own body had started to give out, he’d run into a brash young Traveller who needed coaching and a companion to watch his back. Tom Dargin had thrown in with Murphy within weeks of meeting the young man, seeing in him the kind of luck Tom had always admired but never captured.