The Road to Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  She longed to arch her back so his hands would end up where she needed them the most. She was free to be her wanton self with him. The previous night had shown her he enjoyed it when she took charge, when she told him exactly how she wanted him to touch her, what she loved and what she didn’t.

  Sliding her palms over the backs of his hands and threading her fingers through his, she pulled one hand up and sent one lower. He caught on quickly, placing open-mouthed, hot kisses against her shoulder while cupping her breast. He flicked her nipple with his thumb and then rolled the nub. This time she did arch and then brought herself completely flush with his abdomen and chest, his hardness nestled against her bottom while his fingers played havoc with her sex and her senses. She gave a wriggle. He cursed. His other hand dropped beneath the water and before she had time to wonder at his next move, he entered her with one long, strong finger. With the others, he found her centre in her folds and rubbed gently up and down. She cried out when he added another finger and sped up the motion. Water sloshed and Daniella stifled her wild sounds with two hands over her mouth.

  She needed more. She needed him to fill her until she felt whole, until she couldn’t take anymore. She reached for him beneath the water; he chuckled when her hand wrapped around his length.

  “Slow down, Daniella. We have all the time in the world.”

  “I don’t want slow. I want you now, inside me.”

  He lifted her slightly with both hands under her backside. “Turn around. I need to see you.”

  She was willing to do anything he wanted when they were like this. It scared her.

  Daniella maneuvered herself so she was staring into the bottomless depths of his gaze, a lazy smile on his mouth beneath his beard. He lifted his knees and settled her back against them then he leaned forwards and took one nipple into his mouth while he cradled the other, running his fingernail over one peak while grazing with his teeth on its twin.

  She rolled her hips and he had to stop what he was doing as he closed his eyes with a long, low moan.

  With two hands she pushed back on his chest and repositioned herself over his manhood. This time he didn’t stop her, just kept his eyes closed as he filled her.

  “You’ll be the death of me.”

  “I’ll be needing you for a few minutes yet.” She cut off his reply and his surprise at her teasing when she placed her lips against his. His beard rasped, once again heightening her senses. She delved her tongue into his mouth, drank of him as though he was the elixir of life.

  When her pace became too slow, he gripped her hips, held her up and plunged into her over and over, the pleasure building until her nails bit into his shoulders. With one final, deeper than expected penetration, her world fractured, exploded, ignited. He caught her screams in his mouth and her body in his hands as the room tilted sideways. Or perhaps that was her?

  He didn’t usually get the last word in but in this she could find no argument, no reply.

  “We were made for each other, you and I.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Hobson?” James closed the door of the little dining room and then sat at the low table. He couldn’t believe he was about to start this conversation but his thoughts were in turmoil and he needed the advice of his old friend. He and Daniella had soaped and rinsed and made love until they were wrinkly, and now she was upstairs drying her hair by the fire. As soon as they left the bathhouse she had mentally withdrawn from him, leaving him cold and anxious.

  “I couldn’t find the captain, Major.”

  “Couldn’t find him?”

  “Oh, they know where he is but they aren’t saying.”

  “They?” He couldn’t keep up.

  “Sodding captain just about owns this town. He’ll know we’re ’ere, I’ll eat my hat if he doesn’t.”

  “I do believe I am in over my head.”

  “Only now, milord?”

  He swallowed a sharp retort and instead sighed. “When did it get out of hand do you think?”

  “Perhaps it was the day you disguised yourself as Her Highness’s servant? Or perhaps it was the day you snatched her from the virgin’s auction block? You shouldn’t have married her,” continued his outspoken servant.

  “I know that,” he roared, upsetting the silverware in the table when he slammed his fists down on it. “Don’t you think I know that? God, what a mess. I should have waited until after this was all over and won her properly.”

  “She was no innocent, James. You did not have to marry her at all.”

  “I did have to marry her. My honour…I…” How could he explain that he loved her? How could he tell his friend he couldn’t give her away any more than he could cut his own throat?

  “She didn’t ask to be married. She wants to be back on the open ocean with her father. You’ve complicated everything.”

  “Would I really make such a terrible husband?” He stood so he could pace.

  Hobson shook his head but followed his progression around the room with his eyes. “You would make the right girl a fine husband. But Miss Daniella isn’t the one for you and you are not the right man for her. She’ll see you as a trap if you take her back to London.”

  James’s stomach sank even lower. Of course Hobson was right. She’d never consent to living in London and he had to be there to take his seat in the House of Lords. There was no way he would let her live year-round in the country while he was in the city, so close yet so far away.

  “What do I do now? I can’t just hand her back to her father and say goodbye.”

  “It’s what she’s wanted all along, James.”

  “What if she wants something different now?” What if she actually wants me? The nightmares, the scars, the damage, all of it?

  “Did you ask her?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  “Seems that should be the place to start.”

  “And if she rejects me?” He couldn’t meet Hobson’s gaze.

  “Then you go back to London and you find yourself a real wife and you forget all about the Germaines.”

  “It’s all so wrong. So, so wrong.” Why couldn’t he have her and his family? Why couldn’t she be his family? Marrying her was the only part of this entire scheme that felt right. Where was the mistake in that?

  “Ask her to write a letter, lie and beg and plead and you’ll have your annulment. You both have more than enough scandal around you, even a divorce isn’t going to hurt much.”

  “And if she won’t?” he asked, as he picked up a little paring knife and tucked it in his coat pocket. He wasn’t lifting the silverware but he felt vulnerable without some kind of weapon.

  “Make her. Your life depends on it and so does hers.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed half-heartedly.

  By why did he have to be so right?

  *

  Daniella stood still against the dining room door, two hands clapped over her mouth.

  Annulment.

  How could he? She might have been planning to run, but marriage was his idea from the start. She tried to be grateful for her own plan, for being denied only something she hadn’t planned to keep, but felt only terribly hurt. How could she fall for his lies? How could she fall for him?

  She didn’t notice James had opened the door until she looked up and saw him staring at her with the same tortured look she knew must be mirrored in her own eyes.

  “How long have you been standing there?” he asked, his hand outstretched, reaching for her.

  She swallowed the hurt, defiant to the last, and stepped back. How dare he? “Long enough.”

  “And?”

  How could she respond, torn as she was between her need to break free and her desperate hope that he loved her…maybe even that he wouldn’t let her go?

  “You have to know this is the only way forwards. I… It’s the only way.”

  “I’ll write your letter, my lord. Thank you for freeing me from what was obviously the biggest mistake of your life.�
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  “Don’t be that way, Daniella. If you gave up your notion of being on the seas, we could make this work. You could appeal to your father for my mother and sister and we could all go back to London.”

  “And live happily ever after? For how long?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I told you from the start, I’ll not live there indefinitely.”

  “What of the heirs I need? What of my life? You won’t yield anything yet you expect me to?” He gripped her shoulders and forced her to meet his gaze.

  “Why should it be you getting this marriage and the life you’d already planned? Why must I give up everything and you nothing?”

  “I won’t have an absent wife. I won’t sit at home like a milksop and pine for you. Never knowing whether you live or if some cold-hearted bastard has driven a sword through your chest. I want all of you or none of you, no in between, no shades of grey.”

  “You can’t have all of me. I belong to my ship, to my crew. I belong to the sea the same as you belong to your title. We were foolish to think we had a choice in this.”

  James let her go and raked both hands through his hair until the strands pulled and the pain he felt magnified tenfold. “You do have a choice and you’re making the wrong one. You could be happy with me, Daniella. Really, truly happy with me. I would treat you like a queen but you won’t even give us a chance.”

  “It’s all about what you want and how you’re going to get it. How do you know you can’t be happy with me? On The Aurora? We wouldn’t have to pillage or steal. We could deck her out a merchant and trade. We could be happy that way too.”

  “I have responsibilities in London. I have a title and a family and, damn it, I’ll not throw that all away. You speak of your crew as lives in your hands but what about my tenants? What about the men, women and children who need me? Would you leave them with that uncertainty? Because I’ll not do it.”

  “Let someone else do it,” she cried. “Just as your father stepped up, surely there is someone else for your stupid title?”

  “It doesn’t work like that. I’d have to be dead for that to happen. This is my chance to show England that I’m not the Butcher, that I’m as good as my word. I can make a difference in the House of Lords and for my people. I can campaign behind the scenes so the next Bonaparte doesn’t take the lives of another generation of boys.”

  Her expression softened, defeat in her eyes. “A noble thought, but England doesn’t care about you, James. That is a one-sided love. How did she repay you for your years of service? With nothing more than nightmares. What does she promise you in return for your obedience and fealty? She won’t keep you warm at night as I would have. She won’t hold you in the night as I would have. She sure as hell won’t give you obedience or fealty in return. The moment you falter, they’ll eat you alive. You, your sister, your mother, your name.”

  “You’re wrong. You play the game and you are rewarded. What will happen to Amelia if I stay here with you? Would you climb out of your cage only to put us in it?”

  Daniella shook her head. He was right: it was hopeless. “I need to think on it.”

  She’d been featherbrained enough to spend an hour imagining her father returning James’s family, not angry with her for her childish stunts because she was a happily married lady. He would give her the ship and her husband would sail alongside her. Now she had to finally admit that for the foolishness it was. She wiped angry tears from her eyes and cheeks and set her feet, one after another, down the carpeted stair to the hall below. She’d blatantly ignored any other outcomes because it was too painful to think of her father pushing her away again, after everything she’d done to get back here.

  “Daniella!”

  She ignored the shouts from behind her and kept going. She had to be alone with her thoughts and her devastation. She threw all of her weight behind the inn door and blinked against the sunshine but still she didn’t stop. Bleak despair resettled like a boulder in the pit of her stomach.

  “Daniella, stop!”

  “Why? So you can lock me back up until my father comes for me? Or so I can write your damned letter and absolve you of everything?”

  “Please, we need to talk about this.”

  She whirled around so suddenly in the middle of the road that James had to skid to a stop to avoid smashing into her. “What do you want from me? I can’t do it your way and you won’t bend at all.”

  James considered her before saying, “Can’t? Or won’t?”

  She was silent for a time as she thought of her answer. Won’t. If she had to choose one, it was won’t. That life wasn’t for her. But how do you know? Whispered on the wind. “Please, you have to know this won’t work.”

  “Give it twelve months, Daniella. Let me show you the possibilities.”

  She was about to give in, about to tell him she would try because now that she’d spent time with him, she wasn’t sure she wanted to spend time without him. His gaze lifted over her shoulder and a different kind of tension stiffened his spine. “I don’t believe it.”

  She spun around. “What are you looking—?” There, on the side of the road with a wide smile on his face was her father, leaning heavily on his cane, arm in arm with a pretty blonde woman on one side and a heavily pregnant girl on the other.

  Daniella’s heart gave a thump-thump and then ceased beating altogether. “Papa?”

  She stepped forwards, her hand out, a lump in her throat and tears now falling unheeded down her face. But then an iron-strong arm wrapped around her middle and pulled her back.

  “What are you doing? Let me go!”

  “I can’t do that, Daniella.”

  “Papa?” she shrieked and kicked out with all the fury she had singing in her veins.

  Chapter Thirty

  “Daniella, calm down.” Was he really seeing what he was seeing? Surely he’d fallen down the stairs and split his skull? He must have died there on the floor and gone to hell.

  Hobson exploded from the door of the inn behind them and James passed Daniella to him. He ran across the street, heedless of animals, carriages, people. Without warning, he barrelled into Captain Germaine, knocking him off his feet. Or rather, foot. They went down and as they did James landed a right hook to the older man’s jaw. After sliding a few feet, he regained his balance, prepared to attack the man again. “Get up, you filthy dog.”

  A screeching reached his ears over the blood pounding there. He ignored it all. He would have satisfaction and he would not stop until one of them was dead. “Get up!” he raged. This was all Germaine’s fault. As he approached to kick the man, his mother appeared and threw her body over that of the captain’s.

  “Mother, run! Take Amelia and get to safety.”

  She met his gaze with worry, with concern, with…shame? “What are you doing here, James? How did you find us?”

  “I’m rescuing you. I’ll kill him for what he’s done to you both.” He wasn’t ready to look for Amelia in the growing crowd. Once was enough to know someone had taken advantage of his sister. He would kill that son of a bitch as well.

  “What he’s done? What are you talking about?” Why didn’t his mother look scared? Why did she protect her captor?

  “Have you lost your mind?” Daniella shouted as she threw herself to her father’s other side.

  “What did you think would happen, Daniella? That I wouldn’t notice my pregnant sister and not demand an accounting?” He addressed Germaine who now sat on the ground but hadn’t yet risen to his feet. “After you die, the man who raped my sister is next. Do you understand me, old man? Now get up.”

  Germaine stared at him in confusion. “Raped your…?” He seemed very dazed as he turned his face to Daniella. “What are you doing here? Who is this boy? What is he talking about? What happened to your neck?”

  James wasn’t hearing the words he wanted to. “Are you going to deny keeping my mother and Amelia prisoner all these months?”

  Amelia stepped fo
rwards then and took their mother by the shoulders and helped her from the ground. “Mama, we knew this might happen, and now we are making a scene. Shall we take this discussion somewhere more private?”

  “I say we settle it right here, right now,” James suggested with a growl, his fists raised.

  Daniella jumped to her feet and came at him. “You can’t kill my father. I won’t let you.”

  “You can’t stop this, Daniella. Perhaps if my sister wasn’t sullied and increasing, things could have been different. We could have tried to find some middle ground where we both win. But that—” he pointed to Amelia and her distended stomach “—does not lie.”

  “I’d hear my father’s version of events before I let you stab him again.” She held her arms out but stood fast.

  “Stalling, my dear? I will go through you to get to him, wife or not.”

  “You’d harm your own wife to get at her father? This isn’t England, James. Your title is no protection. Here you would be tried, found guilty and hanged before the day is out.” When she stopped, thought a moment, and stepped aside, he gulped. “On second thoughts, go right ahead. Perhaps I will be taking your money by day’s end after all.”

  Didn’t she know by now he would never harm her? He’d lost control. Again.

  This time it was Germaine who spoke. “I do believe there is quite a bit of explaining to do but not here. I’ll see the women back to the ship and then I’ll return.”

  “Over my dead body. The women stay.”

  “Not here. Not with you. If your mother wants to return with me, she can, but I’ll not have Amelia subjected to it.”

  “Fine. But Daniella stays with me.”

  “I will not,” she interjected, making to join her father.

  James took her by the arm before she’d travelled two steps. “My wife stays with me. I won’t have anyone sailing off before this is sorted. If you don’t have a damned good explanation, I will call you out and put my ball in your chest.”