The Road to Ruin Read online

  “Let me see then.”

  She’d left her petticoats on so she wasn’t worried about him seeing more than he should. When she’d spoken of nakedness, she had only been trying to irk him into backing down about her scratch. It did not need this level of attention. Even the time she had stepped on her own dagger by accident it hadn’t warranted this level of concern.

  “That is more than a scratch,” he commented upon seeing the scrape on her side.

  “It is not.” She tried to pull the dress back on, having fulfilled her part of the bargain they had struck, but he had other ideas.

  “You need to remove this.” He tugged on the linen of her shift, moving her entire torso. “The area must be cleaned properly.”

  “I will be fine.”

  “I am not asking you, Daniella. Take it off.”

  “No.”

  Trelissick’s nostrils flared and Daniella almost backed away from the sound his teeth made as they ground together.

  “We can do this the difficult way, or you can make it easy for yourself and remove it,” he said.

  “I won’t do it. It isn’t decent.”

  “Not decent? You wouldn’t know decent if it bit you on the buttocks. Take it off now, or I will do it for you.”

  She hadn’t noticed her discarded dagger in his hands. Not for one second did she doubt he would cut her out of her dress. Her new dress, and the only one she had left. She didn’t hurry but she did remove the dress. “I’ll need a blanket.”

  Since they sat on the same seat, Trelissick leaned forwards and removed a blanket from beneath the seat where she had sat all day. He had every necessity in those small spaces. He threw the blanket at her and then turned his head once again.

  “Why do you have to be so stubborn all the time? Can you not see when the people around you know better?”

  Her fists balled in the coarse fabric. “Better for whom? You? Anthony? My father? What is actually good for me isn’t what you might think. You’ve never experienced freedom the way I have, only to have it snatched from your grasp.”

  “If society did more than speculate how deeply you were involved with pirates, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. If your father had ever been captured red-handed rather than taunting and eluding, you would be in prison, already dead or on your way to the colonies. You curse your brother yet his knighthood protects you now.”

  With one last tug, she was free of all of her clothing, naked as the day she was born, the blanket itching against her skin. Her cheeks began to heat but she lifted her chin and pushed aside embarrassment. So far, James Trelissick had treated her somewhere between a sibling and a problem. Even in the dress shop, he had pulled away from her as though she carried a disease. He wasn’t likely to ravish her in his carriage with his men just outside.

  Securing the blanket beneath her armpits with one arm, she maneuvered the rest of the blanket so it would split open at her side but not far enough that he would see everything she had to offer.

  “I am ready,” she said into the thick silence.

  His back lifted with the force of his inhaled breath and as he turned Daniella closed her eyes. Never in her life had she felt this level of scrutiny and embarrassment.

  She would not call it shame and attach it to her actions. Not ever.

  *

  In all his life in London, on the battlefields, in the countries he had been to, he had never met anyone so full of blind stupidity. Did she really not think the skirmish they had had earlier in the day could have turned fatal for any one of them or did she just not care? James certainly had. His heart squeezed uncomfortably in chest as he thought of all the ways she could have been hurt. Not for the first time he wondered if Daniella’s inability to take real threats seriously was the true reason she had been dumped in London. Being wrapped in petticoats and politeness was almost the same as a padded room. She wasn’t supposed to be able to find any harm.

  And harm was exactly what she had done that man today. And herself.

  He tried not to touch her skin at all as he peeled the edges of the blanket back. “You have quite a burn here, Daniella. Why did you hold the gun so close?” He would not think about the paleness of her hip or the ridges of her ribs or the warmth she emanated. She could have been a lot more seriously injured and that was what he should concentrate on.

  “I did what I had to do; there wasn’t time for measurements or concentration,” she said.

  As she inhaled, the blanket lifted and her thigh came into view. His heart thumped painfully but he set to cleaning the area, instantly relieved the wound wasn’t nearly as bad as he’d first surmised. “That’s why you were to stay in the carriage.”

  “Then you would have been killed.”

  “I’m touched you think so highly of me as to come to my rescue.”

  “I need you right now just as much as you need me, perhaps more.”

  She had to stop being so honest with him but he was grateful she saw it that way. He might live to see days beyond this week after all. “I’m going to apply a salve to the burn but you won’t be able to put your dress back on tonight—binding it will only make it hurt more.”

  Daniella pulled the edges of the blanket back together so he couldn’t touch her. “If you think I am going to spend the whole night in nothing but this blanket, Trelissick, you can think again.”

  “James.”

  “What?”

  “I want you to call me James.” It had been childishness that made him revert to propriety and he was done with it. “Trelissick is…stuffy. And you did purchase a nightgown.” He pulled at the blanket but she held fast, her fist on the inside of the wool.

  “I will be cold.”

  “You can sleep next to the fire.”

  “And my back?”

  “Why do you make such a deal out of this? I will sleep at your back. Between me and the fire, you will be warm and safe.”

  “Who will stand watch?”

  “Could we please stop arguing?” He was tired and hungry and wet. “Let me apply the salve so we can get warm. You can berate me more then.”

  “Very well.”

  James took the edges of the blanket and once again pulled them apart. She flinched when he touched his fingers to the burn but said nothing. He expected a curse at the very least.

  Despite the angry redness, her skin was still smoother than smooth and James found himself rubbing the salve into areas not affected. As his circles grew bigger, he grew more mesmerized. Had he ever touched a woman so soft yet so unyielding? Beneath his hands lay the tension of corded muscle covered in satin. No pudginess or overindulgence lined her hip, only strength and stamina.

  It wasn’t Daniella who put a halt to his exploration—although she should have—it was Patrick knocking hard against the carriage door that drew him back to the present. Once again he met her eyes but this time it was simple to name what he saw there.

  Desire.

  Yearning.

  Need.

  Emotions sure to destroy his plans and far too many lives.

  He rubbed his hands down the front of his coarse, damp trousers to be rid of the salve and the feeling of her on his fingertips. “I’ll leave you to dress in your nightgown.”

  She only nodded. She did not move, did not argue. Seems he’d finally rendered her speechless.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The following day dawned bright and clear, the storm passing in the night, but Daniella was miserable. Her face was all puffy and her throat itched abominably. Trelissick kept scolding her about keeping dry and warm, and no matter how many times she tried to tell him it was the hay and dust that affected her, he kept up his steady diatribe about looking after herself better and how a dead hostage was no good to him at all. The strangest part was how chatty he was this morning. After sneezing all night long, she didn’t think anyone was well rested.

  The dark smudges beneath his eyes attested to the sleepless night but there was something else about his mood this
morning she couldn’t quite place.

  His concern, if it was genuine, was almost touching. At least she’d finally convinced him she needed fresh air to clear her head and he’d let her ride up top with Willie for most of the morning. The sun on her face and the wind in her hair almost made her forget her troubles and remember the decks of the ship and the freedom she’d once owned.

  One good thing about the day was that Willie wanted to chatter and that helped to distract her. He asked her questions about her father and she answered: even if he only asked for Trelissick’s benefit, she had nothing to hide save her father’s port location. She shared stories about storms and chases and disease and he in turn told her about Trelissick and his brother when they were lads. Willie had served the old marquess before James’s father had ascended to the title. She guessed him to be approaching seventy years in age.

  “What happened to the marquess’s brother?” she asked.

  “Poor lad went quite mad with the drugs.”

  “You mean the heir? Trelissick’s older brother?”

  Willie clucked his tongue and shook his head. The horses pulled at the reins and adjusted their stride as they picked up speed on a straight stretch of road. “Weren’t never made to be a marquess, that one. Didn’t have the balls, beggin’ your pardon.”

  “That’s quite all right.” She waved for him to continue and when he didn’t, she spoke. “Is that when Trelissick returned from the war?”

  “Had to. His mam and Miss Amelia needed a man when the brother and father were found dead.”

  Daniella gasped. “What happened?”

  “No one is real sure. Heard the gunshots and found both the master and the boy in the study. Dead.”

  “That’s awful. How did Trelissick’s mother take it?”

  “Finally found her strength, that woman. Aye, she had some help but she still arranged the funerals, covered up the truth and had the army send for the other boy, held it all together.”

  “No wonder she is traveling the continent. I take it she rather needed a holiday after the shock of that.”

  Willie looked sideways at her, shook his head and then turned his eyes back to the road.

  “What?” she asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Mayhap the master should be telling you the rest of the story.”

  Damn. She had been quite involved with the tale. Did she dare ask Trelissick the rest? As certain as she was that she would once again man the decks of The Aurora, she was sure there was much more to the story than what she had heard so far. How did the two men wind up dead? Were they murdered? Did they kill each other somehow? What truth did Willie allude to?

  Poor James. The scandal must have added to the heartbreak. Perhaps it was the reason for his mother and sister’s trip abroad. He must have sent them away for their own good. Much like her father had done to her but theirs was a holiday and hers was a prison.

  She wasn’t nearly as naive as she’d have others think. She wanted to regain her place aboard the ship but she had no interest in sailing for the king of Spain once she did. She’d shared her grand trade plans with her father, to try their hand at legitimate dealings while they had the blunt to back themselves and buy their first load of precious cargo. He’d laughed at her. Told her no one would barter with a woman, let alone one as young as her. She’d spent every day for a year or more thinking about the ways they might take advantage of wars raging all over the world. She’d made plans on maps, drawn up list upon list upon list. As soon as word of Anthony’s knighthood reached them, her father sent her away.

  He’d obviously spent those days thinking of ways to rid himself of his overly optimistic daughter. Hand her off to some gentrified lord who could keep her caged and safe. After the loss of his leg, he changed, the captain.

  Daniella shook her head and bit the inside of her lip. James did that to him. In some roundabout way, James was the root of her current problem.

  They might be cooperating for now, but she would not romanticize James. For the last month, he had masqueraded as her servant with the intent to draw out her father and, when that failed, he’d kidnapped her. He was no hero in this no matter what had happened to his family or what motivated him.

  Then why was it so difficult this morning to see him as anything but?

  *

  The only thing better than a bed to sleep in and four walls and a roof to keep out the wind and rain was the inn they discovered later that afternoon nestled in a hamlet on the edges of the cliffs off the coast just south of Frodsham or Fidsham or maybe even Shamfrod.

  Before she settled in, Daniella needed to walk. She needed to breathe in the fresh scents of the ocean and pretend for one moment that there was nothing odd in her current situation. That there was no pull between her and Trelissick.

  Between her and James.

  How could she have any kind of warm feelings for this man who used her so callously?

  You’re using him too…

  She damned her subconscious to the deepest depths of the ocean. He was her means to an end and she was his. That was it. That was all there could ever be between them. They weren’t friends. To even think about more meant the end to something else entirely.

  Her freedom.

  Daniella shook the thoughts free from her mind. Marriage would never be the answer for her. If she thought the constraints of London stifling, she would be absolutely smothered under a husband’s rule. Especially his. He had already made it more than clear what he wished for in a wife. A breeding machine and a housekeeper. Oh, and a pretty face. Not a freckled, tanned hoyden with scars and calluses and a keen sense of adventure.

  If she were ever to marry, her husband would have to make her feel wanted. Desirable. Needed for more than babies and warm meals. He would have to admire her tenacity and welcome her opinions, her advice. She supposed it would be nice to feel wanted again. She felt that with Jimmy the deckhand. He’d always stared at her with such gentleness and barely concealed hunger. She’d felt safe giving herself over to him. It had felt right.

  James had only twice stared at her with anything but anger and it hadn’t spelled gentle. The hungry expression in his eyes at the dressmaker’s and again in the carriage when he’d soothed her burn had scared him. It was the only reason he would have pulled away like he had. The reason he hadn’t touched her since. Not to hand her into the carriage or even to guide her into a room. He’d put up a tall, wide barrier and she’d no idea if she wanted to push it over or not. Suddenly the pretty papered walls closed in on her. She crossed the timber boards and threw open the window, leaning her head right out and gulping the night air. With her arms resting on the weather-worn sill, she closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was home, on her ship, with her father pacing the boards above with two good legs and chatting to his crew, giving orders for the night, laughing at the day’s mishaps.

  She tasted the salt on her tongue and smelled the freshness in the air but try as she might, she could not forget where she was, what she was. The more time she spent with the marquess, the cloudier her thoughts became. Never had she thought of anything but the ocean, her father, her ship. Why did he have to make her think about responsibilities and reputations and how a lady should and should not act?

  A lady would never climb down a wall and walk barefoot through the sand. She was sure of it.

  When they’d arrived in the late afternoon, the light was still strong enough to see the side of the building. It faced out over an ocean still turbulent from the recent stormy weather and was constructed of mismatched stone. Hopefully it would provide the footholds she needed to drop down to the roof below.

  Even if her door hadn’t been locked, she couldn’t risk leaving by way of the corridor. She also wouldn’t give Trelissick the satisfaction of thinking he’d caught her escaping.

  All was dark now but she would have to be very quiet and very careful. The barns were to the rear of the building and, so far as she could tell, the kitchens, tap and
bar stretched across the opposite side from her room. She hoisted up her skirt to undo her petticoats and sighed with relief when they floated about her ankles. She stepped out of the fabric, dropped the hem of her gown and then picked the petticoats up and hid them beneath the bedclothes. If Trelissick happened by earlier than he’d promised, then perhaps he would think her asleep and leave her in peace.

  Perhaps he should have consented to the walk when she’d asked him. His answer had been drivel about the dark, the rain, the waves crashing down on the sandy beach. “It is too dangerous.” “Someone might recognize one of us.” “The day has been trying enough.” He’d practically driven her to climbing down the outside of the building.

  With one more glance out the window into the dark, she threw her leg over the sill, balanced on her bare toes, then lifted the other one out. Slowly, she felt around with one foot and then the other, lifted one hand and then the other, confounding her outer skirt to the bottom of the ocean with her earlier thoughts, until she felt the solid expanse of cold slate beneath her foot.

  From there she lay on her stomach and inched back over the side of the roof, hoping that what she dangled from wasn’t the kitchen or a dining-room eave. Though it was dark, a body hanging in front of a window would be easily seen and the alarm raised.

  After what felt like hours, she finally stood on solid ground, her body flat against a windowless wall as she caught her breath. Thank God she hadn’t landed in a rose garden or woodpile.

  The moon sat low and full in the sky as light clouds sped towards the opposite horizon and lit the path between the trees to the ocean. Not hesitating a moment longer, Daniella broke into a run to cross the yard and only slowed when she thought she would be hidden beneath the tree’s thin canopy.

  As she walked in the direction of the crashing waves, the sound so familiar she wanted to cry, she wondered where her father was, what her brother was doing, whether they searched for her or not. She kept thinking Anthony should have caught up to them by now and, though she had no intention of going anywhere with him, she was desolate to think he wasn’t coming. That no one was coming. Even worse was the feeling she deserved it. All of it.