Barbarous

by Minerva Spencer

  Daphne’s mind raced, recalling all the times Rowena had railed against Hugh, detailing what an evil man he was. She shook her head, but that did nothing to dispel the thoughts.

  “She must be unbalanced.”

  “She sounded sane when she confessed. I think she was just doing the best she could to protect you and the boys. She feels nothing but remorse.”

  Daphne had no idea what to say. None.

  Hugh pulled her down until he could bite her lightly on the chin. “Have you lost your voice, my dear? Do I need to find some way to help you locate it again?” He raised his eyebrows suggestively, his other hand moving to the apex of her thighs, his hips flexing beneath her. Only now did Daphne realize what she was straddling.

  “How can you jest about such a thing?” Daphne demanded. She gasped when his fingers slid into her curls.

  “Oh, I’m very serious about this, I assure you.”

  Daphne gritted her teeth at the bolt of intense pleasure his finger incited and gathered every bit of strength in her body to put her hand on his forearm. “Hugh.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Will you look at me, please? My face,” she amended when he continued to stare at the place between her thighs.

  He looked up, a dreamy smile on his face. “Yes, darling?”

  “You are very good at distracting me.”

  “I intend to practice and get better.” She frowned and he pulled back his hand, his expression instantly—but not convincingly—meek. “But I can see that now is not the time—you have something you’d like to say, my dear?”

  “Will you tell me what happened to your eye?” She steeled herself for the look of cold menace he’d worn the last time they’d spoken of his eye.

  But he just smiled. “Of course I will tell you, darling. I did not mean that it should be a subject of mystery between us.” He reached back and stuffed a pillow beneath his head and then lay back, his hand absently stroking her knee. “The maiming itself was unpleasant but the circumstances surrounding it were worse.” His eyes flickered to hers. “I’ll have to tell you a bit of a story so it will make sense.”

  Daphne nodded.

  “Several months into my captivity I devised a plan of escape. I included in my scheme several other prisoners with whom I’d formed a type of brotherhood.” He paused, his expression pensive. “The experience of slavery is difficult to explain to one who has not known it firsthand. Suffice it to say the sensation of being owned and having no power is so engulfing it is often easy to forget you are anything other than a possession. The effect over time is debilitating and some men lose the battle against their transformation to chattel.” He gave her a grim look. “It was the look in those men’s eyes that scared me. I swore I would wage war to avoid becoming one of those men.

  “The first skirmish in that war was to make the association of like-minded men who would support each other when the despair descended, which it often did.” A muscle jumped in his temple and Daphne felt a pang of guilt for opening this door. But it was too late to close it now.

  “There were ten of us, a group small enough in number to avoid too much notice but large enough that we could temporarily crew a ship if we were lucky enough to escape. It took several months of painstaking work to develop our plan. We were very close to making our move when, without any warning, nine of us were seized and dragged to the sultan’s dungeon.

  “One of our number was not present—a half-English, half-French sailor named Emile Calitain.”

  Daphne felt a chill.

  “Calitain had been a slave for perhaps a year longer than I. When he did not appear with the rest of us, I believed he’d fought against our captors and been killed. Unfortunately that was not the case.”

  Hugh’s face was once again a mask of fury but at least he displayed none of the killing rage he’d displayed while choking the life out of Malcolm or fighting Calitain. His anger now seemed less . . . consuming.

  “As luck would have it—bad luck—Faisal Barbarossa, the same man who’d captured me, was in port. Barbarossa was a cousin of the sultan, and when he learned about the escape plan and my part in it, he was more than happy to use his considerable skills to get the truth from us.”

  Daphne didn’t want to ask, but if she didn’t, this history would continue to stand between them. “Skills?”

  Hugh stared up at her, arrested by the word. He swallowed several times, hard enough that she could hear it.

  Daphne laid a hand gently on his chest, which was rising and falling faster. “We do not need to speak of this.”

  “Yes.” He inhaled deeply and expelled the breath. “We do. I don’t wish to keep things from you, my love, but neither do I wish to sully your mind with the depths to which men will sink—not that you haven’t already experienced the worst of it, yourself.” His jaw was so tight it hurt just looking at him. “They wanted to know who was involved and who was helping on the outside. I had shared the plan with our group, but the guard whose family was helping us—well, only me, Delacroix, and a very old Portuguese man named Alto knew the guard’s name.”

  Daphne realized his forehead and neck had become sheened with sweat.

  “They tortured us all together, forcing the others to watch.” He gave a bitter laugh. “It was an incentive and it would eventually pay off.” His hand tightened until it hurt and his eyes blazed with hate, fury, pain. “The things they did to us—” His gaze flickered to Daphne. “You know better than most what some men will do when they exercise utter dominion over another human being.”

  Daphne cocked her head and squinted, for a moment unsure of what he meant. And then the truth came like an avalanche, crushing the air from her chest, the thoughts from her head, until she was pinioned, the horror of what he’d endured as heavy as a mountain of stone.

  As Daphne stared into his cold, hard face, she understood his earlier fury at what Malcolm had done to her. It had been the outrage and anger any decent man would exhibit at such news—but it had also been the murderous wrath of a fellow victim.

  Oh, Hugh.

  “I don’t know how many days it lasted. I lost consciousness more than once during the ordeal. It was after a particularly gruesome interlude with our torturers, an episode which four of our number did not survive, that Calitain entered our chamber of horrors.” His lips twisted. “No, he was not dragged in bleeding and in chains. His fat, rosy face was, in fact, the very picture of health and his new clothing proclaimed him to be a sailor, rather than a slave—a member of the Barbarossa’s crew, to be precise. It seemed one man’s decline—or nine men in this case—was another man’s means of ascension. Calitain bought his way out of slavery using his friends as currency.” His expression was both stricken and confused, as if he still couldn’t believe the betrayal. His eyes became glassy. “This man had been like a brother to me, Daphne. Like a brother!”

  Daphne squeezed his hand and he gave her the corpse of a smile. “Even in my reduced condition, the sight of his well-fed face incited me into a lamentably animalistic state. By the time they pried me off him, he was minus an earlobe.” He shrugged. “It was better than nothing, but it wasn’t nearly enough to make up for the loss of my friends.”

  Tears ran down her face; hot, tiny rivers Daphne wished could carry away his pain.

  “Barbarossa took my eye and told the others he would continue taking eyes until those of us who were left were blind. I was not surprised when Alto broke down.” He shrugged. “I couldn’t blame the old man, he’d suffered the punishments of the damned. The Barbarossa killed him anyhow.” He exhaled a long, slow stream of air from between pursed lips.

  “The three of us who remained—me, Delacroix, and a Hessian named Wüstenfalke—were thrown back into the cells. Without their help I would have lost more than an eye. Delacroix stitched me up as best as he could and saw me through a fever that would have taken my life. While Delacroix doctored me, Wüstenfalke did most of my work because the sultan expected us to keep working, no matter
that we were half-dead.” Hugh snorted. “Babba Hassan had a palanquin bring him out to the pits especially to watch me work.”

  Daphne shook her head. “Why? Why did he hate you so much?” It was a question she’d wanted to ask ever since he’d told her about the ransom and how the sultan had lied.

  “I brought it on myself, of course. You see, I was foolish when I was captured, and fought—taking any opportunity to resist. During one of those fights I killed two men—one happened to be a younger brother of the sultan.” He gave a humorless laugh. “The sultan never forgave me. Not because he cared about the man—in fact, Babba Hassan had been systematically killing off his male relatives for years, just in case they might challenge him. No, he punished me because I was a slave who’d had the audacity to attack one of his masters.” He shoved his hand through his hair and Daphne saw it was shaking. “That kind of defiance set a bad precedent. He could never reward me by letting me go free—no matter how much ransom money my uncle’s agent offered.”

  Daphne’s mind reeled at the sheer violence the man before her had undergone.

  Hugh stared up at her, his expression oddly taut. “Have I frightened you away?”

  She took his face in her hands. “You silly man. You could never frighten me away. I’m afraid you are stuck with me forever.” She kissed his mouth. “I adore you, Hugh. I can’t wait to fetch the boys home and begin our life together.” She kissed the tip of his nose. “I’ll be happy if I don’t see London or a society invitation for a decade.” She kissed his chin. “I can’t wait to be your wife.”

  Hugh cleared his throat almost nervously. “Uh, I’m glad to hear that.”

  Daphne pulled back and stared at him. “What is it? Why are you looking like that?”

  He opened his mouth. And then closed it.

  Daphne frowned. “Hugh, you are worrying me. What is it?”

  He laid his hands over hers and squeezed gently. “Oh, it’s nothing to be worried about. Or, at least, not very much. It’s, er, about the wedding.”

  “The wedding?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Our wedding?”

  He gave her a smile that was more of a grimace. “Yes, that would be the one.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Well, it appears my Aunt Letitia is in charge of organizing it.”

  Daphne dropped her hands and sat back. “Oh?” She shrugged. “Well, that is probably best as I have neither the interest nor skill to organize even a small wedding.”

  “Ah, that’s the thing.”

  “What thing?”

  “It isn’t going to be a small wedding.”

  “It isn’t?”

  He shook his head.

  Daphne had a sinking sensation in her stomach. “How big?”

  “Big.”

  “Oh, Hugh, why? It will take ages and ages and will be absolutely agonizing, even worse than a ball.”

  He wrapped her in his arms. “I know, I know. It’s wretched, but Aunt Letitia says it is what must happen if we are to salvage matters.”

  “But it will mean more time in London.” Her words were muffled against his chest. “How long?”

  Hugh kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know, I told Aunt Letitia that was her decision.” He paused. “It’s not for us, Daphne. It’s for the boys.”

  She pulled back and pushed her hair from her face, which was coloring.

  “Why are you blushing, sweetheart?”

  “Because I’m ashamed.”

  “But why?”

  “Because I’m so selfish—I was only thinking of myself and not the boys. Or you.”

  He grinned up at her. “You should be ashamed, darling. I have an excellent idea of how you can make it up to me.”

  Daphne choked on a laugh. “You are so wicked.”

  He nodded, his eyelids drooping low. “Why don’t you come down here and let me show you just how wicked I can be?”

  And so she did.

  Epilogue

  London, sometime later ...

  Hugh leaned back in the carriage as it pulled away from Thornehill House, sighing with contentment as he wrapped his arm around Daphne and pulled her close.

  “Well, thank God that is done.” He glanced down at his wife. “I had no idea Aunt Letitia would pull a bishop out of her hat to marry us. Did you?”

  She smiled tightly. “Yes, I knew about the bishop and the three hundred and fifty guests we just left behind at our wedding breakfast. I knew about all of it and more. Have you forgotten that I was forced to discuss nothing but gowns and lace and menus and—”

  Hugh kissed her. “Are you trying to say that you’ve missed me, my dear?”

  Daphne growled and Hugh knew she still hadn’t forgiven him for allowing his domineering aunt to have her way with their wedding.

  Lady Letitia had been more serious about the scope, scale, and grandeur of the wedding than Hugh had believed. She’d actually appeared at Lessing Hall in person the day after Hugh’s encounter with Calitain. She’d given Daphne a mere afternoon to pack and had spirited her away to London, where they would collect the boys and then head to Lady Letitia’s country estate, leaving Hugh all alone at Lessing Hall. She had then refused to allow the two of them to spend even a night under the same roof until they were properly leg-shackled, as she termed it.

  Hugh lifted Daphne’s chin toward him, feeling the tightening in his groin that occurred every time he looked into her hooded blue eyes. Or at any other part of her.

  “Did the boys enjoy getting to know all their cousins and aunts and uncles?” He bit back a grin at her narrowing eyes. “Did you enjoy your holiday, my dear?”

  She made an unladylike noise. “Months spent planning a wedding at your Aunt Letitia’s country house was not as harrowing as watching you engage in deadly swordplay, but it is a close second.” She cut him an arch look. “But we have all the time in the world to discuss how you managed to escape such torture.”

  Hugh winced.

  Her stern expression melted slowly into one of her serious smiles. “But not on our wedding day.” She sighed. “I am very glad it is behind us. I will be even happier when we can return to Lessing Hall. I’ve had quite enough of my first Season.”

  “What?” Hugh demanded in mock surprise. “How can you wish to leave the scene of your greatest triumph? Haven’t you read the papers, my love? You managed to snap up the King’s Privateer, by God! The man every matchmaking mamma called the Catch of the Season. No, wait—” He paused and pensively stroked his chin. “I believe I was actually called the Catch of the Decade in several newspapers.”

  “Yes, I read that article—it was right beneath the one about a man from Newington Butts who claims to have created a perpetual motion machine.”

  Hugh paused, arrested. “And did he?”

  Daphne rolled her eyes.

  Hugh continued, undaunted. “You can’t wish to leave London so soon. Don’t you want to flaunt me before all your competitors and gloat while they gnash their teeth in frustrated anguish?”

  She stifled a giant yawn with one white-gloved hand.

  Hugh threw back his head and laughed. “You are demolishing my self-esteem,” he accused, pulling her onto his lap and attempting to peer down the bodice of her pretty blue gown. “Why is it that I have the strongest urge to wreck another of your garments, Lady Ramsay?” He leaned low to lick the top of one breast. He could not seem to get close enough to her; the urge to be wrapped around her body and inside her was all consuming. She giggled at his nuzzling and Hugh pulled back in shock.

  “Did my scholarly wife just giggle?” He held her at arm’s length and stared in stunned surprise.

  “Absolutely not.” She tipped her chin so he could continue his kissing of her neck. “I’ve never giggled in my life.”

  “I should hope not,” he murmured, dragging his tongue across the hollow at the base of her throat before pausing at her collarbone, molding his lips over the delicate skin. “If the
re is to be any giggling done in this family, I believe I should be the one to do it. You have no experience in that area, while my giggling is legendary.” He slid a finger beneath her bodice and pulled it down so he could more easily explore with his tongue.

  Daphne moaned and wiggled deeper into his lap.

  “Good God!” he muttered as she ground against his aching organ. “I feel like I’ve already waited a lifetime. I fear I cannot wait until we get home,” Hugh confessed, reaching for the hem of her gown and running his hand up one leg as he pushed her bodice down further.

  “We are less than two minutes from home,” she murmured, her words utterly lacking in conviction.

  “Too long.”

  “Mmm,” she breathed, her hand moving down his chest to his tight breeches, feeling the truth of what he said for herself. “I should say just long enough.”

  “Lady Ramsay!”

  Daphne gave a low chuckle. “I have not made love in a carriage before, my lord.” She traced the length of him while her other hand unfastened the buttons of his breeches.

  “I know how much you enjoy research,” Hugh said hoarsely. He rapped on the roof and when the vent opened he shouted, “Once around the park!” He lowered his mouth to her rumpled bodice to resume his exploration. “Now, where was I?”

  “Only once around the park, my lord?” Daphne nibbled at his earlobe and slid her hand around him.

  “Twice around the park!” he bellowed, his voice cracking as her hand began to move.

  This time he was positive he heard her giggle.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Hugh and Daphne’s marriage would have been forbidden by the 1560 Table of Kindred and Affinity.

  Laws of consanguinity were ecclesiastical laws, not English Common Law, that were created to prevent marriage among blood relations. The definition of a blood relationship was much stricter in 1811 and marriage was believed to create an actual blood-relationship in the eyes of the church. So a woman who married a man’s brother became that man’s sister in blood under ecclesiastical law.