The Slide Into Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  The thumping continued but Darius only squeezed tighter. “Nod if you understand.”

  He felt it against the crook of his arm, against muscles that did not want to relent. This pitiful excuse for a man had already tried to ruin at least one life and Darius would drive his dagger into his brother’s heart before he let it happen again.

  It could end right here, right now. His brother’s wouldn’t be the first life Darius had squeezed from a man. They could gather up another funeral pyre. Have themselves another bonfire.

  All at once, Darius let Harold go and shoved him away before jumping to his feet while the other man lay on his back trying to draw oxygen into his lungs. A dozen of his men stood in a semi-circle but there was only one face he saw as the red-hot haze of fury cleared from his vision. The pale countenance of his wife stared back at him, terrified and silently asking questions he couldn’t answer.

  Darius addressed his men. “Make sure this piece of horse shit is removed from my carpets and sent on his way. If he returns, shoot him before his foot touches the drive.” To a seasoned sailor named Victor, he murmured softly, “Have him followed. I want to know where he runs off to lick his wounds.”

  Taking Eliza by the elbow, he propelled her from the room before Harold could lay his greedy, depraved eyes on her vulnerability. He transferred his grip to her hand as he overtook her and pulled her up the stairs to their bedroom. If she was going to fall apart, he wouldn’t have anyone witness the break.

  “He knows,” she mumbled all the while. With each step her words became quieter, more desperate, more scared until the two words were but a whisper of breath wrenched from her shaking body.

  *

  Visions of Ethan growing up under the vicious hand of the Earl of Wickham almost made Eliza retch. She knew she couldn’t blame Gabriella for their predicament but if their father was still alive—and he very well could have been since his self-importance probably would have stopped him from pulling his own trigger—they would only be knee-deep in filth rather than drowning in it.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Darius leaned against the back of the door and watched her pace. “We are going to do nothing for the moment.”

  “But Harold knows, which means Wickham must also know.”

  “I don’t think he would have shared the information just yet. He came here to try to get at your dowry on his own, without the earl finding out first. Marcus is on his way to London with your father’s previous man of business as witness that your father did indeed sign our documents.”

  She was taken aback. She knew Marcus had left but the rest? “How did you achieve that?”

  “Penfold hadn’t paid him or been kind. It took but a small bribe and the promise of a position as groundskeeper for this house for the rest of his life or as long as he does what he is told, which are actually one and the same.”

  “You make it sound so simple but it isn’t. I feel as though we are only a hairsbreadth away from complete ruin.”

  “You are that close, Eliza, but if you show men like Harold how you dangle from the precipice, he will assume some form of cunning and push us over. The fight is not over until the situation becomes so hopeless we must give in or die.”

  “We can’t give in.”

  He took her cold hands and gave them a gentle squeeze. “We never will. I never will. Men like Harold and Wickham believe people can be traded, sold and hidden away so that their problems disappear with the bodies but that isn’t so. We know that isn’t so. This time they will not win.”

  “We have to do something,” she insisted, the fear in her belly so great she thought she might be sick.

  “We have to stay strong. Show my men and the children that we have everything under control. But then we have to leave.”

  Eliza stopped pacing and met his gaze. “Leave?”

  “We must. I know you want to stay, see Nathanial to the title, but you won’t make it. None of you will.”

  She only nodded. He was right. Why did he have to be so right?

  For weeks she had known it was the only sensible course of action. It was the main factor for marrying a foreign stranger in the first place, his means of fleeing to a new country where England couldn’t reach them. It wasn’t admitting defeat, it was surviving, and it was something Eliza was growing to be quite adept at. “When should I tell the children?”

  “Not yet. Not until the ship is repaired and ready to take the tide. Nothing changes and no one panics. No one acts rashly or irreparably. Including you.”

  “I don’t know if I can keep lying to them.”

  “For years you have been their mother and not just their sister. Parents don’t always tell their children the truth. They lie to spare feelings and keep the monsters at bay. That is all I’m asking you to do.”

  Eliza clung to Darius’s warmth when he wrapped his arms around her. It was the first time he’d touched her since making love to her the night before. God, it felt like a lifetime ago already.

  When he spoke, she curled into the vibrations of his voice, the touch of his fingers at her back, until his words sank in. “I’ll leave within the hour.”

  She pushed out of his arms. “What? You can’t leave us behind.”

  “You will still be well guarded, but I cannot take you with me. I also can’t leave my men to keep repairing the ship while I rusticate. They need my help and an extra pair of hands. The quicker all of that is done, the sooner we can be gone from here.”

  “But we only just—” She stopped herself in time before she admitted how much she had been looking forward to the night when it was the two of them, alone but together. There hadn’t been a lot of time to dwell on the events of the night, before the fire, but each time she sat, her body reminded her of the way Darius had risen above her and claimed her as his. She could still feel the delicious tingle of her lips when his eyes dropped to her mouth as though he wanted to kiss her again.

  “You will come back, won’t you?” Hadn’t that been her fear all along? That he would take her dowry and disappear? Had she been right about her misgivings?

  “I will return as soon as I am able.” His voice emerged husky, the words almost a whisper as they carried his promise and, damn her, she believed him.

  She was being silly and selfish wanting him to stay just so he would hold her and make love to her again. Her cheeks warmed at her own wantonness but with every wicked thought, she found she cared less and less for being proper and cared more and more for Darius and none other.

  Outside of her own desires, he didn’t have to tell her how much there was to gain from a quick getaway. Each and every sound during the night had woken her from her tossing and turning until the sun came peeking over the horizon in a rare display telling everyone that winter wouldn’t stay forever. It had almost given her hope that perhaps this day wouldn’t be worse than the one before.

  But she had been wrong. Wrong to hope. Wrong to want.

  Eliza nodded and stepped away from her husband, forced to trust him. Forced to let him go. “Of course, you must go.” It hurt so much to say the words but reason stole its way in. They wouldn’t be entirely alone. They were watched by armed men by day and by night and if she wanted to, she could sleep with the children if she grew lonely or worried for them.

  Darius looked as though he wanted to say something else, perhaps a reassurance? He drew in a deep breath and then let it out. He pulled her close and pressed his lips to hers. The kiss was fierce. He didn’t linger, but it told her what she needed to know. That he didn’t want to go anywhere at all, that desperation drove him. His ship and his men needed him in the same way her brothers and sisters needed her. They both had to remain strong.

  Hours later she watched him ride down the drive with a half-dozen sailors fanned out around him and she wondered where she would pull that strength from. She wondered how she would put on a brave face and distract the others from Darius’s absence.

  She already wondered when he woul
d be back.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The first full week as a bastard’s wife was apparently as uneventful as the day Eliza married one. And the day before that. Well, actually that day had been eventful. As she stared at her hands, now fully healed from the small cuts gained from crawling over broken glass, and beyond them to the snow-covered grounds, she actually thanked the Lord for a quiet day. A quiet two days with no sign of her husband returning from where he’d docked his ship or of Marcus returning from London.

  Had Wickham caught up with Marcus? Had Harold spilled their secrets? Or had their unknown assailants with a penchant for broken windows and screaming children shown their faces? Wickham should have been the last creditor standing according to the papers in her father’s study. If she’d had the bullets in her gun, she might have killed him when he’d approached her lands. But she didn’t have it in her to murder in cold blood. Her gaze shifted from her hands to Gabriella as the two wandered the courtyard between the sheltered wings of the great house.

  “How are you faring with all of this?” Eliza asked her next youngest sister.

  “Surprisingly I’m all right. I have the strangest feeling that everything will work out for the best.”

  She wished she had that feeling also. Before she could comment, Gabriella went on. “Do you think you will find happiness with Darius?”

  Eliza raised her face to the weak sun breaking through clouds heavy with another downpour. Predicting her own future was much like trying to guess how many seconds would pass before the first drop of water fell to the ground. But if she did have a crystal ball like the gypsy aunt her father proclaimed her to be similar in nature to, of course she would say yes. Why would she hope to be sad and lonely for all her days? She’d done nothing to deserve that. Gabriella on the other hand had shot their father. Yes, her reasons were righteous but her actions were not.

  She finally answered, “He is a very kind and considerate man.”

  Gabriella was silent for all of four breaths and then rushed to say, “I’m so glad you married Darius. I cannot pretend to be angry as Nathanial is, nor dreamy like Grace but I finally feel safe. Sort of. Kind of… I just…”

  “You just?” Eliza didn’t want to push but she felt as though she hadn’t had a private moment with Gabriella in weeks. Each time she’d thought to bring up serious matters, one of their siblings had interrupted the moment or needed something from one of them.

  “I’m…”

  “Sorry?” Eliza supplied for her, some of her temper returning with her energy now she could eat full meals without worrying there wasn’t enough to go around.

  “Sorry?” Gabriella repeated and stared back at her with a question in her dark green eyes. Unlike Eliza, Nathanial and Grace, Gabriella and Ethan had the dark honey-brown hair and green eyes of their father, not the white-blonde hair and blue eyes of their mother. “Sorry for what?”

  Before Eliza had the chance to berate her sister as she’d wanted to do several times lately, ask her how she could have done what she’d done, they were interrupted by one of Darius’s men rushing towards them.

  “Get inside and hide the children,” Eliza told her sister upon seeing the urgency in the man’s eyes. “Don’t come out until I come for you.”

  Gabriella nodded and thankfully didn’t argue. Eliza braced herself for bad news. It usually came running like this.

  “A carriage, my lady, coming down the drive.”

  “Darius?” Her heart thump-thumped painfully as she asked, the blood roaring in her ears until she almost didn’t hear the answer. He’d ridden out, the only reason to return in a carriage was if he’d been injured or dead. Her vision darkened and blurred and she reached out a hand to steady herself.

  The man shook his head as he took her hand and shook it too. “A hired hack.”

  “What is your name?” She thought she remembered him as the stringed instrument player from her wedding day but the hours after her marriage to a sea captain were still a little hazy in her memory.

  “Benny, my lady.”

  Some of Darius’s men spoke with an American accent but Benny was English right down to his manners and address. She wondered what house he had served in before joining the ship’s crew. “Benny, fetch a few of the men and make sure they are well armed. I’ll greet the carriage; you will watch my back.” She wasn’t taking any chances on a visitor. What if it was Harold or Wickham? She found she might actually be able to murder them both if they’d harmed her new husband or his men.

  She couldn’t be sure of anything at all as she watched the hired hack approach, but it had to be someone calling on Darius. Although the vicar had had time enough to spread the news of Eliza’s nuptials she had no friends or family in the area. Only gossips would come to call and they would receive the same welcome an enemy would. Perhaps the news had reached as far as London and it was her aunt and uncle?

  Settling her skirts and checking the buttons on her coat were still fastened, Eliza had to consciously stop fidgeting. What if it was the magistrate? What if it was another creditor? One of Darius’s enemies? She hoped there were enough guns and that his men wouldn’t hesitate to protect her as Darius had promised.

  As the carriage drew to a halt, one sound captured Eliza’s attention more than any other, more than the jingle of harness, or the crunching of hooves on gravel.

  She stepped forward, her hands in the folds of her skirts, that one sound unmistakable in this world or any other.

  Crying.

  More specifically, a baby’s hungry cries for its mother. Ethan had sounded the same while the Penfold household had scrambled to action upon her own mother’s death.

  When the door opened and a scruffily dressed maid jumped heavily to the ground, Eliza instinctively stepped back once again. A stench carried on the breeze and made her want to raise her ungloved hand to her nose against the foul intrusion.

  “Good day to you,” Eliza called, more to announce her presence than to extend good tidings.

  The maid stopped for half of a second to stare back at her. “Milady.” She bobbed but didn’t turn all the way; she just kept reaching into the conveyance and then tossed a large carpet bag onto the wet ground.

  “What business do you have here?”

  When next the maid turned, in her arms she held a wad of dirty linens, only the wad moved and writhed, the cries fierce and piercing in the afternoon’s silence. “A delivery for Jonathan Meddington.”

  “There is no man here by that name,” she told the maid, willing her voice to calm. Only Wickham or Harold would call him Jonathan. She didn’t even call him by his given Christian name.

  The maid stopped, her enormous shoulders hunched, her wobbly chin almost against her chest as she gazed down at the infant with love. “There has to be. Sarah needs him.”

  “Is it his child?” If her new husband was thinking to follow in the footsteps of his sire, Eliza would certainly not go along with it. Anger rose in her. She didn’t know Darius well at all yet but she did know that his illegitimacy weighed down on his shoulders like the entire world rested on them. How could he behave in the same fashion and send another child to the fate he suffered?

  “Not his,” the maid said as she looked up.

  Eliza nearly sagged with relief but it was short-lived.

  “This here is his sister, I s’pose you could say, if’n you had to say it out loud.”

  “Sister?” Eliza breathed, her mind scrambling to keep up. “Wickham?”

  The maid nodded. “We can’t hide the child any longer. She isn’t safe under his roof.”

  “You are in his employ? The earl’s?”

  “Aye, the house is abuzz with the news of his bastard son come to torment him.”

  Eliza approached the maid, the smell strong, the baby’s lungs stronger. “Does she cry like this all the time?”

  “Not all the time. Do you know where Jonathan Meddington is?”

  “I do.”

  “Can you give hi
m the child?”

  “What do you propose he do with her?”

  “He can bleeding well take care of her. Someone has to.”

  “Where is her mother?”

  “Dead. Gone. Who knows? No one in that house has been paid in an age. Some of the staff is leaving; the rest is one foot out the door. We can’t keep her hidden or fed. If the earl gets a hold of little Sarah…”

  Eliza blanched at the intimation. “What would Wickham do? If he knew?”

  The maid shrugged. “It wouldn’t be the first bastard he’s had show up on his doorstep. Not really sure what happens to ’em but they never come back. ’Cept for Jonathan Meddington that is.”

  “How have you managed to hide her? For how long?”

  “Eight weeks give or take a day or three. Milady, I don’t have time to linger. I can’t pay the driver to wait round neither. Will you take the baby or do I leave her at the church in the village?”

  “Take the baby? Me?”

  “You’s the only one standing here.”

  Eliza was sick and tired of being put on the spot. Do this for this person and that for that person. She was heartily tired of it all. She wanted to march back into the house, up to her bedroom, close the door and lock everyone out for at least a week. But in order to do that, she would be condemning the baby to death, or worse, life with the staid vicar and his terrible shrew of a wife. What if Wickham saw the maid? Would he recognise her from his own household staff?

  It seemed she didn’t have to answer one way or another. The baby was placed in her arms, Eliza forced to hold on lest she drop her to the ground, and the bag placed at her feet. It was the only clean item in the whole mess, and then the scruffy maid was gone. Just like that. With Eliza standing in the drive, a wailing baby in her arms and Darius and his men nowhere to be seen, no help at all.