The Road to Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  “Do you want Darius to think there is something more between us than what I have told him? I for one do not need the complication.” Though she made the statement, the words rang false and her cheeks heated.

  James’s quiet voice reached her through her musings. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

  Daniella turned her back on him to look out of the small cabin window. “You’re right though. This is not where I planned to be, not what I planned to be doing.”

  “I think we are both excellent examples of lives not unfolding as wished.”

  “If you could choose to be anything or anyone, who or what would you be?” Daniella asked him, turning back so she could search his expression for truth or lies. She already knew her own answer to the question but she wondered if he’d thought about it for himself.

  “I don’t get to choose. Right now I have to be a marquess. I have to care for my lands and my tenants and my family.”

  “There must have been a time in your life, before your family came into the title, when you thought about the future.”

  He shook his head. “I was eight, and a naive eight at that. What kind of adventures were you dreaming about at eight?”

  Daniella laughed quietly as she leaned against the wall at her back. “I was living my dreams. I spent my days on a pirate ship with the only family I’d ever known. There was nothing else I wanted or needed.”

  “I dreamed of far-off places,” James confided. “I read tales of lands where people ate each other for dinner, where gold glitters in the ground for anyone to dig up and where there are no lords or ladies, only men and women. But those dreams were few and far between even when I was eight. Mostly I dreamed of more. More food. More friends. More for my mother and my father and my brother. We were all happy when word reached us that my father was to inherit. Then I dreamed of having everything money could buy and more. But money does not ensure happiness or safety.”

  He raked a hand through his already mussed hair. “Amelia has never known how it feels to pull food from the land or slaughter her own dinner. She’s never known coarse fabric against her skin or had to do anything for herself. I bet this grand adventure isn’t nearly as grand as she thought when they left.”

  “Why did they leave?” She had to ask.

  But James shook his head, lost for words for a moment. “I don’t know. One day they were there when I left for my club and when I returned the next morning they were gone. I tracked them to a ship and discovered their route, and then their capture by your father. The ship didn’t make it more than a few days out.”

  “Which seems so odd in itself,” she remarked aloud. “My father is retired. The Aurora would only sail now for cargo or pleasure but not for pillage. It would be suicidal for all involved.”

  “Perhaps he ran out of gold? I’d imagine it’s costly to live on the wrong side of the law.”

  Daniella knew that wasn’t the case. “You said it yourself, gold isn’t everything. No. I can’t see that as any kind of motivator.” Not since he lost his leg and a portion of his freedom. He’d lost a good measure of his confidence that day also.

  Perhaps her father had been coming to get her and something had gone wrong, forcing him in another direction? But that couldn’t be it either. Otherwise he would have returned Amelia and his mother and picked her up.

  “Tell me,” he started, then seemed to rethink his question before finally resuming. “Is this one of those times when I should fight for my life? Or should I go along with it and trust that you actually do know what you’re doing?”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  From the frightened expression she wasn’t adept enough at hiding, James had his answer. She was as much in the dark now as he was. His only hope was the inept navy coming along but then they would probably all get blown up in a ridiculous quirk of fate.

  “Never mind,” James said, letting her out of answering. For one split second he’d considered handing her the control she kept fighting him for.

  The door opened and rather than the guard from before, Darius himself carried in a tray and placed it on the table. “Good morning,” he said cheerfully.

  Neither Daniella nor James answered. He was glad to see Daniella glare at their captor.

  “Come now, Lamb, surely we can put our past behind us and share a meal, can we not?”

  “You could leave the tray and be on your way, could you not?” she told him with a scorn that could probably burn had it a spark.

  “It’s not often I get visitors on my ship. I would enjoy the company.”

  “You should stay,” James said, knowing it was a chance for them to get more information.

  “Thank you. I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced?” Darius held out his hand but James ignored it.

  “You already know who I am, Darius. Do you have a family name?”

  “I long ago got over the need for the name of my family and go only by Darius.”

  He was lying. James let him. “Do you have the key for these manacles?”

  Darius looked to Daniella first before answering. She shook her head and then shot James a small look of triumph. Petty little thing.

  “Perhaps just for the meal and when I leave I can chain him back up? After all, I am here and I have a guard outside the door. Are you going to hurt her, Lasterton?”

  James hated being called Lasterton. It was the part of the title he truly loathed. The name had never been meant for him, reserved as it was for the eldest male child. He enjoyed the responsibilities of the estates and her people but every success in his life had been as a Trelissick. It’s who he was through and through. Lasterton came to him only with scandal and grief and madness attached.

  He let it go this once. “As long as the lady behaves herself, I believe I can be civil.”

  Darius let out a bark of laughter and James realized they weren’t making a good act of captive and captor. Quite the opposite probably. He wondered if Daniella was aware of the fact that she had moved towards him when Darius entered the room, almost seeking his shelter and safety, even though he was chained and unarmed. He would certainly point it out to her later just to see her squirm.

  “Let me clean his wound first,” Daniella said, not waiting for an answer before she once again kneeled before him, a bowl of water in one hand, clean-enough strips of fabric in the other.

  “What happened there?” Darius asked, gesturing to his injury.

  Daniella’s lips tightened into a straight, rather pale line as she bent her head to her work.

  “The minx thought she could escape me while we were attempting to outrun you.” It was the only answer he could give as Daniella tentatively touched him. She ran her fingers lightly down the hair on his leg before wetting a linen strip to wash his skin.

  Darius laughed again. Something about their situation was…amusing him? From the lines around his eyes, James guessed he laughed a lot. From the calluses on his hands, he looked to work hard as well. He had hoped for a dandy unable to wield a sword.

  “She sounds quite the handful,” Darius remarked.

  “Indeed,” James replied, his brain not functioning as it should. He should concentrate on escape. He should have been forming a plan just in case the opportunity arose. But he couldn’t think. Not when the heat from her hand on his calf sent fire shooting all the way to his groin. He leaned forwards on the bunk slightly.

  “Tell me more about this virgin auction,” Darius said, sitting down and pouring what appeared to be wine into three delicately engraved pewter goblets.

  “I’d rather not,” Daniella said with a sniff, finally moving her hand from his calf, only to grip his ankle. God, her fingers were slim.

  “But it did happen? I’d thought perhaps the tales were exaggerated?”

  James cleared his throat and switched his attention back to Darius. “Who did you hear it from?” It had only been a matter of days and if a pirate on the high seas had heard of Daniella’s disgrace, then most assuredly all
of London had too.

  “I have my spies,” Darius said, tapping the side of his nose with a wink.

  “What are they saying?” Daniella asked, her touch on his leg halting, her grip slackening.

  “One story I heard is that you stripped your clothes off right there in a warehouse and offered yourself to Leicestershire. Another said it was a coachman who bought you. And the third, and this is the story your brother received, said that you must have finally cracked. Apparently you purchased filthy virgins for a sacrifice and hoped to appeal to Poseidon and Neptune to bring your father’s ship back on a tidal wave right to London’s docks. That’s my favourite of the bunch.”

  James met Daniella’s gaze and instead of shame, there was victory. “You should not look so happy about this,” he told her. “You are well and truly ruined now.”

  “Excellent.”

  James grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. The wet rag fell from her grasp. “What are you going to do when the world is at peace, Daniella, and there are no ships to annoy? What will you do when you are forced back to London for some reason or another? News of this calibre will spread across the continent and it will never be forgotten.”

  Wrenching herself from his bruising grip, she sat back on the timbers and laughed in his face. “I don’t care what people say about me—I’ve been telling you that all along. I am going to be a privateer again, trade in legal cargo. Don’t you think rumours and disgrace will follow me forever in any case?”

  “That’s different. The world is going to think you a whore now.”

  She shook her head, her bright curls bouncing with her vehemence. “You just don’t see it for some reason and I’m not sure if it’s because you are a man or because you have everything your heart desires all locked up in your manor house. Not one single gentleman was going to offer for me before all of this started. They were whispering behind my back and cutting me on the street and at balls from the moment I arrived in London. No one was ever going to forgive my upbringing and make a decent offer and I didn’t want one anyway.”

  “My brother—” she spat the word “—would have sold me off to one of his cronies, a mere mister either already embroiled in scandal himself or a gentleman old enough not to care so long as he bedded a debutante. What kind of life would that have been for me, James?”

  Darius rose and helped Daniella from the floor but James just sat and stared, feeling the heat of her words. Finally fully understanding the truth of her statements.

  “Had either of you listened to anything I’d been saying, you would have heard me try to tell you it would never work. You said it not three days ago. Your wife, God pity her, will have the bluest of blood and be immaculate in every way; there will be not a stain upon her name or her person. If you think that way, not even born to your title, imagine what the other men of the ton think.”

  Darius looked down over Daniella’s shoulder at him and asked, “You don’t think that way do you, Lasterton? Surely a man of your impeccable character can see a woman as more than a breeding machine and a ball hostess?”

  Another change she had wrought in him. He shook his head. He was beginning to see a hell of a lot more than he wished to.

  Daniella lifted her hands to her hips. “What about Amelia? Will you make her marry politically or will you let her marry the man she chooses? Or, God forbid, remain single? A bluestocking on the shelf if she wants.”

  “My sister is none of your business,” James told her, finally coming to his feet and straightening up as far as his manacled wrist allowed.

  “No, but I’m interested to know how you would feel if she fell in love with a stable boy.”

  “Amelia would not fall for a stable boy.” Of that he was sure. She knew only a gentleman could afford her fine things and servants and luxury.

  “I’m asking what you would do if she did.”

  “I would let her go. As long as she was happy and loved and well cared for, I would let her go.”

  Daniella laughed. “You, sir, are a big fat liar.”

  James ground his teeth to stop the reply lingering in his mouth. A stable boy might be all Amelia was good for once word got around that she’d been held by pirates for months on end. James would have to employ a physician to perform the humiliating tests needed to determine if Amelia retained her innocence but regardless the mud would have well and truly stuck and would not be shaken free. What was he going to do? He hadn’t thought as far as the finer details. Only that he needed to get them back no matter what and never let them go.

  Darius interrupted his thoughts. “Enough with the doom and gloom. Let us sit and eat: you two must be famished.”

  James nodded though he wasn’t hungry at all. Daniella turned back to the window again.

  Taking a key from his pocket, Darius approached him, a question in his blue eyes. “If I unlock you for the meal, do you promise not to throttle her?”

  “I’ll do my best,” James offered.

  Darius chuckled. “Good enough for me. She does need a good whipping, that one.”

  He pressed his lips together at the thought of the pirate doing any such thing to Daniella. Flexing his fingers into fists he resisted the urge to knock the man on his arse. He really wanted to hit something. Or someone.

  The next hour passed in a blur of small talk, mundane questions and clipped answers, with the ever-rocking ship creaking beneath their chairs. But James couldn’t absorb a single word of the conversation. He couldn’t get his mind off Daniella’s angry words.

  She was well and truly tarnished. Not just by her antics in London, he now saw, but by the life she had been born into; it wasn’t fair.

  Of course she would be free to take a lover if she captained her own ship, but would her deckhands let her? Would they all want a turn? His grip tightened on the goblet, red liquid sloshing over the side and onto the table. She had no sense. She knew nothing of men’s minds when they were faced with a beautiful woman. And there weren’t many more beautiful than her. Her red hair shone in the morning light, the loose curls draped over her shoulders and breasts. When she laughed, she did so freely. Darius was making a concerted effort to raise her humour. James wished he could make her laugh like that. She was mischief and light all rolled up in one pretty little scandalous package.

  He recalled those moments at the inn, right before Hobson had crashed into the room. He’d wanted nothing more than to kiss her.

  He gulped and drained his cup in one long swallow and held it out for Darius to refill.

  Now he felt like getting drunk. He had nothing else to do and if he could get drunk enough, maybe he could forget about Daniella being whipped by pirates and Amelia being tumbled in haylofts by stable boys.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Daniella didn’t precisely know why she was so irritable. Forcing so much laughter at Darius’s ridiculous jokes had proved to annoy James but had only served to hurt her stomach and heighten her discontent. She continued to use her woman’s prerogative to behave irrationally and held on to it tightly throughout the day. After supplying the two with copious amounts of wine (probably hoping to loosen lips) Darius led them up onto the foredeck for fresh air and sunshine. They were far enough out in the icy sea that escape would only be through death in the cold waters.

  Hobson and Patrick had been above and passed them in the hall, looking hale and hearty, if a little green around the edges. Obviously neither man was used to the ocean and they weren’t handling the transition well.

  So now she sat and brooded and cursed beneath her breath. When James took an unlikely interest in the way the ship was maneuvered and the tasks of the individual men, Daniella scowled. Why couldn’t he also be seasick and stay in the cabin? When he removed his shirt to climb into the rigging, she looked away. For a moment. But her gaze kept drifting back to him again and again. The look of unadorned pleasure on his swollen face as he lifted his head to the sea breeze was unexpected.

  The day her father had
come across the returning servicemen’s ship, James had been seated on the deck with the other wounded soldiers, pale and listless. By the time Captain Germaine realized his mistake in this quarry, they had already engaged and it was too late to change course. The James of today was not so pale and certainly not listless. The scars on his arms and torso glistened in the sun as the muscles beneath the skin flexed and moved the higher he climbed. She was forced to shield the sun from her eyes as she tracked his ascent, holding her breath when he lost his footing for a moment.

  “He’s taken to it as though he was born aboard a ship,” Darius remarked. He reclined next to her, uninvited and unsolicited. He draped his body over the bench with an elbow next to her shoulder and his legs crossed at the ankles.

  “The man seems to suffer from a tad too much arrogance,” Daniella stated with a nod for emphasis. She wanted to look back to ensure he’d found his footing but that action would betray her.

  “And you do not?” he chuckled.

  “You don’t know me, Darius. Not anymore. Perhaps not ever.”

  “I know your kind. You always desire what you cannot acquire.”

  “Poetry? Philosophy? Come to change my mind and alter my heading?”

  “The only person who can change your mind, Daniella, is you. You talk to him about choices yet you know as well as I do there are always decisions we can make.”

  “Sometimes those decisions are just plain wrong though, are they not?”

  “Ah, now you want to discuss the mutiny?” She speared him with a glare. “I don’t need to hear you attempt to justify what you did. You put all of our lives in danger when you betrayed my father and me.”

  “I wanted more,” he admitted with a nonchalant shrug. “I saw what your father had and I was sick and tired of taking orders. But after that day I was taught the error of my ways through sound beatings and torture. It was about then, when a man faces certain death, that the wisdom he once needed seems to dawn on him.”