The Slide Into Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  Gabriella said, “She always begins the meal with us but then she says she has had enough and offers the rest to the boys.”

  There was that explanation. It also spoke volumes about why she wore so many layers of scarves and mufflers and coats. The chit was probably always freezing but more than likely also hiding her bones from her loved ones. She was seeing that they ate first and she the leftovers, not that there would have been much.

  The two oldest children were finally catching on to what he wasn’t saying but he shook his head at them. No need for them all to wallow in guilt. He was sure he would have done the same were they his siblings.

  “I’m going to take Eliza to a room so she can bathe and sleep. You children can help Marcus spur the cook and have a broth sent up. She needs sustenance and rest. I think she has looked after everyone else for long enough don’t you?”

  They nodded. Lucky for Darius, their thoughts were running so deep, not one thought to gainsay him.

  Until they got to the door. Ethan turned around, a question on his lips. “Who will look after us now? Eliza really does do it well enough most of the time.”

  “I’m going to marry your sister and then I will take care of you until Nathanial has learned to be a duke.”

  “She said yes to that?” Gabriella asked.

  Where were the cries of outrage? Where were the calls of bastardry and he not being anywhere near impeccable enough for the daughter of a duke, for their sister who should have been a duchess or marchioness or some such title?

  “She fainted from the joy of it all, I suspect.” He tried to keep the sarcasm and disbelief from his own voice.

  “But you barely know one another,” Nathanial commented.

  “I have been enraptured from the moment I first glimpsed her in the snow.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Ethan started, a very serious frown on his face. “Our new guardian is a pirate?”

  “I am not a pirate,” Darius said, but as he crouched to the boy’s level he added with a wink, “not anymore. And I won’t be your legal guardian. Just your sister’s husband.”

  Questions flew at him then: “So she will live here with you? Right next to us?”

  He nodded. They hadn’t even begun to sort the details yet and that wasn’t a stormy sea he wanted to cross until hell froze over. He had enough on his plate just taking a foreign wife. He did not want to think about it more. He didn’t want to doubt his actions any further than he was already.

  “Will you have a large wedding?”

  He shook his head. “The vicar will be summoned in the morning. I won’t have scandal fall on you all for living beneath my roof.” At least in his home, there was no snow in the entryway or the corridors.

  “How many men have you killed?” That from Ethan but then Grace shushed him. Darius wouldn’t answer that question to a lad not even technically out of the nursery yet.

  He waited for more but Marcus broke it up, much to Darius’s relief. “Let us go and see about that broth. And perhaps some salts to wake the lady?”

  Finally everyone left and he scooped Eliza up into his arms but this time rather than limp and defenceless, she was stiff and tense, her eyes still closed. “How long have you been awake?” he asked, jostling her to get a better hold on her unyielding form.

  “Long enough to hear you make the decisions for all of us.”

  “Are you very mad?”

  Her eyes flickered open and stared up at him with a mixture of relief, confusion, defeat and maybe the tiniest spark of hope as she shook her head. “I believe I’ll take my chances with you and hope you don’t let us all down.”

  “I know you don’t know me well, Eliza—”

  “I don’t know you at all,” she pointed out. “But between you and Wickham…” She trailed off with a little shrug.

  “I am a good man. Sometimes slightly misguided and yes, my past is as black as black can get, but I like to think myself a good man. I won’t treat you or your siblings with anything but respect.”

  Moisture clouded her blue-eyed gaze then and he worried she might cry again but she only lowered her chin and nodded.

  In the back of Darius’s mind, he knew it was all too easy. Her capitulation, the children’s understanding and acceptance. There had to be a catch here, something he didn’t know, a fact or truth she wasn’t telling him. But all of that would come later he was sure. Their secrets wouldn’t stay hidden forever. They were too young and naïve, not yet adept at hiding what needed to never see the light of day.

  *

  Eliza’s mind was a whirl of activity but she forced her body to relax in his arms. Why did he have to be so warm and smell so good, like pine and snow and man? She should have been thinking about where he took her in the huge house but she could only wonder at what the next day would bring.

  Married. To him.

  This wasn’t how her plan was supposed to play out, she was meant to be buying time for her brothers and sisters, but Eliza was adaptable. Having an unpredictable wastrel for a father meant she had to be ready for anything.

  As she peeked up through her eyelashes at the man holding her so securely, she couldn’t help but think he was so much more…than anything. The shallow part of her enjoyed looking at him, his dark hair mussed, perhaps from the wind? She hadn’t seen him running his hands through the strands but then she’d had her eyes closed for some time. He was stronger than any man she had ever known. More respectable than any of the gentlemen she’d met since her mother had died. Yes. He was…more. But could she handle more?

  Conniving wasn’t a trait Eliza excelled at. Would he catch her out on her deceptions? Throw them out into the snow? Not once they were married, she was sure of it.

  She swallowed, gulped, drew courage and reminded herself that this was kind of her idea in a roundabout sort of way. “Have you contacted the vicar?”

  Darius nodded as he reached the top of the grand stair.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “Do you know the man?” he asked, suddenly evasive.

  “He came to the village when I was a child,” she said after a short hesitation. “We used to go to church every week but then mother passed and we stopped. My father lost his faith when he lost his way.”

  Darius paused in the corridor, looked both ways as if lost even here, and then turned right. He kicked the third door open gently and then set her on her feet but didn’t look as though he was going anywhere. He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and gestured to the room. “I think you’ll be comfortable in here. The children are one floor up so you will hear if there is a racket but I have a man in the room next door to the nursery to keep an eye on them.”

  She forgot all about vicars and marrying a stranger at the mention of her siblings. “I should be with them, be closer. What if…”

  “What if?” he prompted but she didn’t answer. “Nothing will happen to you here in this house. I have men watching the perimeter, the lower levels are guarded and the upper levels are locked up securely.”

  She nodded but her anxiety only increased. Why did he still stand there looking at her like that?

  “There is a bathing room through that door.” He gestured but still didn’t move. “The men are bringing hot water through the other room. Just be sure to lock the outer door.”

  “You don’t trust them?” she asked, her hand at her throat. How could she possibly get naked in a house filled only with men? Her cheeks heated and she had to fight to push the thoughts away.

  “I trust them with my life, I told you that. But we’re all still getting used to the layout of the house; stumbling through doors happens sometimes.”

  “But you grew up in this house. I’m trying to remember you. I think I saw you from a distance, but I can’t be sure. It’s most vexing.”

  Darius chuckled. “I wasn’t allowed to be anywhere near your silk skirts. The one time I stopped to stare at you, your father kicked me in the head from atop his horse. I learned m
y place.”

  “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry. He wasn’t very nice to the servants.” Or his own children.

  “Is that why you don’t have any retainers?”

  Eliza went to stand by the window, to peer through the dusty panes at the dark night. No stars twinkled; no moon lit the pines. It was as black as Darius had said his past was, but Eliza needed to turn away from his penetrating gaze. He seemed to have an uncanny ability to read her and she didn’t want him to know how she felt before she did.

  “My father stopped paying their wages, became violent and sullen. The servants started to leave when the food ran out. The cook left first because without anything to cook, his position was redundant. The rest within weeks. Some I paid with the house silver, others with the crystal, some more with furniture and linens.”

  Darius moved closer. She could just make out his reflection in the glass. “Your father didn’t notice any of this?”

  Eliza shrugged. “Probably. The question should be, did he care? The answer to that is no. He no longer had to live in a house without coal, without food, without happiness. When he was home, he drank until nothing registered. Eventually he just stopped coming home.”

  “Did you miss him?”

  “No.” The two youngest missed their father, but she didn’t. His mood swings weren’t predictable when he was drinking. He became dangerous when drunk, belligerent when sober. “Even now I don’t mourn the loss of the man. I mourn the loss of what he could have been to us, Ethan and Nathanial especially. He should have been teaching Nathanial the ways of the estate, farming and husbandry. Ethan didn’t learn to ride. The girls never got to sit on his lap so he could tell them the stories of his ancestors. Perhaps that’s what I miss.”

  Silence hung between them for some time after she’d let her words pour out. But then Darius spoke. “I miss my grandfather.”

  Eliza turned back to face him, to gauge if he merely spoke words meant to assuage and reassure, or if he really did regret all those years spent away. “Why did you never write to let him know you were alive? That you were well?”

  He met her gaze and his eyes darkened to an impossible shade, or perhaps it was the shadows of the past. “I wasn’t well. There was a large part of me that was afraid. If my sire discovered that he hadn’t succeeded in getting someone else, or perhaps circumstance, to kill me, then he would likely track me down and finish the job. The other part of me was ashamed of what I was becoming.”

  She had no idea what he meant by that but she wanted to know. His mysteriousness was somewhat alluring and she struggled to maintain any sort of distance in the hopes to know more. “What were you becoming?”

  “A true bastard. Not the illegitimate sort, the sort who wouldn’t hesitate to kill an unarmed man, to fire on a ship when there was neither glory nor treasures in it. The sort to rally the men to mutiny only to betray a captain who had been more a father to me than my own.”

  “You obviously came to terms with it all. Turned it about.”

  The look he gave her made her want to cry. Hopelessness, defeat, anguish. The same emotions she had been feeling not more than an hour past.

  “This has all happened so quickly, with no time to really think about the ramifications for us both.” He paused, seemed to regather his thoughts and then went on. “You will be married to a true bastard with barely a name and hardly any ties to the land. I will be married to a duke’s daughter who could do so much better than a pirate.”

  “I’m sure we’ll find a way to make it work.” But she almost choked on the words. She was selling herself for the protection of her brothers and sisters. His touching stories of finding himself could not sink into her heart. She would do this without getting emotionally attached. He’d told her he wasn’t a hero. She could do this. But was she supposed to like it already? The intimate touches, his masculine scent enveloping her senses, his voice rumbling through her like gentle thunder? Was she supposed to already miss the warmth his body had given to hers as she was held in his arms, however innocuously that contact was intended?

  Darius’s quiet voice reached through her melancholy as he closed the distance between them. “I’m sorry this is happening to you.”

  Butterflies took flight inside her stomach and she wanted to tell him she’d changed her mind, tell him it had all been a trick and that it was she who was sorry for him.

  She bit down on her tongue to stop the words from falling out.

  Darius took her cold hands in his warm fingers and gave a squeeze. He didn’t let go. “If your father had lived, if your mother had stopped his foolishness and you were one big happy family, what would you have wanted? You probably could have married a duke. An earl. You might have been a duchess and had all and sundry bow at your feet and call you Your Grace.”

  Eliza sighed but only to hide her surprise. Not in more than seven years had anyone asked Eliza Penfold what she wanted out of this life. “I’ve never wished for any of that.”

  “A romantic?” he asked as he reached up and tucked a stray blonde tendril behind her ear.

  Her body swayed towards his but she found she didn’t have the energy to sidestep him or find some of that distance propriety dictated. “Never that. I don’t think there was ever a time when I wanted a husband. By my mother’s passing, I was barely out of the schoolroom, forced to take care of the others or see them neglected.”

  “Do you want children of your own?”

  She could almost taste his scent now, feel his breath on her face and his body heat calling for her to melt into him fully. She shook her head again, her thoughts becoming fuzzy. “I don’t think so.”

  He pulled back but only slightly. “Never?”

  “I would never say never but what have I to give them? If my mother and father had never had children, we wouldn’t be in this position would we?”

  “You can’t peer into the past and ask what if, Eliza. If they hadn’t married, we wouldn’t be standing here right now. You certainly can’t erase the past or base your future on another’s actions.”

  Finally meeting his gaze again, his eyes friendly and open, she asked him, “Living the life you have, would you bring children into this world?”

  He shook his head as well. “Mine is a dangerous life. I had no immediate plans for marriage and definitely not for children. How can I give a wife what she needs when my home is on the sea for nine months of the year, sometimes twelve?”

  “You paint a grim picture for your bride.”

  “Can you marry a shadow, Eliza? You can live here for the rest of your life or with your brother, you can tell people whatever you want, but you will be lonely. I can offer you friendship and a roof above your head but not much more.”

  “Loneliness doesn’t worry me,” she told him after a brief hesitation. Once she was his wife, no one could touch her, trap her, tell her what to do. She would find happiness and love in the children her siblings would eventually have. She allowed a small smile to lift the corners of her lips as she confided, “A solid roof over my head would be nice.”

  Darius chuckled but did not answer. He was waiting for her to say yes. To give herself and her future into his hands.

  “I’m sorry you had to get involved,” she finally offered.

  “So am I,” he replied but didn’t venture more.

  “So where does that leave us?” she asked.

  Cupping both her cheeks in his hands, it was Darius’s turn to sigh. “We have to marry and we have to make it appear a love match above reproach. It won’t stop the tongues wagging but it will turn the gossip to our favour rather than completely against us.”

  She gulped and licked her suddenly dry lips, managing a small nod against his work-roughened hands.

  “Even your siblings are to believe us wildly in love,” he murmured, closer than she’d imagined he’d ever be.

  “How?”

  “It all starts with a kiss.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Darius played with fi
re. Eliza’s lips were so pale against the backdrop of her even paler face and white-blonde hair, and she trembled against his fingertips but he needed to taste her. He had to see if she would cower and retreat or if she was ready to play her part in the charade that was to follow.

  It was the story he told himself, the excuse he found comfort in rather than labelling it good old-fashioned lust. He hadn’t told Eliza their chances of being spotted or observed by any member of the ton was almost non-existent, that they wouldn’t need to get too close since that was against society’s rules anyway. Public displays of affection were severely frowned upon. But then their entire union would be frowned upon. He might as well go all out.

  In truth, he didn’t need anyone to take a sudden interest in why the daughter of a duke would tie herself to a bastard. It was why they had to make it appear a love match. They had to be prepared for the fallout. That was his story.

  He leaned closer, telling himself he was doing it all for his crew and his employer and friend.

  The tease of violets plucked at his senses as he inhaled, so close he could breathe in her breath. He really didn’t need a wife who came with a dead duke and four underage hassles. But how could he regret his involvement when lives were at stake? Perhaps if he saved these five, it might go a little way to making good on the ones he’d sent to Davy Jones?

  In that exact moment none of it mattered. He was already involved. Right now he just needed to kiss his future bride.

  Finally closing the gap, he pressed his lips against hers, surprised when her nose was ice cold against the side of his. Taking a tiny, shuffling, half-step forward, his body came into contact with hers as the world around him fell away and it was only her taste and smell left. When he let his thumb slip beneath her chin and ran his tongue along the seam of her lips, she opened to him. He was only vaguely aware of her bandaged hands as they rose to grip the lapels of his coat. Would she push him away? His touch remained gentle even though the beast inside roared to take everything he could from her.