The Road to Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  The part about the beatings and torture caught her attention. “What happened to you?”

  “After you drove me over the edge of the ship, I floated there in the ocean, surrounded by the dead and dying, clinging to a barrel one of the men threw overboard when you weren’t looking, and I wondered the same thing. I was so sure I was going to win I hadn’t even considered the consequences did I lose. On the third day clinging to that bloody barrel, about to give up on life, a ship came upon me and the only other man to survive and rescued us. But then we owed a debt so were forced to work it off for a man so evil and cunning just to have him look upon you gave you a chill.”

  Daniella laughed: he was making it all up to teach her a lesson. “You lie, Darius. If he was so evil, why did he not leave you there in the ocean? Why are you standing here today?”

  He met her eyes then, and the solemnity and weight not quite hidden in the depths of his caused her breath to catch. The smile fell from her lips.

  “I speak the truth, Lamb: why would I lie to you now? I’m trying to impress on you the consequences for rash behaviour. You never think about what will happen after the fact. Something I never did either, until I was forced to it.”

  “So this is the revenge you will exact upon me?” she asked, hardly able to hope that would be the extent of it. “Chilling me with your tale and making me think about my actions? James has been doing just that for days without success.”

  “James—” he drew out the name “—has too much invested in you and this situation to see what he did is also wrong. At some time his honour is going to demand he do the right thing.”

  “You’re wrong. I am a means to an end for him therefore his honour doesn’t apply.”

  “That’s where you are blinded, Little One. He is a gentleman despite his war wounds and military training. Though he wasn’t born to it, every man has it and he has had an abundance of time to have the notion drilled into him. Why do you think he took you to start with? He could have left you on that virgin block and turned his cheek to your fate.”

  “He kidnapped me to swap me for items my father took. I already told you that.”

  Darius nodded just once. “Yes, certainly. But you need a man to take you in hand. Perhaps if your passion for the ocean and for your ship could be turned in another direction, you might see the world for what it really is.”

  “And what is that?”

  He shrugged. “For every man it is different. The world showed me your father gave orders and worked sailors hard to keep his daughter safe and his ship on top of the water and not below it. Would I have asked for this responsibility?” He gestured to the men working the deck. “Had I known the cost involved when one loses a man, a friend? The sleepless nights, the endless running and worrying? I’m not so sure.”

  “I accept that responsibility quite freely. I want it with every fibre of my being and I won’t stop until I have it.”

  “That’s what scares me about you, Daniella. You think it’s what you want but you have no idea what you ask for. This is not a woman’s world.”

  She stood. She’d had just about enough. “I wish you would all stop treating me like a child, as if a female cannot possibly have a mind or know what she wants.”

  “But you are a female, not that you ever truly accepted it. As a female, you need someone to protect you and make the decisions the irrational part of your brain ignores.”

  Ugh. She had to go along with the nonsense Darius dribbled. She might need him after all of it was done. “Would you have me, Darius? If my father truly doesn’t want me, would you have me on your ship? Would you let me work alongside your men?”

  He nodded, but an instantaneous, dangerous spark lit his gaze. “I would have you on my ship but I would also have you in my bed. It would be the only way I could protect you from the men. You would be mine and mine only.” He stood and leaned towards her, took a tendril of her hair between his fingers and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “You have a passion that is very rare in a London lady. It might be fun to explore it.”

  She slapped his hand away and distanced herself a few steps. “I would as soon bed you as I would kiss a rat.”

  “I thought you would say that.” He laughed but he didn’t look as though he had tossed the notion from his mind.

  Just then a thump on the deck to her left signalled James had had enough climbing. “Daniella, are you all right?”

  Daniella stood at James’s back, glaring at Darius but needing a barrier between them so she didn’t strike out. There was an irony there, that she felt protected by James and his presence. Even so, she was on Darius’s ship surrounded by Darius’s men. She would not be the victor in that fight. “Everything is quite fine.”

  Darius was still laughing, his guffaws subsiding to chuckles, that mischievous glint in his eye. He was up to something more nefarious than ransom. “Daniella and I were discussing the pros and cons of having a man in her life. Someone to calm her hoydenish ways. I made her an offer should she wish to stay here with me.”

  “And you had to touch her to do that? I hope she declined your offer?” James asked.

  “That is between her and me. Daniella and I are old friends. I’m sure she told you?”

  James nodded and crossed his arms over his bare chest. “She did. But now she is your hostage.”

  Daniella watched with fascination the play of muscles over James’s back. She couldn’t look away from a twitching spot right beneath his left shoulder blade.

  “When she was your hostage you seemed to be friendly: why can I not also further our acquaintance?”

  “Because the lady doesn’t wish it.”

  Daniella lifted her gaze in time to see Darius’s mouth split into a grin. “The lady will do as I say while she is aboard my ship.”

  James’s hands dropped to his sides and his fists clenched. “And while I am here, I will do everything in my power to protect her.”

  “But you are a hostage as well, or did you forget that while enjoying a taste of freedom?”

  “Taste of freedom?” James laughed. “I am as much a prisoner on the deck and in the rigging as I am in the cabin. Your cage is large but it is still a cage.”

  Darius sidestepped and held his arm out. “You are welcome to leave anytime you want. No one is holding you back. No one has chained you to the mast or made you do anything you didn’t want to do.”

  It was time she spoke up. “Will you say that when we are closer to land? When we dock? Do you or do you not plan to ransom us to our families?”

  The humour died from Darius’s eyes and he breathed deep before he answered. “Him I will ransom. You are a different story. You owe me for sending me over the side of that ship. You owe me for the trouble I had to endure after as well.”

  “You asked for it when you tried to kill the honest half of my crew.”

  Darius shook his head but stood his ground. “Once it was clear you were winning, you could have locked us in the hull and delivered us to the next town but you did not.”

  “I was angry! You tried to cut my throat! I have a scar on my arm where your sword went wide.” She began to roll her sleeve up to show him the ugly corded white line there. “You meant business when you turned your weapons on your family.”

  Darius marched over and squeezed her elbow so she couldn’t bare her upper arm. So she couldn’t show him the damage he’d done that day.

  She was thoroughly tired of being manhandled. “Let go of me,” she demanded.

  “I would never have thrown you overboard and you know it. Perhaps now I will? Perhaps any ransom your father would pay would not equal the satisfaction I would have by seeing you into the sea.”

  This was no gentleman teaching her a lesson. Fear took hold, starting in her chest and trickling outwards. “You wouldn’t.”

  His lips split into a predatory smile, one with no warmth or humour, only intent. “I would.” He pushed until she was forced to take a step backwards, and then anot
her, and then another.

  “Stop,” James warned.

  Darius didn’t listen.

  “You’re scaring her,” James called, starting after them.

  “Darius, you’re mad—the water is freezing. I’ll be dead before the hour is out.”

  “As I could have been. I wished I had died for months after I was found floating. The things he did to his crew would curdle your stomach to hear.”

  “All right, I’m sorry. Is that what you want to hear?” She began to push back, to try to slow him down but he kept pushing and pushing. Her panic rose. When she let James believe she wasn’t scared of anything, she lied. Of course she lied. No one wanted to die. Especially not like this. Not now.

  “I don’t think there are any words to make up for this.”

  Her legs hit the side of the rail and she shrieked. “Darius, you’ve made your point. What good am I to you dead?”

  “It would make me feel better.” The predatory smile was back as he leaned in close. “Any final words, Little Lamb?”

  “Don’t do this.” Blood rushed in her ears and her mouth dried. She thought her knees might give out. She’d come too far for it to end this way.

  “I’m doing it.”

  Daniella kicked out with all her might, wrenched her arm from his grip and tried to get around him but he threw his arms around her in a hug so tight, she couldn’t draw a breath.

  “James?” She tried to scream but her words emerged only a half whisper. “Help me.”

  *

  At first glance it seemed a sick and twisted joke, a man seeking a small amount of vengeance for a slight from the past. It’s why he hadn’t intervened straight away. But when Darius started pushing Daniella towards the rail, his heart stopped beating altogether.

  “Stop,” he called out but Darius ignored him. His crew simply stood by and watched, wary but still.

  Daniella murmured something he couldn’t hear, her eyes wide with fright, freckles stark against pale cheeks, and then she turned wild. He’d not seen her like that, so scared, so vulnerable. She had been so sure they were safe. Had Darius lulled them into thinking they were? Yet again the enigma that was Daniella blinded him to everything else.

  Charging forwards James started to punch Darius in the area of his kidneys. He didn’t care that his opponent had his back turned. If anyone was going to throw Daniella overboard, it would be James in a fit of rage, not Darius, and not for revenge.

  Darius roared and turned to face him, giving Daniella time to scramble away from the edge. James didn’t stop. He drove his fist into the other man’s jaw and then followed with another punch to his stomach. He just kept hitting him. Darius barely had time to cover his face let alone fight back but James was angry now. He’d wanted to see Daniella fight for her life but when he did, and saw she was losing, he’d seen right through every lie he told himself.

  “Enough,” Darius said, his hands in fists in front of his face.

  “I think I’m going to kill you,” James said between heavy breaths, trying to land a punch that would see Darius out cold. “And I think I’ll enjoy it.”

  Vice-like arms gripped him from behind and it was impossible to break away, to make good on his words and rid the world of one more pirate.

  Darius tested his jaw, mouth open wide while he considered James. “Take them both below and lock the door. I will decide their fate on the morrow.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “You said you would ransom James back to his family! My father will kill you for this!” Daniella screeched as she was hauled unceremoniously down the dark corridor.

  “You shouldn’t believe a word I say, Little Lamb. I made my living out of lying and I never said anything about a cost on your head, only his.”

  “Bastard,” she yelled, trying her hardest to be free of the grips the sailors had on her arms. “When I’m free, I’m going to come back and kill you as I should have done all those years ago. What were you trying to accomplish with all of that?” Daniella asked and she and James were pushed into the cabin, so far beyond furious she saw only red and nothing else.

  “You certainly were frightened.”

  “You’re a madman. What happened to you?”

  “Life happened to me. When it is kill or be killed, I will be the one left standing.”

  A familiar motto to them all. “Don’t be so sure about that,” she spat. “Now get out. I tire of your games.”

  He shrugged again and she took hold of the edge of the door and tried to slam it in his smug face. His laughter echoed as he walked away and the door was latched once again from the outside.

  Leaning her head against the timbers, she prayed for strength, for peace, for quiet. She didn’t pray for freedom. She was doomed.

  Because they were headed in the direction of Scotland, she’d been so sure he was returning her to her father as he’d said, but now she wondered. The maniacal gleam in his eyes as he’d held her against the rail was like nothing she’d ever seen in the man she’d known. The years may have treated his appearance well enough but they’d also cracked his sanity.

  A curse from behind her reminded her James had just fought to indeed protect her. He was looking through the foggy glass of the window. He rolled his head on his neck and moved from foot to foot.

  “Thank you,” she said, her hand on his shoulder in the hopes she could show him that she was indeed grateful. Who knew if Darius had actually planned to toss her into the ocean or not?

  “What? No ‘I can look after myself’?”

  She stood beside him and lost herself in the whitecaps. “I wasn’t prepared.”

  When he moved to stand at her back, his warmth permeating every inch of her chilled body, she leaned into him with a sigh.

  “I won’t let him hurt you, Daniella. Not while there is breath left in my body.”

  “I know that and I appreciate it. But you also have to think about Amelia and your mother. If we both die here, you’ll never get to be the hero and save them.”

  “This was never about being a hero,” he said, his low tone rumbling through her. “I just want them back. I have been so distracted with your presence and so single-minded in my intent, it has made me ignorant to other aspects. It made me blind to the flaws in the plan.”

  “How so?” she asked, turning to face him, her back against the cool glass.

  “When I began to watch you as your coachman, I saw only a spoiled girl crying out for attention.”

  She swallowed. The gravity of his words, the conviction there, along with the meaning in his expression, all gave her goose bumps. “What do you see now?”

  He put his hand against her jaw, his little finger caressing the skin below her ear. “I see you. All of you. The pirate, the privateer, the woman. You aren’t as strong as you want the world to believe you are.”

  “Yes I am,” she whispered, the fluttering in her stomach like the wings of a hundred gulls.

  “Let me protect you, Daniella. Let me show you, you don’t have to always be so strong.” He raised his other hand to her cheek, the heat and kindness almost searing.

  “You won’t be my weakness,” she said.

  “Yet you are already mine.”

  Her eyes opened wide at his murmured admission but then he touched his lips to hers. Secretly she’d been hoping to kiss him again, to feel his body pressed to hers, to lose herself to him. To escape reality, if only for a little while.

  His mouth was gentle to begin with as he traced the seam of her lips until she was forced to open to him.

  She had to remember to breathe when he deepened the kiss, his lips moving, his tongue roaming. He held her head still between his hands as he plundered and explored. Too soon he came up for air, his chest rising and falling with the exertion, the veins standing out on his arms as his muscles tensed from his wrists to shoulders. She ran her hands up and down those arms, feeling the springy hair beneath the pads of her fingers, revelling in the marble beneath the skin.

&
nbsp; “Don’t stop,” she begged, uncaring of how it made her look.

  “I can’t do this to you, Daniella. I’m a mess.”

  “I don’t care about that.”

  If he was serious about saying no to her, then he would have moved away; he wouldn’t still stand with only a hairsbreadth between their bodies. From that now-familiar ticking in his jaw, she would say he only just retained control.

  He placed his hands on her hips but to draw her near or push her away? “I won’t be what slides you into ruin.”

  Taking a deep breath, she said, “I already told you my innocence is long gone. And London society assumes that because I spent my life with men, I spent my nights with them as well. Your piety doesn’t belong here, James.”

  “One of us has to keep a level head.” His grip on her hips tightened. She stepped a little closer. Or did he pull her?

  “Why? We might both die tomorrow.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking of me.”

  “I’m asking you to forget everything and everyone and make love to me.”

  His breath hitched but still he fought. “You aren’t just some woman to be tumbled, Daniella.”

  Finally she leaned right into him, her soft belly against his hard hips, her heavy, aching breasts against his wide, strong chest. “I want this.” She snaked her arms around his neck, her fingers in his hair, and tugged gently until his shallow breath puffed hard against her lips. “Let us have this one night before we face tomorrow.”

  His control weakened and when she nipped his lower lip he ceased to move altogether. She pressed her lips to his but he didn’t return the kiss.

  “If we do this…” He pulled back but didn’t put space between their bodies. “If we do this and we live beyond tomorrow, I want you to promise me something.”

  “Anything,” she said, pressing her lips to his again.

  His fingers drifted from her hips to her backside and before she could even moan with the intense pleasure such a touch evoked, he lifted her against him, his erection cradled between her thighs. He walked her back until her shoulders were flush to the wall and then ground his hardness into her. Sweat beads formed on his forehead as he placed it against hers. “I’ll give you this.” He finally kissed her, hard, fast, frenzied. “If you agree to become my wife.”