The Road to Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  “I don’t think we should try to escape,” she sighed and leaned back into him, uncaring that Hobson and Patrick saw. What did it matter anymore?

  “Why not, lass?” Hobson demanded with a thump of his hand on the table. “Have you both gone soft? Or has being cooped up addled yer brains?”

  James surprised them all with a chuckle. “Never had I thought you would ever accuse me of going soft, Lieutenant.”

  Hobson spluttered for a moment and then sat back in his chair. “So you do have a plan then?”

  Daniella shook her head. “The only plan is to let Darius take us to the meeting point. Once we are in the township, he won’t be able to kill any of us without causing trouble for himself.”

  This time it was Patrick who revolted. “I don’t think he’s going to kill us but to just go meekly to whatever fate does await?”

  “Patrick, you didn’t see Darius almost throw me overboard yesterday. We don’t know what he’s capable of. Hopefully I will be sold back to my father and you will all be sold back to James’s family. I will make sure his mother and sister are returned to him if they are still aboard The Aurora. Then you five will be free to do as you please. We do not want to goad him into further action.”

  “You are forgetting one pertinent little fact, my dear,” James reminded her.

  “I haven’t forgotten,” she replied, a small smile curving her lips.

  “Hmm,” he murmured his discontent, the rumble vibrating through her body.

  “Well, I fer one don’t like it,” Hobson stated loudly. “Why should we give up now and hand over the control? We should try to escape and negotiate the hostage swap the same as we were going to originally.”

  “No,” James told him. “It’s too risky. Just like that day on the boat, when we should have let ourselves be ransomed. Instead we fought and men lost their lives. And their legs,” he added. “I’ll not take any further risk for the sake of control.”

  Daniella muffled a giggle with a cough.

  “What?” James asked, his arms tightening as he leaned over to intimately place his chin in the curve where her neck met her body. A curve he now knew well.

  “If you’d have asked me at the beginning of this week if the Butcher could willingly hand over control, I would have laughed and said not a chance. Look at you now, all grown up into a man.”

  “Minx. At the beginning of the week I thought I knew what the stakes were, what we were all playing for, but circumstances have altered. Adapting to a changing battle is a required skill for a good major in His Majesty’s Army. I should take offence that you’ll go with the plans of a pirate but fought so hard against mine from the beginning.”

  Patrick cleared his throat. “I don’t know how you can all be so calm. Who will pay my ransom? My clan know nothing about any of this.”

  James let go of her, the cold and distance instantaneous, and went to sit at the table with the men. “I’ll take care of the ransom. If we survive it all, you’ll be free to return to your family with no debt.”

  He scoffed. “No debt? I’m not a man accepting of the charity of others. I’ll pay you back the money somehow. I’ll not owe the Butcher.”

  “Enough of this Butcher nonsense,” he said to them all. “I’ve never cared for the moniker and find I would like to be rid of it once and for all.”

  She wanted to tell him it made him who he was. He was a warrior and a fighter and any man who met him knew that. It was a time in his life he would never forget or forgive. It was something in him that she loved.

  She pulled up short on that single, ridiculous thought. No. She admired him but there was no love there. Nothing worth abandoning her plans for, certainly. There could be no marriage. It was lust. Pure and simple. And lust was no foundation for a life together—especially when that life would undoubtedly trap her in London, inland, under grey skies, away from the sea.

  “Patrick.” She turned from the window and addressed him, pushing away all traitorous thoughts. “There will be time enough to sort through it all later. First, we have to get free of Darius and find my father. It’s the only way we can put all this business to rest.”

  “I agree,” James said, inclining his head. “We need to take this day one small step at a time. I want Darius to believe we have accepted his plans.”

  “We bloody well have.” Hobson was not at all happy but she doubted he would gainsay James. He hadn’t yet.

  “We are unarmed and outnumbered. If we fight, we die.” When James looked to her, a thrill shot through her body, leaving wild energy in its wake. Definitely lust. But his next words warmed her in a way she hadn’t thought possible and had nothing to do with wanting to see him naked again. “I for one have something to live for beyond this day and if it only costs me my pride, then so be it.” No. She pushed the warmth away, but smiled as naturally as she could.

  “Ugh,” Hobson groaned and put his head on the table. “You are addled.”

  James and Daniella laughed and when Darius finally entered the room, he wore a look of complete confusion. “You’re all in unusually high spirits.”

  Daniella didn’t miss a beat. “I’m hoping my father takes to you with his walking stick before the day is through.”

  Darius frowned. Daniella laughed harder.

  Behind him, one of his minions held in his arms what looked like heavy gowns under his triumphant grin and thick neck. Daniella swallowed and James stepped in front of her.

  “Don’t fret,” Darius said, waving him to stand down. “I merely thought Daniella might like to make herself a bit more presentable when meeting her father after so long estranged.”

  Daniella snorted. “My father has seen me in breeches before.”

  “Yes, he has, but the good people of Kirkcudbright have not. I don’t think it the best idea to attract more attention, do you?”

  She could see his logic but she didn’t have to agree with him. “Very well. You may put them on the chair.”

  Darius stepped back and let his man dump the dresses. He then executed a bow worthy of a courtier at the feet of his queen. “You have ten minutes.”

  She didn’t want to fall in with Darius’s plans but even here, in the sun-warmed cabin, a chill permeated. She would be better served in warmer clothing and she couldn’t very well wear James’s coat all day.

  “Turn around,” James told Patrick and Hobson. “If either of you so much as peek, you’ll have me to answer to.”

  Neither man put up an argument as Daniella chose a gown of the darkest blue, which she guessed might fit her. There were no undergarments though she did find a matching pelisse. “You can turn around too,” she told James.

  “With only minutes to get this done, you are going to need help.” He raised a brow, challenging her to contradict him, but any words were futile. As she huffed and shrugged out of his coat and handed it back to him, she poked out her tongue as a protest.

  He didn’t laugh. His gaze darkened and dropped to her mouth and then lower still as she began to loosen the shirt’s laces. As nimbly as she was able, she shed the wrecked and stained shirt and slipped the gown over her head, the weight of the velvet sending the fabric cascading over her body to her toes. If she’d only been able to wash in more than a shallow basin she might be quite comfortable.

  James came behind her and began doing up the little buttons, quickly, deftly, smugly. When he was finished, he came so close his breath fanned her ear, sending desire shooting to all the places he’d touched and then some. “Remember what I said about skirts and how you would have no chance had you been wearing one?”

  Her heart skipped at least three beats. She nodded.

  “Leave your breeches on.”

  When she turned in the enclosed space, he wore an expression of both raw desire and tension. She wanted to defy him and would have if it had been just the two of them in the cabin for the rest of the week.

  When she would have answered, his attention was ensnared by the cut of the décolletage. “S
candalous,” he breathed, his hands coming to rest on her ribs, his thumbs tantalizingly close to rising over her breasts.

  “It seems to have taken place over my middle name.” She laughed, knowing the action of breathing deep would push her further to spilling out. She ran one finger over the edge of the dress’s neckline. “Should I find another?” He might never be her husband but by God she was happy he was her lover, however briefly.

  He shook his head, his Adam’s apple bobbing hard beneath his beard. He closed his eyes for a moment and then, when he opened them, he reached for the pelisse and helped her put it on, buttoning it all the way to her neck. “Much better.”

  At the bottom of the pile of clothes were a pair of slippers suited only for a ballroom but she put them on anyway. Better than having bare feet.

  Within moments, Darius was back. “Come,” he said, gesturing towards the door. “I want you all where I can see you while we dock.”

  “Not worried I’ll learn where you put in and come back for you?” Daniella taunted quietly.

  “Not at all,” he returned in the same sure tone, taking in her attire and smiling.

  Arrogant son of a bitch. She hoped justice caught up with Darius and humiliated him—and that she’d be there to see it. The man had far too much self-worth.

  “Before we leave the ship, I have a request.” James approached her, taking her hands in his.

  “What is it?” she asked, her heart in her throat. She’d not seen that look in his eyes before.

  He kissed first one knuckle and then the other. “I want you to marry me now, here, on the ship.”

  No! “But… What about… We haven’t properly discussed any of this. Where will we live? How many months of the year and how many sons? We haven’t discussed any of it.”

  “Daniella, I won’t die an honourless man. If your father or Darius here ends my life, you’ll be wealthy enough to damn everyone to hell, buy your own ship and sail it wherever you please. What does it matter the details or a few hours? You promised me and I’m worried you will find a way to back out when the smoke clears. I need to do this.”

  Staring into the fathomless depths of his eyes amidst the bruising, seeing the sincerity there, how could she possibly deny him? But. “If this is indeed about honour, I already know you have it. We all know you have it otherwise we wouldn’t be standing here right now. I don’t want you to do this because you have to.”

  “I don’t have to. I want to. I want you to be my wife, Daniella. I need to make sure you will be all right and not sent back to England to be married to one of your brother’s cronies if it all goes wrong.”

  “I don’t need you to take care of me.” It was easy for him to relinquish control of one situation but he was asking her to do it for a lifetime.

  Darius hit the door with his fist, gaining her attention. “Dammit, woman, marry the man. You might be the only barrier between your father’s sword and your lover’s heart.”

  Even though she had nothing to be embarrassed about, her cheeks still warmed at the crude assessment of their relationship. Then the thought came to her. What was marriage anyway? They were in Scottish waters and could be married by a child but at the end of the day it was words spoken. They weren’t in a church. They didn’t stand before their friends and family and God. Their marriage could be whatever they made it without the church dictating the definition of wife. “All right.”

  James sucked in a breath. “All right?” he asked, scepticism all over his face.

  “I’ll marry you and take your money if you die.”

  He regarded her for a few moments and then his lips lifted and he drew her into his embrace, kissing her hard and fast. When he was done putting on his show, he pulled back. “That doesn’t mean you can be the one to kill me.”

  Daniella laughed. She hadn’t even thought of it. This time. “I give you my word.”

  Darius stepped up and put his hand over theirs. “I proclaim you man and wife before witnesses and God.”

  James looked up. “That’s it?”

  Darius nodded. “You don’t even need that much ceremony but I wanted to be the one to make it official.” He looked to Daniella. “Make sure, when your father asks who was fool enough to join the two of you in marriage, to tell him it was me.”

  He was getting some kind of sick satisfaction out of it. God only knew why. There was no time to ponder the question further as they were taken above deck and told to sit. They were then bound together with one length of rope so if any one man thought to jump overboard, they would all go. Then they would all drown.

  That would be a great start to married life. Married. She was someone’s wife. She was James’s wife. A giddy lightness dissolved the stone in her stomach and she smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  It was a three-hour carriage ride from where Darius docked his boat but James had no chance in that time to speak to Daniella at all. No one talked. It was as though they all held their breaths, waiting for the next step in the dance to reveal itself. He wished it would damn well hurry up. He’d told Patrick and Hobson he was happy to hand over control, and he was, but he didn’t have to like the waiting. Or the silence.

  “So, Darius, have you made contact with Germaine?” James asked, finally having had enough.

  The other man nodded. “I have, though not on this run.”

  “How did he seem to you?” Daniella interjected.

  “Old, even then,” Darius admitted in a wistful tone. “And I think the good captain has taken a few knocks more recently.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, leaning forwards on her seat a little, concern darkening her eyes and her gaze.

  “Heard tell that a few months back a great storm swept through this region and wiped out most everything in its path. The captain’s home onshore was destroyed, and The Aurora herself so badly damaged he could only limp back here to Kirkcudbright. My spies tell me he met a lady and plans to marry.”

  Daniella gaped at him. So many changes. Would she even recognize her father?

  Darius shrugged. “I only hear the stories. I do not get to judge the validity or accuracy of the news.”

  James’s stomach dipped out, leaving him with an empty hollowness. If Germaine had met a lady in Kirkcudbright and lived there now, where were Amelia and his mother? “But you have spoken to him? In person?”

  Darius shook his head and grinned. “Not in years.”

  James had to draw a deep breath and count to five before he asked his next question. “So what will you do with us if he isn’t there? I take it you have some sort of plan?”

  “I don’t need much of a plan. He is there.”

  “What?” This from Daniella. James squeezed her hand where it lay in his.

  “Plan?” He gestured for the pirate to elaborate.

  “I deliver Daniella and the man who abducted her and I have repaid a debt.”

  “I don’t understand,” Daniella muttered more to herself than to Darius. Her eyes narrowed. “You were of a mind to throw me overboard.”

  Darius’s grin grew wider. “A ploy. A spot of mischief if you will.”

  “Explain,” Daniella demanded, fists clenched in her lap.

  “The last time I was with your father in Kirkcudbright, I asked him could I ever restore my honour in his eyes. His simple answer was a yes. Rescuing you—in more than one way, I feel obliged to add—is repayment of my debt for the mutiny.”

  Daniella cursed beneath her breath.

  Before James could scold her on the language, Darius tsked. “Lady Lasterton would not mutter obscenities.”

  James understood two things in that moment. Darius was no lowly servant pressed to service on a pirate ship. He had been a gentleman once upon a time and knew the only outcome for an unmarried, unchaperoned scandalous hoyden. James should have heard it the first time he spoke. The second was clearer but no more comprehensible than the first. “You forced me to rescue her from you so I would have her gratitude.”
r />   “It worked splendidly.”

  “So this has all been?” He waited for a suitable answer. He waited for an excuse not to plant his fist into Darius’s lying face.

  “Meddling,” he said, still grinning. Darius then addressed Daniella, who was as tight as a cobra about to strike with her own particular brand of poison. “I really did think I was saving you that day on the road. But then it became clear there was another game at play. A game bigger than any of us.”

  “You consider yourself Cupid?” James asked with disbelief.

  “She needed a push in your direction. When she started asking if she could sail on my ship, I knew I had to do something to nudge her on another course. I will not have a woman on my ship indefinitely. My men would eat her alive.”

  Daniella shrieked and lunged for Darius in the small space. Patrick, who sat next to the gentleman cum pirate, had to duck out of the way.

  “You scared the hell out of me!” she yelled as she tried to hurt him.

  James pulled her onto his lap, his arms around her so she couldn’t move. “What my wife is trying to—”

  “You’re a bastard, Darius,” Daniella said.

  James put his hand over her mouth to stop her next attempt at flaying. “I’m not sure your story is entirely credible.” Darius’s gaze never wavered so James went on. “You expect us to believe you got involved though you had no way to assess the risk? I could have shot you dead on your horse that day.”

  “At quite a miserable stage of my life, Daniella and her father saved me and I repaid them by trying to take their ship. I owed it to the captain to bring her back safe—with her reputation intact.”

  A sudden sharp pain on the palm of James’s hand made him growl. “Did you really just bite me?” he asked his bride as she struggled against his grip.

  “Was any of it true?” she asked. “Did you suffer torture at the hands of an evil man?”

  “No.” Damn his insufferable smugness. “I was pulled from the water by a merchant ship a few hours later and delivered to the Americas. There I stayed and worked until I fell in with the good graces of a shipbuilder. The ship I sail now is one of his.”