The Slide Into Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  “Dig him up and burn the body. Get rid of him once and for all.”

  “And when you take the title? How do you propose to prove his death? To prove that he won’t be coming back?”

  Nathanial stared at her for a moment, hesitation, confusion, wariness, all mirrored in his expression. “We were never going to be able to dig him up for proof and you know it.”

  She did. God, the mess they were in seemed too deep to wade out of. Why hadn’t she seen any of the flaws in the plan? Why hadn’t she called for the magistrate and then dealt with the consequences as best she could at the time? First she’d panicked and then together the three eldest of them had come up with, at the time, a plausible plan of action to save all their necks. Now it all seemed quite ridiculous. And illegal. Someone would likely hang for what they’d done.

  “You two can’t possibly be speaking of desecrating the final resting place of your beloved, if misguided, father, could you?”

  Eliza jumped and whirled at the unexpected sound of Darius’s voice. The question came across calm enough but the storm of emotion in her husband’s eyes spoke volumes about what he had heard and his thoughts on the subject.

  He didn’t wait for an answer before speaking again. “Have either of you ever seen or smelled a dead body?” He gave them no time to answer before his temper exploded. “Of course you haven’t! Just how deep was the hole you tossed him into?”

  Nathanial bristled beside her as he answered. “As deep as we could dig it with a broken spade and hard earth.” He gestured with his hands the depth he thought it might have been.

  Eliza wanted the ground to open up and swallow her too at that moment. What he must think of them to sound so callous, so scheming. When needs must, she’d stepped up and taken control, but this wasn’t her. This wasn’t a version of Eliza Penfold that she liked or wanted to see or hear. Darius was right when he’d said she should have been waltzing the ballrooms of London.

  There were a million things better for a gently bred lady to be doing than discussing dead bodies and rotting corpses. But as she lifted her gaze to meet Darius’s dangerously glittering eyes, the fury and disgust there plainly obvious to any casual observer, she couldn’t think of a single one.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Darius shook his head as he switched his hopefully unnerving gaze between the two. Here he’d thought them reasonably innocent pawns in the games of powerful men but the conversation between Eliza and Nathanial made him reconsider his observations.

  “Not even deep enough to escape the notice of scavenger animals,” Darius commented as he leaned a shoulder against the side of the house, the cold stone uncomfortable but welcome as he tried to calm his thoughts into some sort of plan. You would have sold yourself for nothing, rang over and over in his mind. She hadn’t even disputed her brother’s words.

  “We were scarcely thinking straight,” Eliza told him, her cheeks awash with colour, her eyes sparkling with…something. Defiance maybe? Guilt? Only the once had he seen genuine sorrow over her father’s death and Darius began to wonder again what kind of man the duke had been.

  The men he’d questioned so far had told stories of a hard but fair gentleman. No mention of his relationship with his family or his gambling. The village proper hadn’t seen the Penfold children in at least a year, the innkeeper had told him. The scandal involving Eliza and Harold was still a great piece of gossip but Darius thought maybe it was all the villagers had to talk about. Rich and entitled folk were usually the bane and ridicule of the poor.

  “If his body is discovered, it will cause untold trouble,” Nathanial said, stating the obvious.

  Darius sighed. “Yes, it will.”

  “You’ll help us?” Nathanial asked.

  “I already am,” Darius said in a quiet voice. He wanted to roar at the sky, at the two standing before him, at the Fates’ ridiculous idea of a joke. More than anything, he wanted to step forward and straighten out the crease between Eliza’s eyebrows. With his tongue. Here they were discussing dead bodies and he wanted to carry her to his room and lay her down and lick her all over, erase all other feeling in her so that only pleasure remained. There wasn’t enough distance or cold propriety in the world to stop her affecting him. He’d tried these past days but he was failing miserably.

  “What will you do?” Eliza came to him and rested her hand on his forearm where it was crossed over his chest. The warmth from her touch travelled through the layers of fabric and Darius covered her hand with his, trapping it for a moment when she tried to pull away.

  “Not me. We.”

  “My sister will not be digging up anything,” Nathanial told him with a finger wagging.

  Darius wanted to break that irritating finger off but he kept his gaze on Eliza, his hand on hers, his thoughts and pulse racing. “I need to go to London tomorrow to collect the dowry but the bankers will want a letter from your father, or at the very least a marriage contract. My men have been trying to forge his handwriting from the other letters but aren’t doing a very good job of it. I take it you’ve had practice?”

  Her eyes widened and she tried once again to pull away. Darius smiled. The little minx was no innocent angel. He saved her the need to comment. “I only meant that someone had to sign his notes when they repaid his debts. If not you, Gabriella? Nathanial?”

  It was illegal and they both knew it. Everything they had done was so far outside of the law, but for her, a duke’s daughter, she would be forgiven. For him, a bastard and now a foreigner, he would be hanged.

  Her head tipped forward in defeat and shame. “I can do it.”

  Darius dropped her hand and stood up straight, forcing a smile to his lips. “Excellent. You stay here and help Marcus with that and Nathanial can come and help the rest of us burn a corpse.” That should cool his ardour for the time being. Eliza he would have to deal with upon his return.

  Her head snapped up at exactly the moment Darius knew it would. She took several half-breaths and then went to stand in front of her brother, shielding him with her tiny body. “You cannot ask him to do that.”

  “I’m not asking.”

  “He’ll never erase the experience from his memories.”

  Darius shook his head. “None of us will but if my men and I have to get our hands dirty, then so shall he.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Nathanial said.

  Darius chuckled. “Afraid? Of a dead man? You should be more worried about the state of your breakfast and what it will look like when it comes back up.”

  Eliza blanched, her cheeks deathly pale as she reached out a steadying hand to the cold stone of the building, the other on her own stomach.

  These children weren’t children anymore. They had to know there were consequences for their actions. Only in the remotest, wildest parts of the planet could you bury a man in a shallow grave and not expect him to rise in some way or another. Dead men told secrets in their own distinct fashion—Darius had seen it before in Boston and aboard ship. He wondered what the Duke of Penfold would have to say when they unearthed him…

  *

  Three very long hours later, Eliza sat at a small desk, her fingers stained black from the ink, smudges across her cheeks and forehead. Pushing her hair back for the hundredth time, she sighed and put down her pen. “It is done.”

  For years she had been writing letters in her father’s hand. Without the skill, her brothers and sisters would have starved and gone unclothed. She never asked for much, only what was necessary. The smaller the purchase, the lesser the chances her father would notice when he paid the bills. If he paid the bills.

  “Not bad, lass, not bad,” Tarquin commented over her shoulder as he admired her work.

  Now the documents were finished, Darius could ride to London and collect her dowry. She wondered how long he would stay after his ship was repaired, how long before he disappeared from their lives. It would be years before she could claim to be a widow and more again until anyone would or could believe her.
A sad, lonely existence it would be but no different than the last years. She would be with her family and they would be safe. As long as there was no proof of her father’s death, his body burnt and the ashes spread over the land.

  A commotion in the corridor took her attention away as she rose and stretched. Before she could open the door, it swung inward with a crash against the wall, the portal filled with wet pine, the scent rich and heady and familiar.

  “What is going on?” she asked no one in particular since no faces appeared, only more of the impressive tree as it was poked into the room, fat drops of water dripping onto the carpets and flicking onto the furniture.

  Tarquin cleared his throat behind her and then answered, “Your wedding present I believe.”

  Wes and Benny finally came into view, Ethan, Grace and Gabriella behind them.

  The excitement on Ethan’s face was enough to make Eliza smile and forget the last hours spent committing illegal activities that could see her locked up or transported.

  “Wes says we are to decorate a tree for Christmas. They’ve got all of Mamma’s trinkets from the house so we can look at something pretty. Wes says we have been spending too much time looking at ugly old pirates and we need some prettiness.”

  “Is that what Wes says?” Eliza asked with a chuckle. She ruffled his hair and bent to his level. “It would be a lovely way to spend the afternoon.”

  The children set to work but when it came time for Eliza to quietly slip from the room, Gabriella stopped her by pulling her back towards the towering pine. “You must help. Darius said you were to supervise.”

  A distraction? It wasn’t a wedding gift at all. He thought to distract her from what he and Nathanial were doing. She sighed and settled back on a sofa. She didn’t really want to see a rotting corpse anyway, not when presented with Ethan’s smiles and Grace’s giggles. She would rather the happiness of her family over death and deception any day of the year.

  Only her mind just would not stay in the room. Even the familiar monotony of watching her siblings hang their mother’s trimmings on the enormous tree didn’t serve to distract her enough. When Wes scooped Ethan into his arms to place a glass beaded star atop the highest point, hot moisture swam in her eyes.

  Their father had never done that. Not ever. Eliza could count on one hand the number of times their father had even been present in the house when the children had decorated the tree in honour of their mother. The last time he’d taken an interest had been Ethan’s birth. He’d returned from London with a blue-tinged bauble to celebrate another boy to carry the Penfold name. Eliza thought perhaps he’d purchased the trinket to raise their mother’s spirits. But weeks later, she had breathed her last. It was the last time he’d shown an interest in anything other than liquor and gambling.

  It was the last time she remembered anything remotely close to happiness. Each day since then had been only about survival. Weathering their father’s drunkenness. Enduring the violent tirades meant to belittle and wound the soul. Protecting the younger children. Protect, protect, protect.

  She supposed that was what Darius did with her. By distracting her and keeping her at the house, he’d taken the reins from her hands, taken control. She wasn’t entirely sure she liked it though. The feeling was so brand new, so different, so terrifying. She still barely knew him.

  “Eliza?” Ethan called in a sing-song voice as though he’d been working hard at attracting her wandering attention. “It’s time to hang your bubble.”

  Each member of the Penfold family had their own unique painted glass bubble. They were delicate and shiny and personal. Every year now the ritual started with their mother’s bauble, the first one her father had collected, and then they would each hang their own and make a Yuletide wish. Eliza had hung their father’s every year with the wish that he would come back to them.

  This year, her wish would be that he was roasting in hell. It was most uncharitable. She nearly poked her tongue out as well.

  Eliza waited as Gabriella held her bubble in her hands and closed her eyes. She hoped her sister wished for happiness or for peace.

  Before she knew it, it was her turn. The glass was cold at first but soon warmed to her touch. She almost got lost in the swirling pinks and purples but then she closed her eyes and held her breath. Rather than thinking about her father, she wished for a new dawn. A new day. A new life. For her. For Nathanial. For Grace. For Gabriella. For Ethan. She repeated their names over and over in her mind until she could no longer hold her breath.

  The scent of the pine tickled her nose when she inhaled. The freshness of the melting snow still dripping from the branches reached out to her and if she could have, she would have hugged that sensation to her chest and held on tight. But every moment had to end and this one was no different.

  Reaching out to tie the ribbons to a branch not too high, hope swelled within her. Here, in this house, they were surrounded by men who only wanted to see them comfortable. She had a husband who seemed to want to take care of them all, not just his new bride.

  As Eliza stepped back to admire the tree, only Nathanial’s bubble missing, the sailors murmured their astonishment, this being the first tree any of them had ever seen decorated like this. She smiled and hugged Ethan to her side when he tugged at her skirts.

  “It’s really very beautiful,” he whispered with awe.

  “You did a splendid job,” she told him after taking a steadying breath. Turning away from the tree to resume her worrying over Nathanial and his digging up their father’s corpse, she heard the faint shattering of glass.

  She knew what it was immediately. Grace and Gabriella cried out at the same time. She didn’t turn. She didn’t need to see the jagged, colourful shards to know it was ruined. The sound was enough.

  The sound of her wishes smashing to dust on the expensive carpets.

  Always in the deepest, darkest corner of her heart, she’d known wishes were out of her reach.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Harold’s nose and cheeks were ice cold and his arse felt as though it would break as he reined in his mount. Damn his father for his stubbornness. Damn Darius and the bloody Penfold chit for banding together against them. If only the duke would pay his debt, then Wickham could pay some of their creditors off and buy them some time to make good on the other notes. But the world wasn’t built on if onlys.

  As he tied his horse to a tree far off the main drive but not too far from the house, he smelled sharp, strong wood smoke mingled with the sweetness of pine sap. He also heard voices. Crouching low, he crept towards the noises and stopped at the edge of a clearing where the allure and crackle of a hot fire reached out to him.

  “Build it up, men,” he heard called out.

  “Bit hard with all this wet wood,” was called back in annoyance.

  As the wind changed direction, Harold saw what Darius and his men were doing through the smoke. About forty feet from the fire they were building, a boy—the Penfold lad by the looks—was digging about in a small graveyard. Darius walked between, like a peacock strutting and shouting orders. How was it that his bastard brother, older by only a few months, could command such respect?

  Perhaps Harold could attempt to fall in with his good graces? He almost snorted. Join sides with a bastard? He did snort. Someday Harold would be an earl. If he survived the coming storms.

  He didn’t stand shoulder to shoulder with bastards.

  Darius moved closer to the Penfold lad as he lay his shovel down in the dirt, dropping to his knees and retching loudly. He needed to get closer but couldn’t without risking being seen. Though the wind occasionally shook the branches of the massive trees overhead to rain freezing water down on his back, the air was still enough for sound to travel.

  The retching continued as each and every man came to stand around the freshly dug hole. They all removed hats and caps and dropped their chins to their chests. Harold couldn’t see anything more so he climbed a few branches of the tree behind which he’d
hid. Once a bit higher, once the men moved around a bit, Harold could just make out the body they dragged from the shallow hole.

  “One in the brain, here, Cap’n, just as the boy said.”

  “So he did,” came a reply. Harold could recognise his brother’s voice now and strained to hear what was said next. “I do wonder, though, just how does a man manage to shoot himself in the heart and in the head? At the same time? Or did he misjudge the first and then reload and aim again?”

  The Penfold lad stammered for a bit and then grew quiet. “I don’t know.”

  “But you were there?” Darius asked the boy, standing directly in front of the lad.

  “No, Eliza was the first to reach him, Gabriella next. By the time I came along, he was covered in a blanket. I only saw the half of his…head…”

  “So you saw nothing? Only heard the shot?”

  “Shots. I did hear two shots. I think. I don’t know. It all happened so fast and there was so much blood and brains and Gabriella was screaming, Eliza sobbing and retching on the rug… It all happened so fast.”

  “All right lad, it’s all right. We’ll burn the body now and worry about all that later.”

  Harold almost gave a triumphant shout. The Duke of Penfold was cold in the ground. He’d known it. Damn, but he’d known it. His elation was very short-lived as he shimmied down the tree and crept back to his horse.

  There was no way he would stay to watch the old duke burn, just the thought of scorched flesh was enough to turn his stomach so it threatened to rebel. He needed to get back to his father and share with him the news that they would have to run, run far and run fast. After this there was no way he was hanging about in London waiting for the day he was set on fire and left for dead on the street.

  *

  “Why does this always happen to me?” Darius muttered to himself as he found the bottle of brandy from his wedding night in his chambers, uncorked it with his teeth and swigged straight from the bottle. Even after bathing, he could still smell burnt flesh and timber smoke on his skin and in his hair. He hadn’t dressed yet; only a long heavy robe covered his body. Liquor was the most important thing on his mind. He had to numb the images, erase the smell and forget the events of the day.