The Slide Into Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  Even if she did return to England to see Nathanial proudly take his rightful place in society and history, she would never leave the country. She would never see the capital or dance at a ball. She had already been a social pariah due to scandal. Now she was a bastard’s wife. An ex-pirate’s lover. A good man’s friend.

  She had begun to think that perhaps being Darius’s wife wasn’t the prison sentence she had first seen it as. She had begun to think something in her life was going the way it was meant to, but then reality had crashed down upon her. Her bars weren’t made of iron and her cell was to be a beautiful great house of his family heritage. But she would remain a prisoner. Of her heart. Of circumstance. She would be free to roam the grounds of this house and her brother’s when it was rebuilt, but she could never show her face in polite society.

  That wasn’t the part that worried her the most. What if the bride her brother chose, a bride above reproach and not bathed in scandal, rejected Eliza from their lives and from their children’s lives? Once a lady, the daughter of a duke, now married to a bastard and ex-pirate. No one would forget. No one would forgive.

  Perhaps it would be better if she never returned? It wasn’t the first time she’d thought about it. What difference would there be to her husband if she remained in America? Perhaps he could buy her a small cottage, or the American equivalent, and she could do what he did? Start again in a place where no one cared where you came from or what titles you did or didn’t have?

  A little excitement crept its way in as she closed her eyes and considered the opportunities that awaited. Only a few more days and Darius’s ship would be ready to set sail. They would be safe; the children would be safe. Sarah would have escaped the clutches of her evil father. Eliza didn’t pretend for one moment that theirs would be an easy journey or that there wouldn’t be troubles along the way. After all, they would only have a few months in America and then Nathanial would need to return to take the title.

  But could he return without her? Did he really need her to help him or had it been that Eliza needed to be needed so she had something to do, something to look forward to in her future? It was a possibility that a different type of future beckoned. Her chest swelled with her breath. She would speak to Darius about it on their journey and gauge his reaction.

  Darius risked it all for them with little return. She still had to wonder why. He’d kept telling her he was no knight but his actions to date had been honourable and just. He was leaving the country without his fortune, without his father’s portion of a debt and only half of her own father’s. It took a good man indeed to forgive those kinds of notes and simply walk away.

  Who would have thought the pirate in the equation could have turned out to be the gentleman after all? She chuckled to herself but then a scuff of a boot near her head made her snap her eyes open and look up.

  “Oh, Ethan, you scared me.”

  Her little brother looked troubled as he stared down at her, his head on an angle so he could see her face. “What are you doing?”

  She smiled to show she was perfectly fine before answering, “Sarah and I are dreaming of spring.”

  “But you’re lying on the floor. Ladies don’t lie down on the floor.”

  She wanted to correct him and tell him she was no longer a lady but it was difficult for him to understand. She rolled out from beneath the tree, scooped up the baby and got to her feet. “You’re right, little brother, ladies do not lie about on the floor. I just wanted to make sure all of the decorations were perfectly in the right places.”

  His one raised brow told her he thought she’d lost her mind but then he nodded and seemed to accept her ridiculous explanation. The truth was she enjoyed the smell of the pine, the peacefulness of the canopy of branches with only the call of the birds to pierce the silence. The pine forest was her favourite place to wile away the hours and usually took her worries away but with a fresh layer of snow falling overnight, Eliza wouldn’t dare step foot into the plantation let alone lie down out there.

  “Why aren’t you with the girls?” Eliza asked him.

  “They won’t stop talking about Sarah and how cute she is. Why would they think she is so cute when all she does is cry? It hurts my ears!”

  “You cried like that when you were a baby, Ethan.”

  “I bet I wasn’t as loud as her.”

  Eliza suppressed a laugh. “You were much worse.”

  His little green eyes went wide. “I was worse? How’d you put up with me?”

  This time Eliza did laugh. “You had your good times when you didn’t cry, just like Sarah. When you smiled and giggled, it made all the cries seem not so bad.”

  “I never giggled,” he said indignantly, his tiny fists on his hips. “I am a man and men don’t giggle.”

  Trying hard to school her features, Eliza nodded, attempted to appear very serious. “Of course, my apologies. Men indeed do not giggle.”

  “Do you think one day I will be as big as Darius? Or Marcus?”

  “Do you really want to be that big?” Eliza asked as though the men were mythical giants and not mere mortals.

  Ethan nodded until she thought he might hurt his neck. “They are strong and can lift just about anything. Plus, they get to do whatever they want whenever they want to do it. When will I be an adult?”

  She was saved further replies or attempts at hiding her bemusement when Darius walked into the room. “Being an adult does not make you a man,” he told Ethan. “Coming of age has nothing to do with any of it.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  Her heart nearly broke at the tone and the adoration on her little brother’s face. He hung on every word as though Darius was indeed a god.

  “Your actions make you a man. Your honour helps too.”

  Ethan considered his words carefully before replying. “So if I do something honourable, I will already be a man?”

  Darius gave him half a nod and reached out his hands to take Sarah from her arms. “It would be the best place to start.”

  When their eyes met over a light brown head bent in concentration, Eliza mouthed a thank you to her husband. When he winked in return, her insides became molten and her cheeks warmed. It was a harmless gesture yet she grew hot and bothered over it. Months confined on a ship together were going to be hard work if she couldn’t control her feelings both inside and out.

  “Are you finished packing?” Darius asked Ethan.

  He nodded. “I don’t have nothing to pack.”

  “Anything to pack,” Eliza gently admonished. It had taken only a few hours to fold ancient gowns into trunks and to gather what little they had fled their crumbling home with. Between the five Penfolds, they had only two trunks and a carpetbag containing the Christmas gifts Eliza was to give out halfway to America or earlier if the tediousness of the trip became too much for her siblings to bear. They’d never been in a carriage for hours on end. Never been cooped up on a ship with nowhere to get away from each other. At least at their home, they’d had the run of the house and the grounds to escape to.

  Darius had told her the boys could run the decks of his ship as long as they listened to his men and kept largely out of the way. She appreciated that. In one of the trunks, Eliza had packed away embroidery threads and fabrics for the girls to spend the endless hours. She couldn’t have been any more prepared than she was. For Sarah, they had found a case of wooden toys painted in bright colours and had loaded them on the carriage too. The trip would be slow but with determination, they would make it to the boat yard and then the waves beyond.

  Gabriella soon joined them in the parlour, along with Grace and Nathanial. All were dressed warmly and comfortably from what they had found in the attics and remade. Both Gabriella and Eliza herself wore gowns made of bombazine outers and woollen unders. There must have been a mourning period for a past countess in the dead of winter. Gabriella wore the black, faded a little but otherwise in great condition; Eliza wore a dark lavender trimmed with grey. The bust and wa
istlines were odd but apart from those details, they were warm and suitable for travel.

  Drawing a deep breath and folding her suddenly clammy hands in the seams of her skirts, Eliza ushered everyone out the door. “If we don’t leave now, we’ll never make it.”

  Darius followed, one hand at the small of Eliza’s back, his strength giving her strength through the simple touch.

  From the front of the house, wheels crunched on gravel and Eliza’s anxiety heightened. Were they doing the right thing? By it being the only option—to flee—was it the right option?

  By the time they’d all passed through the front doors, Eliza’s attention was hauled away from their dilemma and dropped straight into another.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “Well, well, what a cosy little scene this makes.” Wickham’s voice carried across the drive as he emerged from a conveyance that had just drawn up. Eliza assumed the crunching of gravel was the carriage they were to take to London.

  Darius came to stand in front of Eliza and her brothers and sisters, his men drawing weapons, swords and guns, to be at the ready.

  Wickham didn’t appear fazed in the least. He jumped heavily to the ground and then straightened his crimson waistcoat beneath his coat in a dramatic flair to fashion as though any still existed in their little part of the world.

  “You caught us on the way out,” Darius said by way of greeting. “I’m afraid we haven’t the time for fisticuffs today.”

  Wickham startled them all when he began to laugh. He didn’t speak though, only stepped aside for another portly gentleman to alight the carriage, followed by two ruffians, one with a decided limp and wince when he hit the ground.

  Wes approached and said to Darius in a low voice, “Looks like them two we shot at after the windows last week.”

  Darius acknowledged him with a nod but didn’t take his eyes off the four currently blocking their way. Eliza didn’t like the situation one bit. “Back to the house,” she said to the children.

  Before they could do more than turn, Wickham called out again. “There’s no need for that, Miss Penfold. You don’t have to stay with this cur—” he indicated Darius with one pointed finger “—any longer. Your guardian has been found.”

  “Our guardian?” Eliza said in a voice that gladly didn’t betray the way her heart sped up as her blood roared in her ears. She hadn’t fainted in days but she felt the world spin a little at his words. “My father is our guardian.”

  Wickham shook his head. “Your father died, probably by the dog’s hands.” He indicated Darius again. “It is time you knew the truth about your father’s whereabouts.”

  “Our father is gravely ill but he isn’t dead yet,” Eliza said with as much grace as she could muster.

  “Is that what this pirate told you?” Wickham accused, coming closer, the other gentleman at his side, silent as a rock though he took everything in, including her reactions and Darius’s. His eyes dropped to Sarah and Darius turned the baby back towards himself, shielding her.

  “I had nothing to do with any man’s death here,” Darius said, relieving her of trying to form a reply. “In fact, I am conveying the children to their father right now.”

  Wickham barked a disbelieving laugh. “Just yesterday, you told my son that the duke was at your residence recuperating.”

  “He left a few hours before us,” Darius grated out.

  “Seems to travel about a lot for a man on his deathbed.” After these words, Wickham turned to the man at his side. “What say you about all of this, Sir Percival?”

  Eliza hadn’t recognised the man before but now she saw the difference a few years had made to the shire’s magistrate. He had aged twenty years and was double the man he had been when Eliza had last seen him.

  Stepping around Darius, Eliza approached and dropped a low curtsy, appealing to the man’s sense of propriety if nothing else. “Sir Percival, how lovely to see you again.”

  He gave her a short nod but didn’t bow in return. “Miss Penfold.”

  He insulted her station but then Eliza had become used to that after the scandal. She didn’t bristle or step away. “Surely you aren’t entertaining the notion that my father has passed? We would have notified you of his death immediately.”

  He looked down his long fat nose at her but then shook his head. “I’m sure you would have, had you known the duke had been murdered.”

  “Murdered?” she repeated with a shaky laugh. “Goodness, what tales has Wickham been sharing with you?”

  “Not tales, miss, truths. About this pirate and, pardon me for being the one to say it out loud, your brother.”

  Eliza stepped back. “Nathanial has nothing to do with any of this.”

  Wickham chose that moment to laugh again, the maniacal sound already so filled with triumph, she almost sagged in defeat. When he reached back into the carriage and withdrew a black velvet sack, Eliza returned to Darius’s side to stand between her husband and her brother.

  No one breathed in the time it took for Wickham to loosen the ties on the bag but everyone made a sound when he withdrew what looked to be half a blackened skull. Eliza’s stomach dropped and when Ethan squealed and tucked himself into the back of her skirts, she knew they were all doomed. It had only been a matter of time.

  The past two weeks, the past three months, the paying of the creditors, the forging of notes, the constant terror, was all about to be undone. Even Darius, her dragon slayer, would not be able to protect any of them from what was about to happen. Gabriella would go directly to The Tower, Eliza would be transported, Grace would be at Wickham’s mercies and God knew what would happen to her brothers. They would probably hang Nathanial by the end of the day.

  Her courage faltered, her will crumbled and her world came crashing down.

  *

  Darius didn’t know what he’d do if Eliza fainted but as Nathanial gathered closer by her side, he felt a tiny measure of relief. A prickling of warning had been climbing his spine ever since they’d walked out the door but now it was an almost painful pounding at his temple. And they were sitting ducks. Out there in the open with very little in the way of defences besides their weapons. He was holding his baby sister for God’s sake.

  “What’s say we let the women go back inside while we discuss this like gentleman,” Darius suggested, shifting Sarah in his arms, ready to pass her to Eliza to take back into the house.

  The action drew Wickham’s attention. His sire narrowed his eyes. “You dare have these innocent ladies in your home while you tout your bastard before their eyes?”

  Darius hesitated before he answered. “We all have our crosses to bear, don’t we, Father?” He wanted to call his father out on his womanising and leaving bastards in his wake but for the sake of Sarah, he bit down on the end of his tongue and only made sure the magistrate was aware of their familial connection.

  “Father?” Sir Percival muttered. Not aware then. Darius almost smiled. Almost.

  Wickham was fast to defend himself with lies. “His mother accused me of being his father but whores do lie.”

  All three Penfold girls gasped at the crudity of the conversation and Sir Percival shook his head in admonishment. “I must say, this is all too strange for the likes of me. What have you drawn me into, Wickham?”

  “As we discussed, the children’s father is dead and they need to be rescued from the hands of this pirate before their good virtues are called into question.”

  Sir Percival’s eyes stopped on Eliza and he raised a brow. She straightened her spine and stared right back, nearly daring him to comment out loud.

  Darius stepped in front of her once again. “This is not conversation for the gently bred. Either say what you have come to say or let me convey these children to their father.”

  Wickham roared with anger and held the half skull up in his hand. “This was their father.”

  “Can you prove it?” Darius asked. He made a show of searching behind the men before fixing his attention
on the lawman. “Harold isn’t here. Are you sure Wickham didn’t murder his own son to conjure coincidental evidence?”

  Percival didn’t look at all convinced about that tale but Darius could tell the man was stuck between the warring factions and had no idea how to proceed.

  Wickham spoke again. “Harold is weak. He decided to stay at the inn. At least let me take the children in, since I am their legal guardian, until the duke returns. It is our Christian duty to ensure they are safe from harm.”

  “You are not our guardian,” Nathanial said, finally finding his voice. He even sounded like gentry when he spoke. “Our father will be waiting for us in London and he won’t be happy that we have been held up by these lies.”

  “Harold saw you digging up your father’s body in the snow, he saw the bastard set the light to the timbers himself and then dug out what was left from the ashes.”

  “A convenient story,” Darius said, “but the word of a gambling wastrel can hardly be believed. He probably made up the story to disguise his own actions in failing to take Eliza by force.”

  Percival spluttered before snapping his gaze back to Eliza. “What? What did he say?”

  Darius stepped forward with a pointed finger of his own. “Ask these two men here, the earl’s men, what happened the day they came to the house to shoot out the windows and kidnap the children. The bullet in that one’s backside will tell that story.”

  “Oy now, we aren’t ’is men,” one complained.

  “And we was protecting the women from your men. They was about to break the windows themselves. We was just helping out. Not our fault they shot first and we had to shoot back.”

  Eliza’s hissed exhalation at his back was the last thing he wanted to hear. Actually the last thing he wanted to hear was the men telling the truth about what happened that day. He kicked himself that he’d brought the fiasco up.

  “What are they talking about, Darius?”

  “They are mistaken in their recounting of the facts,” he tried to tell her over his shoulder while his real enemy lay like vipers before him.