The Slide Into Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  God, why did she have to taste so good? Like the most exquisite French brandy, she warmed his insides, molten yet smooth. She let him explore, her spine still straight, her body tense, but at the first touch of her tongue against his, hesitant at first, she relaxed into him, her palms flattening against his chest as her head tilted to give him better access.

  His hands smoothed over her shoulders, down her arms, and then fell away to rest on her hips through several layers of coats and God knew what else. Withdrawing his hands, he brought them to the front of her stomach and slipped them beneath the heavy fabric. He could barely feel her and wanted more.

  No. Less.

  God, he didn’t even know anymore. She was heaven and he was in hell.

  A dull thud sounded as if from far away but then a throat being cleared noisily reminded him exactly where he was and what he did. Darius didn’t immediately break contact. He pulled away from the lusciousness of her lips but then rested his forehead against hers while he regained his breath and she hers.

  What the hell was that?

  “Cap’n? A word if you will?”

  Damn Tarquin had poor timing. Or perhaps it was spot-on. “What is it?”

  “The children,” he enunciated the word slowly but was it a warning? A reminder? “They have broth and biscuits for the lady.”

  Darius finally turned, a smile on his face meant to reassure, not confirm, that he indeed was a wolf with an appetite for lamb. “Come in, come in, I’m sure Eliza would like to be waited on for a few hours.”

  “I’m sure I would not,” came her firm reply.

  Now that he was convinced she was in charge of her faculties, he stepped away and moved back towards the door. “Ensure she removes her coats once that fire is properly fed.” With a meaningful glance in Eliza’s direction he added, “I will see you tomorrow morning, love.”

  She nodded. He wondered if she realised that she licked her lips. But then the girls swarmed her with admonishments and questions while the eldest boy glared daggers at Darius. That was his cue to leave.

  Tarquin didn’t wait long to add his own censure. “I thought the girls were off-limits?”

  “I have to marry Eliza come dawn. If she was going to be your wife, would you not want to at least make sure she doesn’t taste like hell-fire?”

  “Does she?”

  Darius thought about not answering but then he chuckled. “Surprisingly she tastes only of danger and complications. Ever since I saw her in the snow, I’ve had the distinct impression that she is going to bring with her my doom.”

  “Just don’t take the rest of us with you,” Tarquin muttered.

  “Where is everyone?” Darius asked, deliberately not answering what wasn’t really a question anyway.

  “Duncan and Marcus have asked to see you the minute you were free of your bride-to-be.”

  Ominous. He found some of his men in the kitchen, five of them sitting around a scarred table littered with full ale cups and empty stew bowls. Whatever they’d been discussing was discarded the moment he entered the room.

  Darius spoke first, words he’d had on the tip of his tongue since his return that afternoon. “What happened to ‘none of them are to be harmed’?”

  Marcus gulped the last of the ale in his cup and wiped a meaty hand over his beard before explaining. “’Tweren’t us. I was all set to break a window carefully with a hammer, Duncan was to fire a shot or two off into the woods and Wes was to shout and yell a bit but then we was shot at. Damn near got a hole blown in the side of my head!”

  Darius raised a brow. “You’re telling me that at the very time you were going to scare the life out of the Penfold brood, someone else was there to do the same?”

  Duncan muttered, “Told you he wouldn’t believe us.”

  “If I was telling you the same story, would you believe me?” Darius said.

  “There were two of them,” Wes confirmed. “Before we had time to duck for cover, bastards were shooting out windows. I’d bet the ship that they weren’t sent there only to scare. I’d bet they have been watching the house as well.”

  “Did you get a good look at who it was?” Darius asked, suddenly unsure of just how many men were after the duke but very glad his crew were there at the time they were, foolhardy though their mission may have been. They had lowered their guard on the house but that had obviously been another mistake on his part.

  All three sailors shook their heads. Duncan said, “I did hit one of them, Cap’n. Right in the arse. If they’re still in the area, we’ll hear about it.”

  Darius sat and accepted an ale. “Wickham was at the town inn so he didn’t do it himself and he doesn’t have the funds to pay two men to ride about shooting at women and children.”

  “From what I saw, these gents were gents. Well turned out, toffy clothes and all,” Duncan supplied. “They weren’t hired thugs.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” Darius said. “If it was the children they were after, they’ll be back. If the duke gambled with Wickham, he’ll owe money to more men. Eliza thinks she paid them all but she can’t be sure and neither can we.”

  “So you’re really going to marry her in the morning?” Tarquin asked.

  Darius nodded and lifted an ale cup to his lips. He drank deeply but, not finding the answers in the bottom of the mug, put it down and said, “I have to.”

  *

  “You can’t be seriously thinking about marrying that man!” Nathanial roared.

  The next morning dawned bright and cold and Eliza found herself thinking it poor timing indeed that her brother had not only found his backbone but his voice also. “You know I am. I have to. Now, please be quiet before someone hears you.”

  He did not listen. “We will survive just fine without his assistance. What will he do if you don’t become his wife? He can hardly blackmail or bully his way into our finances since we don’t have any. Tell him you’ll wait for Montrose to gain more time. No one said anything about marrying a bastard pirate!”

  “Survive just fine?” They were the only words Eliza took in, the rest she ignored despite the answering prickle of unease sliding down her spine.

  Her brother huffed. “You know what I mean. It hasn’t been grand but we’ve done all right on our own.”

  She stared at her brother for a moment before turning back to the small mirror above a beautiful little dressing vanity. She was trying to arrange her hair but the life had gone from the strands and all they wanted to do was lie flat against her back rather than elegant curls about her ears. “There’s more to it than you know and it’s not just Darius we have to worry about, Nathanial. There must be others out there who Father owed money to. We can’t keep living as we have.” She sighed. “Existing as we have. Surviving is well and good, but what if we didn’t have to sleep on the floor and bar the door against the wolves?”

  “But what if he’s the devil? What if he…mistreats you? He has no title for God’s sake. He has nothing to offer you. What if he only marries you for the dowry to put one over on this Montrose fellow? You’ll never know love or affection. Can you live with that?”

  If his kiss the night before had been any indication of how he would treat her, she had only her heart to worry about. The way it had skipped several beats as he’d held her couldn’t have been good for her constitution. Love? Definitely not. Affection? Perhaps. Lust more likely. “Wickham is the devil. He has a title yet still has nothing to offer me. Darius cannot be worse than the earl. Don’t you understand this has to happen? It will give us the few months we need for you to take the title. Gabriella will be safe. Would I have liked to have found love in my life? Yes. I’m a woman—of course that might have been nice. But I don’t need it. What I need is for all of you to be safe.”

  Nathanial stopped his pacing and met her gaze in the looking glass, his blue eyes alive with fury and mistrust. “I don’t like it. How are you going to manipulate someone like him?”

  He didn’t have to like it any more than
she did. It was still happening. “Manipulate? What are you talking about?”

  “Darius doesn’t strike me as the sort to take orders from his new wife. How are you going to get him to do your bidding?”

  She hadn’t thought that far ahead. He’d said he would protect them; that was good enough for her for the next few months.

  “You’ll have to seduce him.”

  Eliza tried to swallow, tried to argue, but choked instead, coughing until her eyes filled with moisture.

  “He’s to be your husband, you his wife. He will expect you to warm his bed.”

  Her indignation was very real as she threw her reply at her brother. “I will not discuss this with you, not now, not ever. Remember I am doing this for all of you. It’s our last resort. Gabriella can be the one to marry a title and live in luxury and manipulate a weak husband. Grace can find love and happiness. Darius has his fierce reputation and he’s given his word we will be cared for. The Earl of Wickham is the only other option and he doesn’t instil fear into men. Darius is the better choice. He is my only option.” She’d witnessed his ice-cold glare, a glare that could wither the strongest of men. His brother had shrunk back from it the day Eliza had held a gun on the men. “And Darius has a ship. If we need to leave, we can.”

  “Leave?” Nathanial’s brows rose until they almost met his hairline. His voice rose just as high, as he seemed to thankfully forget talk of seduction. “Why would we leave?”

  Eliza sighed again. She had hoped not to have to spell it out. “What if there is an investigation into our father’s disappearance? His death?”

  “We tell them what happened. What was going to happen. Show them where we buried the old man. Show them the bullet hole in his head.”

  She swallowed past the lump in her throat, fought for her brother’s crude words not to gain purchase and ruin what would be any other girl’s happiest of days. “And if the magistrate doesn’t believe us?” She’d run the scenario over and over in her mind but each and every picture ended the same. Guilty. Hanging from the neck until dead. It was the penalty for killing a peer of the realm. Well, one of them. The harshest of them. Unless, of course, death was welcomed by the guilty party.

  “Our father shot himself in the head, Eliza. Suicide, plain and simple.”

  “Nothing is ever so simple,” she whispered, but was saved from further argument when Gabriella and Grace entered the room.

  The next hour passed in a flurry of excited squeals from the girls, scowls from Nathanial and little headshakes from Ethan. He just didn’t understand what all the fuss was about but he would when he was older. Eliza supposed she had sheltered the youngest of the Penfolds but what other avenue was there? At least one of them had to have the chance at a semi-normal childhood. What she wouldn’t give to run about the gardens with a stick playing wars, pretending to catch Bonaparte or climbing trees and exploring the pine forest from dawn until dusk.

  She would relinquish her independence and virtue and reputation and anything else London required of her to hold in her hand a plan B. That’s where Darius came in. He had a ship. A fast one by his men’s accounts. If her brothers and sisters needed to leave England suddenly, Darius was the only one who could get them out. He needed her money to repair his ship and he could have it. Every guinea. Her biggest problem right then was how to broach the subject with her almost husband. She needed a promise from him that if the time came, he would take her siblings to America and see them taken care of. After that, the next hurdle then became their wedding night.

  She knew she would have to share his bed. They would have to consummate their vows for theirs to be a real marriage. She needed to know there were more than mere words holding him to his promises. He’d said he was an honourable man but he’d spent years as a pirate. Would he be gentle with her? Patient?

  Would she ever truly be able to trust him? Should she ever truly trust him?

  “It’s time,” Grace announced from the open doorway with a little clap of her hands.

  Eliza pulled a shawl the pale colour of the inside of a pink seashell closer about her shoulders but despite its warmth couldn’t help the shiver that ran down her spine.

  “Last chance,” Nathanial said as he offered his arm.

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  “And I won’t just give you away to a stranger.”

  Eliza pulled back on his coat sleeve. “You have to. Please trust that I know what I am doing. Trust that I have never steered us wrong before. Please, brother.”

  Nathanial seemed to take an age to consider her pleading but then he gave her a nod, held his arm out once again and walked her down the once majestic staircase to where her groom waited in the front parlour. The vicar stood next to him, the second man to frown at her this morning, but she ignored him also.

  She had only eyes for her bridegroom. Darius was clean-shaven, right to the skin, with no shadow present at all, and he wore a well-tailored, expensive navy suit, snowy-white cravat, even a watch tucked away in his pocket if the gold chain was any indication. He appeared every inch the gentleman right down to the winking ruby in his neckcloth, a drastic change from their first meeting.

  When he held his hand out to her, beckoning her closer, inviting her to what could be her ultimate demise, Eliza felt genuine fear, genuine panic. But for all the wrong reasons.

  Irrationally, she wanted to run right into the safety of his arms but he couldn’t know that. It would give him too much power over her. She felt faint. She felt cold and alone despite her siblings at her back, her brother at her side.

  “Are you feeling well, m’dear?” Darius inquired, his brows high. Was that real concern in his hazel eyes? Or did he put on a good show for the clergyman?

  She swallowed back most of the fear, willed her panic to recede. “Might we have a moment alone? Please?”

  Darius hesitated but then he nodded and gestured for everyone to clear the room. He might not hold a title but it was clear to all involved that he was in charge, in command, in control. Not even Nathanial lingered, for which she was most grateful.

  When the heavy door closed without a sound and only the two of them remained, Eliza began to fidget, wringing her gloved hands in front of her wildly turbulent stomach.

  “Second thoughts?” Darius asked over his shoulder as he crossed the room to a small cupboard and retrieved two crystal glasses and a decanter.

  His movements were smooth and determined as he poured amber liquid into both glasses. One he filled to the brim, the other just a splash. “No…not as such,” she managed to stammer.

  Offering her the glass with the splash, Eliza eyed the one filled to the top. Liquid courage, her father had once referred to it. Helps a man do what has to be done. Would it help her now? Eliza wondered.

  “Drink it,” Darius ordered her.

  Despite his tone being rather gentle, she heard it for the command it was. Eliza took the glass and tipped the contents into her mouth. She coughed a little, fire burning down her throat and into her stomach.

  “Now,” he started, “what is this all about? I can understand if you’re scared but remember I won’t press you into doing anything you don’t want to.”

  Her cheeks flamed and she damned her gloves. How she would like to press her cold fingers to her cheeks and hide from those penetrating eyes. “I have a…a…request…a favour to ask of you before we say our vows.”

  His eyes narrowed and he marched towards her. “You have nothing to barter with, Eliza. You cannot ask favours at the eleventh hour with nothing to give in return.”

  “I could owe you a favour,” she offered before she’d had the time to consider her words more carefully.

  His eyes narrowed even more until they were barely slits on either side of his face. His frown was fierce but Eliza’s need was stronger, much fiercer, than his anger could ever be.

  “Other than your dowry, you have nothing I need nor want.”

  “There will come a day when you might requir
e something more of me, from me.”

  “Blackmail?” he asked with a raised brow and a slight grin. “And on our wedding day. Is this how our life together is to be?”

  Eliza slowly shook her head. Was he taunting her? “I don’t know what our life will be like or what the coming days hold. I don’t know you.”

  “It must be a mighty favour if you are willing to give anything in return.”

  She breathed deeply, rallied her courage. You can do this. “If something happens to me, I want you to promise you will take my brothers and sisters away from England. Put them on your ship and take them with you to the Americas.”

  Relief flashed over his features but was soon replaced with suspicion. “And you? Where will you be?”

  “I don’t know.” She looked away, felt more questions coming, questions she didn’t want to answer right now, maybe not ever.

  Darius’s tone softened. “I told you, you are safe here with me. I won’t let anything happen to any of you.”

  “You might not be able to stop it. Darius, if the magistrate comes…” She felt his presence at her side, his firm grip on her shoulders as he turned her to meet his gaze.

  “You said he killed himself. The magistrate will believe you.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “Eliza, what are you not telling me?”

  She straightened, firmed her resolve and pooled all of her strength and all of her conviction into her words. “Please, just promise me you will get them far away from here if the time comes.”

  Darius sighed and raked both hands through his hair, tugging on the strands. She thought he would fight with her, argue or shake her, but in the end he nodded. “You have my word. But. If you feel danger is close, if it is a person you are scared of other than the magistrate, you have to tell me before it is too late. If there is another creditor coming to claim more than a debt owed, I will have your word that you will tell me so I can take care of it.”