Least of all Reiner.
Yet if her brother and Domnall knew—they would come for her. She didn’t doubt that. But she’d left in such a storm of destruction with her words, she had to accept the fact that Reiner wouldn’t tell her brother a thing. No one would be coming.
Not until it was too late.
“Get in the boat, Duchess.” Bockton’s nasally voice slid with mockery around the word “duchess.”
Water sloshing about her feet, soaking her fine silk slippers, she lifted her leg and stepped into the rowboat in front of two disinterested sailors sitting at the oars. Unbalanced, the boat swayed with her movement and she flailed for a moment, falling until she grabbed onto the lip of the skiff to steady herself.
Within fifteen minutes, she was awkwardly ascending the ladder onto the smuggling ship waiting just offshore, attempting to keep the folds of her skirts tight to her legs so the two men beneath her didn’t get a view.
She stepped off the ladder onto the main deck of the ship and glanced about. Deckhands were scurrying about, heavy coils of rope unfurling, a constant barrage of orders and blasphemies filling the air around her. Not a one looked at her. Not a one paused a step, other than to push past her as they hauled rope and canvas. Bockton stood across the deck, talking to a stout man with a thick beard and a faded blue coat—the captain, she presumed.
Leaving the captain, Bockton walked across the deck toward her, dodging the busy sailors running to and fro. He stopped at the side of the ship, setting his thin fingers on the railing and looking out to the land. The tips of his long fingernails tapped on the wood. “Take a last look, Duchess, for this isle will never be yours again. You realize you can never return.”
“I can and I will. My family is here and I intend to return to them after some time.” Her head tilted to the side as she stared at his profile, refusing to look toward the land. The wide brim of his top hat sent a deep shadow across his ghostly skin. “But you—this is the last time you’ll be able to see your home. You realize you will be hunted, far and wide, for your crimes.”
“I don’t worry upon that.”
“Is it worth it? Your title will be stripped, your lands forfeit.”
“It is. My estate in Belgium will surround me with the finest luxuries until my dying days. Or my estate in the West Indies will do the same, though the heat is not to my liking. Either one is a far better fate than the crumbling abbey and the bone dry coffers I inherited with my title.”
Her lips pulled inward for a long moment. “You realize that the duke will find you, eventually. Even if you chose to be half a world away. He is not one to let a trespass slide.”
Bockton looked down at her. “The problem with Wolfbridge is that I never had anything to leverage against him were he to find out my identity. No vices. No bastard children. No suspect investments. I looked far and wide for something after that idiot Falsted entangled him in my business. But there has been nothing he cares about, save for that niece of his—not that I ever got the impression he cared much for the girl.”
Sloane winced. She’d said the very same thing to cover for how very important Vicky was, but to hear someone else speak the blasphemy cut her to the core. She knew how deeply Reiner loved Vicky. Like she was his own—because she was.
“But with you, Duchess—with you it’s clear in his eyes. Any fool could see that he is besotted in way that will be most detrimental to him.” A smirk curled the thin edges of his lips. “You are leverage, your grace. The best kind.”
“What do you mean, leverage?” Her right eyebrow lifted. “I came with you willingly. I ensured your escape as I said I would. Your use of me is over and we will part ways on the continent.”
“You can cease the farce, your grace.” His right hand stayed on the smooth wooden railing as he turned fully to her. “I know you don’t mean to ruin him—you never did. We are a long way from the continent and it will get tedious watching you maintain this charade of yours.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not.” He shook his head, the line of the shadow bobbing along his chin. “You almost had me convinced. I thought to believe you for a few hours. But your actions since leaving Wolfbridge have failed you. Constant glances over your shoulder. The worry on your face.” He exhaled an exaggerated sighed. “I should have taken the girl, as well, shouldn’t I?”
Her lips pulled into a tight line. “Probably. Having Vicky would have ensured you of anything you wanted from the duke. A full pardon from the crown. Riches so plentiful you wouldn’t ever have to scurry to the underbelly of the seas.” The full truth, because it didn’t matter now. The bastard was far away from Vicky and Wolfbridge. That was what mattered. “Though had you taken the girl he also would have hunted you down like the animal you are and killed you.”
The next breath she took fell easily into her lungs.
Relief. Finally.
An odd reprieve, free of should-haves and regrets. Free of the constant gnawing in her stomach over worry on Vicky and Reiner.
This ship was leaving as soon as the sails hoisted and there was nothing more she could do on it. By now, Reiner would have found Vicky and she would have told him what happened. What she had said. And he would never let her near him or Vicky again. Never.
Lord Bockton chuckled. “At last, we are at a shared understanding.”
Sloane shook her head. “I don’t ken that we are. You overestimate the leverage you think I am. For what I said about my niece, about my husband in her room—I am nothing to him now. A wife he will declare dead as soon as it is reasonable. A memory to be forgotten.”
“Yet I still need something from him.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowing. Hell. “The book?”
He inclined his head with a side smirk. “There are people in that ledger that I need to exonerate. To do that, I need the book destroyed.”
Sloane chuckled. “You do realize you’ll not get the book? Falsted wanted it as well to exonerate himself—maybe to ruin you with it for the sick games you two are playing with each other. But it will never be yours.”
“No?” Bockton’s mouth twisted in an odd line between a smirk and a frown. “Why not?”
“My husband doesn’t have it.”
“I know—I know you took it. My men sent a missive with that very message not but a day before they disappeared.”
“Those were your men?”
“Yes.” The slimy smile slithered back onto his face. “You think the dolt Falsted is smart enough to have you followed?” His long fingers tapped silently along the railing. “Tell me, how did my men disappear?”
“A bog ate them.”
He stilled for a long breath, then nodded. “Fitting. They were not the smartest men. And you did not give the book back to the duke?”
She shook her head. “But I can get you the book.” If this was how she was going to protect both Vicky and Reiner from Bockton ever setting designs on them again, she’d do it. She’d give him anything, including that blasted ledger.
“Hmm.” He stroked his chin for a long moment. “Yet I will not need the book if I kill you. It will mold and rot away in whatever place you’ve stashed it—long past the time anyone will care what evidence is in it.” He stepped closer, his thin fingers pulling along a rogue strand of hair at her temple that had fallen from her upsweep.
She jerked away from his touch.
“So what do you propose I do with you? A newly minted duchess, ripe for the taking. Why, you didn’t even get a wedding night. That is a shame.”
Bile snaked up her throat and she skewered him with all the hundreds of years of hatred her forefathers had borne upon Englishman such as him. “It doesn’t matter what you think to do with me. You’ll not hear me scream or cry or beg.” Her chin lifted, her look unwavering on him. “But I will resist. Do you truly want to chance taking on a Scottish woman well trained with a dagger—or a fork, or a cut of glass, or a shard of wood? I’m not particular abou
t my weapons and there are a thousand ways to kill you, Lord Bockton. All I need is one reason.”
A strained chuckle flew from his thin throat. “Or simply, my dear, I kill you first. I do have need to keep you, though, at least until we reach the shore of the continent. Then, then I think I shall leave you to my men. Most of them haven’t ever seen such a highborn lady—a duchess at that. Much less touched one.” A serpent smirk slid across his face. “Oh, the tales they will tell.”
She kept her chin high, belying the fact that her stomach had flipped and hardened into a churning rock threatening to make her heave.
“My lord—there be a skiff a’coming.” The captain of the ship approached them, pointing past Bockton’s shoulder to the water. “Did ye have more joinin’ the party before we set sail? We are ready.”
“A what?” Bockton’s eyebrows drew together as he eyed the captain.
“Two men, rowing out.” The captain pointed to the water between the ship and shore again.
Bockton spun to the water, his fingers gripping the railing.
Sloane followed suit, her look casual about the water until she saw the rowboat bob into view just past the stern of the ship.
Two men rowed with a fury, one on each oar with their backs to the ship.
The man on the left smaller. The one on the right, big, strong. Strong like…
Reiner.
A gasp flew from her lips and she gripped onto the railing, leaning out to see past the stern. The skiff was halfway to the ship. The man on the right glanced back over his shoulder.
Heaven to hell. It was Reiner.
Bockton chuckled next to her. “So he did come—you are the exact leverage I suspected you would be. But I think he’ll be much more useful alive—alive and knowing I have you.” He glanced to the captain. “Set sail.”
Bockton’s thin white cheek lifted as his look fell back down to the rowboat quickly skimming across the shallow waves. “Sails up before we have to kill him. I don’t know what the fool thinks to accomplish boarding a ship full of men ready to skewer him at my command.”
The sudden hope that had flared in her chest at seeing Reiner twisted, falling past the pit of her stomach. Reiner would be killed the second he set foot upon the deck.
Because of her.
She wasn’t about to let that happen.
In that moment, her intentions crystallized into a needlepoint of focus. He wouldn’t be killed. Not the man she loved. Not the man she would give up this earth for.
It took her less than a second to scan her surroundings and find a dagger hanging in a sheath off the waist of a deckhand six steps from her.
Without a sound, she turned and ran for him, yanking the dagger free as she knocked the two of them down. Arms and legs tangled, a litany of curses showered upon her as she found her feet.
One quick glance at Bockton. Amused, he chuckled at the scene.
Exactly as intended.
Let him think her a desperate, clumsy oaf.
Dagger in hand, hidden from his view, she stumbled a few steps on her feet facing the deckhand. Without looking over her shoulder, she slid the blade between her breasts, ripping downward through the bodice of her ball gown, tearing the fabric wide.
The deckhand’s jaw went slack, the cursing silent as confusion registered in his eyes. Confusion she saw reflected on Bockton’s face as she turned and ran toward the railing of the deck, ripping off her gown as she aimed for the railing.
Bockton saw her intention just as she set her hand upon the railing. Her gown only half off her body, it would have to do. She lifted herself over the railing just as Bockton lunged at her, his long fingernails scratching her arm. She flicked the blade in her hand outward, digging into his hand as she flew over the railing.
His scream pierced the air above her.
For one glorious second, she was free.
Just her and the air around her.
Free.
She hit the water hard, feet first. The shattering pain shooting up her legs stole her breath just as the sea swallowed her.
Her skirts heavy, pulling her downward, she sawed at the fabric pulling her away from the air. Away from the sunlight. Away from Reiner.
Now she had to survive.
~~~
“Row man. Row.” Reiner’s holler at Falsted cut above the churning of the sea with the furious pace he’d set with his own oar. “Faster. Faster. Faster.” He looked over his shoulder at the ship. He could see Sloane’s head above the top railing of the deck.
Sloane and Bockton.
A surge of fury poured through his veins and he pulled the oar with the strength of a hundred Vikings. “Faster, I said.”
“I’m an old man.”
“You’ll be a bloody dead man if you don’t keep pace. Faster.”
Falsted looked over his shoulder at the ship they were closing in upon. “What?” He stopped rowing.
Reiner spun around.
Twisting backward just in time to see Sloane drop into the sea, feet first.
His world, his breath, his soul stopped.
One second passed. Two. Three.
She didn’t resurface.
“She’s gone,” Falsted whispered. “That gown is dragging her to depths as we speak.”
Falsted’s voice yanked Reiner out of his shock.
He jumped to his feet, sending the small boat rocking. Yanking off his waistcoat, shirt and boots, he checked to make sure his dagger was secured with the strap about his calf so he could cut the dress free from her body. “She’s not gone. And you better follow me and be ready to pull her from the water when I get her or this is your last day on earth, Falsted.”
Falsted nodded, shifting to the center of the bench and taking both oars.
Reiner dove in.
His arms swung as brutally hard as they could through the water, his legs spiriting him fast along the waves. But not fast enough. His damn trousers were slowing him. In between strokes, he ripped free the false front, kicking out of them.
Closing in on the ship, he dove under the surface, the salt water stinging his eyes as he searched.
Up. Up for air.
Down. Down again, as far as his lungs would allow. Searching. Searching to where the sunlight dissipated into darkness.
Then he saw it. Pink. A flash of pink.
Pain seared his lungs, threatening to explode them as he went deeper. Stretching out. Pink fabric within his fingertips.
He yanked on the cloth. But it was free. Floating. No Sloane.
He spun. Spun in the water again and again, his eyes searching.
Sloane.
Sloane floating, suspended, her arms wide. Not sinking, not rising. Not moving.
Just as his lungs were about to burst, he reached her, grabbing her arm and stretching upward toward the light. Toward the air.
He broke free of the surface, his mouth open and gasping before he was into clear air. Yanking Sloane above the surface, he waited for her to choke in a breath.
Nothing.
His head swiveled, not seeing the rowboat.
Damn the bastard.
“Here. Here,” Falsted called out from behind him.
Five hard strokes and Reiner dragged Sloane to the skiff.
Falsted dangled over the side, ready to grab Sloane’s arms. With a heave, he pulled her dead weight upward, but her wet wrists slipped from his grasp. He lost his balance, falling into the boat, and her body fell back down onto Reiner.
“Grab her under her arms—yank her up hard,” Reiner ordered.
Falsted scurried over the side again, setting his grip under her arms, and he jerked her upward with a grunt. But she slipped from Falsted’s grasp again and he flew backward, landing hard on the bottom of the skiff. For a moment, her body teetered on the lip of the boat until the top of her slunk forward and she dropped hard, the edge of the boat kicking a straight line into her gut.
Blasted weakling. Not entirely successful—but successful enough that Sloane di
dn’t fall back into the water. Reiner wrapped a hand along her thigh, holding the bulk of her weight up past the edge so she didn’t slip down into the water again.
A cough.
Gagging.
Her body convulsed and water hurled from her lungs into the boat.
The sweetest sound Reiner had ever heard in his life.
He reached up and gripped the lip of the skiff and yanked himself upward. He had to see it, had to see her moving before he could do anything else.
Still draped over the side of the boat like a wet rag, her body writhed, expelling surge after surge of the sea from her lungs and stomach.
He glanced at Falsted, still on the bottom of the boat on the opposite side of them. “Stay there—counterbalance.”
Falsted nodded and Reiner pulled himself up and over the edge of the boat. He sat on the front bench beside Sloane, his hand splaying on her back, almost afraid to touch her. Afraid if he moved her from the spot she was in all the water in her lungs would stay in place and drown her fully.
Six more heaves, and her body stilled, her breath panting.
Normal enough for him.
Reiner grabbed her fully, pulling her into the boat and onto his lap. His arms wrapped around her, tucking her under his chin, clutching her to him. Clutching her away from death and back to the living.
Falsted scrambled to the oars, sitting with his back to them as he worked them toward the shore.
Reiner looked past Falsted’s head to the ship, noting the scrolled name adorning the rear of the ship. The Minerva. “Does Bockton look to come after us? Did any come down on boats in pursuit?”
“No. The sails have already caught wind.” Falsted shook his head, not turning to look at Reiner. “He’s more intent on making it out to sea before the Royal Navy catches the ship. If he doesn’t get to the continent, he’s done for.”
Reiner grunted. For as much as he wanted to crush Bockton into the cold ground, he couldn’t do a thing about it in his present state. That would have to wait until another day.
“You’re naked.” Sloane’s voice, small and scratchy, wafted up to him.
He pulled his head back and looked down at her. Her blue eyes were wide and clear. A breath he didn’t know he held escaped him. “And you’re nearly naked in your chemise.”
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