The Slide Into Ruin Page 12

  “You are like a knight offering to slay my dragons.” And she didn’t deserve it.

  “Don’t think of me as a hero here, Eliza. I will do what I must in a situation not of my own making. My protection comes at a price.”

  “The dowry,” she said with a little nod. Of course he wasn’t doing any of this out of the goodness of his heart. She had to remember that. To hold on to it.

  “The stakes are high in this game we play. Wickham might look like a fat and lazy prick but if driven to desperation, he could be dangerous. Then there are the unseen pitfalls as well.”

  “I didn’t ask to play any of these games, with Wickham, with you. I only want to take care of my brothers and sisters and see them have some semblance of lives, the life I never got to have.”

  “Did you have your heart set on balls and routs? On picnics in the park?”

  She shook her head and turned to the window. Out there lay the snow, the great, towering pines, the possibilities that were robbed from her the night her mother perished only weeks after labouring hard with Ethan. “I told you I never had a hope or a dream to dance the night away in the arms of a gentleman but I want it for my sisters. I want Nathanial to find a good woman who can take care of him while he rebuilds what our father threw away. I want them to have opportunities.”

  “And they will. Only two more months and your brother will be a duke. A duke of very little, but the title will carry. Perhaps then he can reach out to extended family members for help?”

  She whirled to face him. “No. Never will we rely on anyone. Our supposed family members deserted us after our mother died. They will circle like starving vultures at the first sign of weakness.”

  “So you truly have no one?”

  Why did he have to look so surprised? Did he think with wealth and title came friends? “We have that much in common, you and I.”

  He smiled, suddenly more jovial than the conversation warranted but it warmed her and Eliza found herself smiling back.

  “That will have to do us then. Alone but together. A perfect match indeed.”

  Eliza forced a chuckle to cover her sigh, glad the hardest part of the morning was over. Now that she had his word that Nathanial, Gabriella, Grace and Ethan would be protected, she could relax a fraction. Now, with their safety ensured in verbal agreement, she had to marry this stranger and hope he was her knight in shining armour come to her rescue.

  If he was the dragon in her tale, she was in big trouble.

  Chapter Twelve

  It took less time to say his vows in front of Eliza and her family than he’d thought. The vicar sped through the centuries-old phrases and the blessings as though he had somewhere else to be. Probably anywhere else to be, but Darius found he didn’t mind. He hardly needed the man to hang about with questions or judgements or, God forbid, waiting for second thoughts. Some of those would come soon enough from the townsfolk the next time he drank ale at the inn, or Eliza was to run an errand.

  Eliza. She had looked so delicate and beautiful, almost ethereal as she’d walked down the stairs, her eyes locked with his, her outdated gown shimmering in the morning sun despite its years tucked away in the attics. Desire had risen inside him as fast as a spring squall but he didn’t welcome it. Theirs was a wary and fragile situation. He’d been about to let her out of their ridiculous deal and weather the wrath of his men who wanted nothing more than to go home.

  In his study, alone with her, he’d been about to try to come up with another way so she wouldn’t have to sell herself for his protection, but then she’d once again confirmed how alone in the world she really was. Just like him. They really did have that one thread in common. It was tenuous but it was there all the same.

  He also had to remember that he was selling his own freedom as well. Without her dowry, he and his men were stuck. Eliza and her siblings were stuck too, on their own, out in the cold. As much as they might both despise the machinations behind their match, neither had much choice. Darius should hate her father for his actions, for killing himself and taking the easy way out of his troubles. But then he’d uttered the words, I will. When he’d kissed her pale lips and held her in his arms, hate didn’t even register. It was only attraction he felt towards his new bride and it would help neither of them. It was one thing for Eliza to sell her freedom for his protection, it was quite another for him to accept her body for payment also.

  He looked around the room in search of his new shackle and found her with her siblings. The girls were speaking in high-pitched, excited squeals while Nathanial continued to glower in Darius’s direction.

  What would it have been like to grow up with Harold, to have been treated like a real brother rather than a bastard and a problem? To have a family? He’d never know and Darius had long since banished what ifs from his life. To look into the past was to wish and dream and it got a man nowhere. If it did, he’d have come to England, collected his money within days, and then been back on his way. Now it had been more than three months, add in the distraction that had been Daniella Germaine, a storm that had seriously damaged his ship, and now the three supposed honourable gentlemen unable or unwilling to pay their debts in full with coin or gold.

  Marcus handed him a glass filled with French brandy, a twin to it in his own hand. “A toast?” he suggested loudly, taking Darius’s mind off his myriad of unceasing problems and causing everyone in the room to grow quiet, even the squawking Gabriella and Grace.

  More glasses were distributed, the little Ethan frowning when he didn’t get one. Darius gave his man a nod and indicated with his fingers to give the lad a little. It was a celebration after all. He planned on getting ridiculously drunk. Right after he wished all of England and her inhabitants to the devil.

  How was it a self-proclaimed bachelor, intent on never having children let alone a wife, could suddenly find himself leg-shackled to one who likely had no intention of ever sharing his bed? A woman who came with a brood of children she had vowed to look after to her very last breath. A woman he had almost nothing in common with besides being betrayed in the worst way by a man who called himself father?

  God, he thought, maybe he was already drunk? Or maybe she was? He still found it very strange that Eliza had agreed so readily to marry him, an ex-pirate and a stranger. And then there was her even stranger request that he put the children on his ship and sail them far away if the need arose. She was anticipating something and it was bad.

  Marcus lifted his glass high. “To the captain and his bride!”

  Darius lifted his and gave his new bride a nod. “To the vows spoken this day.”

  Eliza also raised her glass, her unwavering gaze never leaving his. “To honourable men keeping to their word.”

  It seemed to shock everyone in the room when little Ethan raised his tiny splash in the air also. “To families. New and old!”

  There were cheers and hear-hears followed by the sound of gulping and then yet more cheering and backslapping. Most of his men seemed to think this a real marriage and not an exchanging of protection for money. He supposed the English had been doing it like this forever and a day, a poor man marrying a rich heiress.

  However, poor nobodies didn’t marry dukes’ daughters. But then he wasn’t a poor man. At least he hadn’t been until he’d left for bloody England in the first place. How could he have known it would turn out so badly? If Wickham and Penfold had paid their debts, he’d be on his way back. But no, here he was getting married.

  When he next glanced Eliza’s way, she finally had some colour on her cheeks and was smiling and laughing with Tarquin as he regaled the sisters with a story. Here was the fun she had been searching for but it wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. The least he could offer was one simple day of freedom despite just tying herself to him.

  He looked about the room for Benny, the only man on his ship who could play an instrument worth listening to. “A tune if you will, Benny. What is a wedding without dancing?”

  Grace clapped her ha
nds together like he’d announced water in the middle of a dry desert. He had to wonder yet again what kind of life they’d led even before their father had died. Had they never even been to a party? A dance or fete?

  Benny left the room but emerged moments later with his lute, Paddy following closely with a Navajo flute. They may never grace ballrooms to accompany a string quartet but the two together could play lively tunes guaranteed to brighten any sad man’s day.

  “Nothing bawdy,” Darius warned the two as they set up in the corner of the room. Furniture was pushed back in all directions towards whichever wall was the closest. The Penfold children merely stood and stared with their mouths agape at the activity.

  Darius approached Eliza, tucked one hand behind his back and held the other out to her as he bowed from the waist. “May I have this dance?”

  The curtsy she dropped was so low, she may as well have touched the floor with her forehead, her skirts fanning out about her as though she was a princess. When she rose, a smile played at the edges of her lips and her blue eyes were bright with mischief. “A pirate who can dance? Do you also sing?”

  “Only when I’m alone,” he confirmed with a wink.

  Before she could form a reply, Darius grabbed her by the hand and pulled her into his arms, aligned his lips with her ear. “And I’m not a pirate. Not anymore.”

  Again he didn’t give her time to react. He knew her type so well. She overthought every situation, every scenario and conversation. It’s what little duchesses in the making were taught from the cradle, the intrigues of men. For her, the dangers had been social, for him, physical. He’d known fear quite intimately for a long part of his life. Forever trying to be one step ahead of everyone else, of the danger lurking around every corner. But not here. After taking up with Montrose, Darius had left his terror behind. He wouldn’t let her be afraid in his house, in his presence. Frankly, it was a little insulting that she thought him not up to the task of protecting them.

  “Relax,” he begged her as they took their first step into what was more of a jig than a waltz.

  “I don’t know how to dance like this,” she answered.

  Duncan cantered by, Gabriella’s hand held loosely in his own, and said, “No one knows how to dance like this, girly, you just jump around to the music in whatever way feels good.”

  “But there’s no order. No steps.”

  “Welcome to our world,” Marcus said, roaring with laughter as he showed Ethan how to lift his legs in a strange manner that almost looked like it might have a method.

  Darius paused and took hold of Eliza’s chin between his thumb and forefinger. He felt her breath catch and then sail past his knuckle, pulling away before she exhaled again. “Just keep your right foot between mine and your left on the outer. That way I won’t step on your toes. Oh, and hold on tight.”

  *

  Eliza held on tight. She held on to her dignity, her upbringing, her sense of propriety. At least she tried.

  As Darius swung her about the room, she was forced to lean her body into him, flush against him, chest to chest, stomach to…well something. His arm was like a steel cage at her back, his torso all hardness and warmth at her front. Her cheeks burned hot and despite her finer senses telling her this was all bad, she tipped her head back and laughed and laughed. She laughed until she could no longer draw breath and had to beg Darius for a brief reprieve between shaky puffs of air.

  He gave her a nod and called to Benny over the revelry, “Take it down a notch.”

  As the temporary musician adjusted his instrument, Darius gave another man a nod and within seconds, Eliza had a glass in her hand, dark liquid filling it about halfway.

  She attempted to extricate herself from Darius’s touch but he held fast, only pressing a finger to the bottom of the glass as she went to take a small sip, instead forcing her to drink it all.

  “It will warm you,” he told her with a small smile.

  She wanted to make him grin like a pirate in that moment, not these tiny, almost sad, smiles he kept gracing her with. Shrugging off her shawl and removing her gloves, Eliza threw them on a settee, heedless of the fabric or the brazen way the movement twisted her body against his. She held one bare hand in the air, the other she placed just below his shoulder on his arm, and issued him a silent challenge.

  “The cuts on your hands.” He traced the largest with his forefinger, careful not to apply too much pressure. “Does it hurt much?”

  She cleared her throat, her mouth dry despite the alcohol, and unwilling to cooperate fully. “They are only small scratches. Nothing to worry about really but I can put the gloves back on if you’d rather?”

  “I would not.” He wrapped her small hand in his large one and brought it to his mouth. He placed a hot, wet kiss against her knuckle and she nearly swooned. She’d thought her hands finally warm but his breath burned fiery hot.

  “A waltz?” she asked, her voice shaking, her insides melting.

  “I don’t know how to waltz,” he told her, his smile falling away completely. It was the first time she’d seen him so unsure, almost defeated over the mention of one silly little dance.

  “I can teach you, if you want to learn?”

  “Bastards aren’t taught to waltz, Eliza.”

  “And duke’s daughters aren’t taught jigs, Darius.”

  “You aren’t a duke’s daughter anymore. You’re a bastard’s wife. My wife.” Though he growled the words, there was no anger behind them. If Eliza had to define his statement, she would have called it territorial. Like he claimed her despite having not had a choice in choosing her.

  Whether it was the merriment from the dance, the warmth of the liquor or simply being held so close to another, Eliza wasn’t sure what spurred her actions or her whispered words as she lifted her hand to place against his cheek. “Titles, good or bad, just or not, duke or bastard, do not make the man. I’d have thought, you of all people, might have understood that.”

  “You’re doing it again,” Darius said as he captured her hand in his. This time he placed a soft, quick kiss against her palm and then returned it to his shoulder.

  “Doing what?” Was there a question? She could barely think straight with all the little kisses and touches.

  “Making me out to be some hero, romanticising me in your mind.”

  This made Eliza chuckle, brought her back to the moment, to the room and the noise around them, to the dozens of witnesses to their close proximity. “Romanticising you in my mind? I hardly think so.”

  “I will protect you and keep you safe but I won’t hesitate to shed the blood of those willing to hurt women and children.”

  “Perhaps it is you who romanticises your true self in your mind? Perhaps you are still more pirate than businessman?”

  He shook his head, his grin in full force although it didn’t sparkle in his hazel eyes. “I know full well who I am in my mind. I have accepted me and that’s all that matters.”

  “Selfish? Arrogant? I can’t decide.” She chuckled.

  “Both.” He shrugged. “Come, let’s dance. We’ll be scandalous together, the steps be damned.”

  Eliza found herself nodding and taking his hand in hers with an enthusiasm she had probably never felt about anything in her life. For a few hours she could throw away her dignity, her propriety, her breeding. She was a bastard’s wife now.

  For possibly the first time in her existence, despite the axe hanging above them all, she felt strangely…free.

  Chapter Thirteen

  As the pale moonlight cast dancing shadows across the carpet, Darius thought he might actually be sick. His nerves were strung tighter than a mast with the full force of the wind behind it; his stomach roiled as if pitching about on the sea rather than standing in a room, alone, with his wife.

  Wife.

  A concept he’d never given a great deal of thought to. He knew he’d likely marry someday in the very distant future as most men did, but like this? This he could never have seen c
oming. He would have dodged it like the cannon ball it might as well have been.

  According to English law, she now belonged to him to do with what he wished. But that wasn’t going to happen either. His past was filled with mistakes; he would not add Eliza to his list of regrets.

  Darius groaned and raked his hands through his hair, pulling hard on the strands, hoping to take his mind off what was about to happen. Would she assume theirs was to be a real wedding night? Could he actually go through with it if she wanted it to be real?

  What was he thinking? She barely knew him. She wanted his protection and not much else.

  Eliza sat in front of the mirror, carefully removing the pins from her hair one by one, as she hummed through the notes of a waltz. They’d danced the afternoon away and well into the night, the liquor flowing freer than it perhaps should have. From the red rims around her eyes and the silly little smile on her full lips, Darius would guess she was well on her way to being foxed. Not a bad state if one could achieve it. God knew, he’d tried but he felt stone-cold sober. Maybe if he was drunk, it would make it easier to consider taking the virtue of a duke’s daughter. An innocent pawn in the games of men.

  How many brides had gone to their fate exactly the same way Eliza was right now? he wondered. How many girls all over England and beyond had been sold in this exact same way? The thought made him shudder but he regained control of his wild emotions soon enough. No need to scare Eliza with the vehemence of his thoughts this night.

  When finally her white-blonde tresses hung down her back to her waist, Eliza stopped her fidgeting. She sat so still he almost wondered if she imagined herself somewhere else. Anywhere else.

  “Would you like me to help you with your gown?” It was a beautiful concoction of lace and yards of fabric in a style so outdated, she would have no hope of getting it off herself. She wore it like a princess despite her drop in station from a lady to a mere missus. If the dress was some long-ago countess’s evening gown, she would have had hordes of maids to help her from it. Eliza only had him. Poor chit.