The Slide Into Ruin Read online

  “You aren’t seeing how this could benefit all of us.”

  Eliza stopped and scoffed rudely. “Benefit all of us? The only benefit is to you and the other greedy people in our lives. Why can’t you all just leave us be? Nathanial will come of age and we can sort the problems out by ourselves. Two months, it’s all we need.”

  “You don’t have two months. Others will come to your door demanding money. You can’t hold them all at bay with tears and an empty rifle.”

  “For as long as there is breath in my body and a choice in my hands, that is exactly what I will do. You can’t have me. You can’t have my sisters or what little we have left. If I could give you the dowry I would but not at the cost of leaving them—they need me.”

  Darius stood and approached once again. “You don’t have to leave them. We can find a way to make this work.”

  “No.” She was adamant. It was impossible. He might say now that they could make it work but there was no way. “You don’t even know me. For the sake of gold coins, you would attach yourself to a woman you don’t even know? I have scandal written in bold across my forehead. I have done things…things I wish I could take back and erase from my past, but I can’t. You don’t want me, Darius, and you couldn’t have me even if you did.”

  The pride she forced to the surface came from only a drop that was left in her but she called on it like it was an ocean. When she turned to flee, there were no tears in her eyes, only determination. She had already done the most unthinkable thing a person could do to save her family; any actions that followed could never come close to comparing. Not ever.

  *

  Darius watched her go, a thousand words on his tongue but none she would hear. Even an idiot knew she wasn’t merely going to nod and accept her fate. Not in one day. But he didn’t have many left to wait. Without the money owed him by either Penfold or Wickham, his men would go hungry, his ship would go unrepaired and unseaworthy and he would go insane. So many rules, so many proprieties even here in the country, and even though he was a bastard, he had to follow every damned one of them. Each time he so much as drew breath, he had to remember the English way, on this soil, was the only way.

  Eliza was completely wrong about one thing.

  He did want her.

  Yes, he needed to save her, to save her family, but he also wanted her like he hadn’t wanted a woman before in his life. When her eyes lit up and sparkled with fury, he yearned to take her in his arms and kiss her to silence, to put a blush on those pale cheeks and to strip away the misgivings and mistrust. He wanted to ease the worry and erase the frowns, discover if she tasted of violets the way she smelled of them.

  Bloody damsels in distress.

  They did it to him every time. It was as if his conscience and his morals were a magnet to women in need of protection but at the same time not wanting of it.

  No one needed him. They never had.

  Or perhaps it had nothing to do with the women so much as it was his fate to end up like this. Back in the place where it all started with no more money in his hand than he’d had when he was fourteen and lured away to be beaten and thrown on a ship going nowhere. Perhaps the life meant to be his as a bastard son was the only life he could ever have and the taste of freedom and the chance to be someone in America was nothing more than a cruel joke of the gods?

  Time would tell but exactly as Eliza had said, while there was breath in his body and a choice to be had, his would be to stand and fight. He would never lie down and die like the dog his father treated him as. If he had to battle to the very last beat of his heart he would. Whether it was for the hand of Eliza Penfold and the money in her bank or the war to regain the shores of the land he now called home, he would fight and he would emerge the victor.

  Chapter Eight

  The one thought in the mind of Eliza Penfold the next morning, after a fitful sleep comprising mostly sharp words and soulful hazel eyes, was that she had survived. They had survived. Yet another night had passed and the five of them had lived to see another day. No one had been murdered in their sleep. No one had frozen solid or starved to death. They were another day closer to Nathanial’s birthday, another day closer to the relative safety of a title and a measure of freedom for her siblings. Not for her though.

  Even though she had denied Darius the day before, she knew her future lay in his hands, possibly even at his side. With the scandal of her past, and the inevitable one to be revealed in the coming weeks, her days in England were numbered. She longed for the sun on her face rather than on the back of her head as she constantly looked over her shoulder. Despite the fact that she hadn’t actually fired the bullet that had killed their father, if it came to it, if it came down to blaming someone who was still alive, she would say she did.

  Darius could take her far away from England. If needed, Nathanial could tell one and all that his sister had cracked, killed their father and then fled the country. She would change her name and start again. She and Darius could obtain a divorce and they could go their separate ways. In her mind, the matter was simple. Two whole months of long days and dangerous nights was not.

  Smothering a yawn behind her hand, Eliza called to Grace, “What about a game of chess?”

  The children were bored and had begun to bicker. They wanted to go outside but she had forbidden it. Between Darius’s men hiding in the garden and Wickham’s threats hovering, they were best served to stay in the house.

  “I don’t see why I can’t take the children out for a walk,” Nathanial complained with a yawn only slightly larger than Eliza’s had been. “I have the pistol; we’d be safe.”

  “Against one foe, but not many, and I won’t have the girls running about with all of those men out there. You need to sleep, brother. You cannot go on like this.”

  “I am quite—”

  His words were cut short when the window next to where Nathanial stood exploded in a shower of glass, the loud and unexpected noise shattering the quiet of the afternoon. Not even a second passed before another window gave way and showered the room with yet more sharpened debris. Grace screamed as Gabriella, Nathanial and Eliza all hit the floor, dragging Ethan down with them.

  Before anyone could move, another window smashed but this time there was an accompanying thud against the opposite wall. “Away from the windows,” Nathanial shouted.

  Someone was shooting at them. When it stopped raining glass, Eliza heard the gunfire, shots in the distance from one side of the estate to the other. “Into the tunnels,” she ordered them. “Stay low!”

  “I’ll stay back and hold them off,” Nathanial declared, the pistol still in his hand.

  “No,” Eliza told him, one eye on her brother and sisters and the other on a boy not old enough or strong enough to protect them all. “Let Darius’s men take care of them. We have no idea how many are out there.”

  “We can’t run away from this.”

  “Yes, we can. We must. Think about what will happen to us if you were to die, Nathanial.”

  Another bullet, another window, another argument in his eyes but then the fear took over and he gave in with a nod. Shuffling over broken glass, her hands cut and bleeding, Eliza managed to get them all into the tunnels and the secret door closed. She leaned back against the timbers and let out her breath in a whoosh.

  Tears burned her eyes and the lump returned to her throat. They were doomed and she had done it to them. She should have accepted Darius’s words and gone on with her scheme, weathered the ensuing consequences with as much grace as she could instead of making him dance to her tune. She already knew the sharp bite of scandal; she could handle more of it. She was the daughter of a duke and had learned to hold her head high no matter what.

  But if they all died in the next minutes, it would be entirely her fault.

  “What do you suppose they want?” Grace asked when the silence became too hard to bear.

  “The same as the others,” Nathanial answered. “Money. Money we just don’t have.
”

  “What are we going to do?” Ethan asked.

  Eliza wondered the same thing, her fingers clenched in the folds of her skirts to try to stop the stinging and not let her siblings know how much pain she was in.

  “Could we ask to borrow money from Darius?” Ethan said to Nathanial.

  He looked to her and she shook her head. They had nothing to bargain with and Darius had already pointed out that they had no way of finding funds in the foreseeable future to repay him. He’d also shared that he had no money to lend them.

  The only other alternative was nearly as unbearable as all the others. It’s what had started the scandal in the first place, Harold asking her to settle her father’s debts in other ways. If only the duke had known why she’d been alone with Harold that day in the first place. Perhaps if she’d had the courage to tell her father the whole truth, it would have all turned out differently, better.

  She knew now that it would have ended the same way. For her to have given in to Harold would have meant the end. Society would never have forgiven her, her sisters would be at the mercy of her father’s creditors and none of them would ever be safe.

  Would Darius be any different? He didn’t go about in society but would he keep her sisters safe? Or would he do as their father had been thinking and sell them all to swell his empty coffers?

  If she offered her last bargaining chip to Darius, would he reconsider her rejection?

  She shook her head. They’d likely be dead before the hour was out anyway. Dead men didn’t settle debts.

  Their bloody children did!

  She relaxed her fists at her sides beneath the edges of her torn skirts. She wouldn’t give up that easily. She couldn’t.

  “We should follow the tunnels to the kitchens and then try to make a break for the forest from there.” Everything in her screamed it a terrible idea but they wouldn’t sit there as lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

  Before any of the children could respond, there came a thumping against the timbers at her back, enough to jolt her forward a little.

  “Miss Penfold? Are ye in there?”

  Eliza shook her head to silence the others, one finger against her lips.

  “It’s us, Marcus and Duncan. The beggars are gone, it’s safe to come out.”

  A second, more irritated, voice sounded, “How the hell do you open this bloody thing? Has to be a trigger or something. They could be bleeding to death. The captain will whip the skins from our backs for this.”

  Eliza sighed and reached for the intricate lock holding the secret door closed. She turned it and then stood back, the others behind her, Ethan in the folds of her skirts, Gabriella’s hand clenched tightly in her own and Grace standing behind them all.

  “Thank the gods,” Marcus exclaimed when he saw them huddled together.

  Ethan stuck his head around and asked, “Did you kill them?”

  Marcus smiled and squatted down to the boy’s level. “Didn’t have to. They ran off after Duncan put a bullet in one of them. He won’t die from it but I bet it bloody well hurts.”

  “Mind your language please,” Eliza admonished gently but her heart just wasn’t in it. She was ridiculously glad to see the men but terrified of what would happen next. Her feet felt glued to the floor and she was suddenly more tired than she had ever been before.

  “I would have killed them had they entered the house,” Nathanial assured them, as though he’d already been branded a coward and needed to defend his actions.

  “I know you would have,” Duncan replied but then his attention fell on Eliza and he waited for her to say something.

  “Thank you.” It was all she could come up with as she stepped from the wall to survey the damage. A bitter wind howled into the room, drying any tears that might have come to her eyes. Eliza shivered.

  “Will you come back with us to the house now?” he asked. “The captain is going to be furious when he returns.”

  “Who were they? Was it Wickham? Harold?” Nathanial asked.

  “Those two from the other day?” Duncan shook his head. “Younger. Fatter.”

  More creditors? Eliza knew they had to say yes but she couldn’t form the words. Her gaze dropped to her hands, to the cuts, the blood, the sting. She focused on the pain as she nodded. It seemed it wasn’t even a choice anymore. Yes or no. Dead or alive. They were utterly ruined no matter how the day ended.

  *

  Darius was really quite good at hiding. In his younger years aboard ship, he had been adept at remaining hidden while captains thundered about looking for a lad to cuff or the battle raged, before he’d known know how to fight, how to defend himself, or take down a man twice his size. God, it had been years since he’d had the need to hide but he wasn’t such a proud man he didn’t know when it was wise to stay down rather than rush into the thick of things.

  Sometimes when something underhanded had to be done, he let his men do it for him while he waited in the background. He didn’t call it cowardice, he called it cunning. If he’d marched into Eliza’s house after the gunfire died down, then she’d probably jump to conclusions. She’d very quickly figure out that the ambush on what was left of their home was Darius’s idea and not thugs coming to collect money like it would be made out to seem.

  Perched there in the tavern on a stool as hard as stone, Darius tipped the last of his warm, bitter ale to his mouth and emptied the mug in one long swallow. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and gestured for the serving girl to fill it again. Yes, he’d been forced to drastic action but someone had to ensure Eliza saw sense. Sooner rather than later. One shot-out window would be enough to finally convince her to come to him; no one would be hurt. It was a win-win.

  “Drinking away your troubles?” the gravelly voice of a man pondered as he sat next to him at the bar.

  Darius looked up and groaned long and loud. “I should have known you wouldn’t leave without a fight.”

  “I’m not looking for a fight,” the Earl of Wickham said with a shake of his head, small veins popping out on his ruddy cheeks. “Just the money owed me.”

  “And you think threatening young ladies is the best way to go about it?”

  “I wasn’t threatening the chit. I only need an audience with that no-good duke. I bet he isn’t even sick at all. Probably hiding behind her skirts all this time.”

  Darius clenched his fist around his mug and wondered what would happen if he took the man down right there in front of a dozen witnesses. Could he make the ship before the magistrate was roused? “The duke isn’t in the house. Miss Penfold was telling the truth.”

  Wickham sighed. “I know he didn’t go to Bath. Harold just sent word this very morning.”

  Darius shrugged and drank as though he hadn’t a care as to the whereabouts of a lost duke.

  “What do you hope to gain here?” Wickham finally asked.

  “What is owed me,” Darius answered easily.

  “And with the Penfold girl? What have you to do with the eldest daughter of a duke?”

  Darius chuckled and then lied, “I could do much worse than Eliza Penfold but no. She has nothing to do with any of it.”

  “Then why did you stand by her? To get at me? To get to her? Are you taunting her father out of hiding?”

  “That is none of your business.”

  “You won’t tell me then?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Cryptic beggar you are. Harold was right, we should have killed you rather than letting you go.”

  Darius unclenched his teeth and then drained the ale with more than a little effort and restraint. “Let me go? You threw me away like a useless three-legged hound you couldn’t bear to look at. Was it because I reminded you of my mother? Of the betrayal to your own wife? Or was it because you simply have a heart of stone and are incapable of compassion?”

  “Compassion is for dandies and women, not for children who should never have been born. Your mother should have got rid of you before you ended her life
and shamed mine.”

  Darius kept his head down and his voice low as he replied, “You forced yourself upon a maid and then blamed her corpse for the child she bore you. There are no words for men like you. I’m glad you never claimed me as yours. I’ve never detested you more than I do right this very moment.”

  “Why was it you who came then? Not Montrose?”

  “If it had been Deklin, would you have repaid the money?” He had the answer to the question before he’d even finished the sentence. It was there in Wickham’s eyes, in his stance, his supreme arrogance. Darius was starting to realise the three men of the ton had likely done business with a foreigner for exactly this reason. They truly believed they owed him nothing because he wasn’t English. They were con men, each and every one. “Deklin happens to be twiddling his thumbs in Boston waiting for a ship. You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?”

  Again, the only emotion reflected in his sire’s eyes was the knowledge he’d already gotten away with his misdeeds. That as long as he was protected by other gentlemen of the ton, he was untouchable. He’d be wrong about that too.

  “Did you make enquiries with the harbourmaster?” Wickham asked after another gulp of ale. “Surely he would have made notes of the ship you’re after?”

  “A more corrupt man, I’ve never come across.” How was it that men like that came into the positions they held? Oh, yes, he knew how. More than half of England’s breeches-wearing inhabitants were for sale for the right price.

  “I’ll give him your regards.”

  Darius ground his teeth. “As soon as you pay me my money, I’ll never lay eyes on you again. I’ll never think about you again as long as I live but I will have what is mine.”