The Slide Into Ruin

by Bronwyn Stuart

  Hell, he might even drink enough to forget the events of the past few days.

  Sinking to the padded bench at the end of his big, empty bed, he took another long drink and then put his head in his other hand, the bottle swinging between his knees. The liquid tumbled like the ocean did right before a storm. Like his stomach contents had the moment he’d seen the Duke of Penfold unearthed from his shallow grave. Nathanial had been the only man there to actually vomit but he knew the rest of them had been close. It took very little work after that to carry the stinking body and hoist it into the flames.

  It had taken more effort to carry the dry wood to the clearing than it did time for the body to turn to ash and bone. Nathanial would feel his exertions come tomorrow. Darius probably shouldn’t have made the boy dig the body up on his own. But then again, who else would have volunteered? None of his men.

  They would return on the morrow to ensure the bones fully disintegrated and then the ashes and anything else left over would be spread out beneath the pines. In twenty-four hours there would be no evidence that the duke had died and the children had covered it up. Gone would be the evidence that one of the Penfold five had murdered their father.

  Nathanial might not have known it—although Darius began to consider all five children highly skilled actors—he may even now not have drawn the dots together to make a full picture if he was lied to by his sister, but Darius had. And he didn’t like the final portrait.

  Eliza had told him she’d done things she wasn’t proud of. Was murder one of them? He would hear her out first; perhaps the circumstances had been extenuating? Perhaps her reasoning had been sound. But had her mind been sound? Had she known what she was doing when she’d shot her father once in the heart and then again in the head? Or was it the other way around? Damn it, he was in a hell of a mess. He kept thinking her naïve and innocent and without fault but was it an act? Had she duped him into a union to save her own hide? Had everything so far been a setup? Her words all lies?

  He swigged three more mouthfuls from the bottle.

  Darius had met the Duke of Penfold several times as a young lad and had continuously come off second best with the bigger, stronger man, always puffed up with far too much self-importance and bluster. He did remember that he had fists of steel to a child. The first time he’d been cuffed by the duke had been over his mount not being readied in time. Only Darius’s grandfather’s intervention on another occasion had halted Penfold when he’d made to strike Darius with his riding crop after already punching him in the side of the head. Spots had swum in his vision for three days after that one hit.

  The bedroom door opened and brought him back to the present and when it closed he didn’t look up. He knew it was Eliza even before the scent of violets filled his senses, before the seat next to him dipped slightly when she sat. “Are you all right?”

  Darius snorted. “Define all right.”

  “You didn’t come down for supper and your men worried. They say your appetite is larger than your ego and that you never miss a chance to eat.”

  He ignored her attempt to lighten the tension. Nothing she could say would do that. “I lost my appetite today when I dug up a dead man.”

  She sighed. “Was it very bad?”

  He threw his head back and took another long swig of brandy. He didn’t feel the burn of the liquor down his throat or in his stomach. He didn’t feel anything more than red-hot fury and the notion that she’d tricked him. The notion that he couldn’t and shouldn’t trust her. The notion that his need to rescue the weak had once again clouded his better judgement. “Why did you marry me, Eliza?”

  “You know why. I had little choice.”

  “But you had a choice and you chose me. A bastard and a pirate with nothing to offer. Why?”

  “We couldn’t do it on our own anymore—you said it yourself more than once. Then there was the letter Father wrote you. After that, the decisions were too difficult.”

  “Ah yes, the letter. Did he actually write it?”

  “Of course he did.”

  “Were you holding the gun to his head even then?”

  She jumped to her feet. Indignation or nervous tension from the lies? “Are you drunk?” she accused.

  Darius stood and towered over her, threatening in his stance, hoping to terrify the real story from his untruthful bride. He threw the bottle against the wall behind her, glass and brandy exploding at the same time his temper did. “You lied to me!”

  Instead of cowering or running from the room, her spine straightened and she looked him right in the eyes as she replied, “I did what I had to do.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Darius stilled, clenched his fists at his sides, fought not to pace or shift his stance. “I just don’t understand. You had your father write a marriage contract for you and a man you had never met and then you killed him? Did he see the bullet coming? Or did you surprise him? Where did the suicide note come from? I knew nothing added up but the fool that I am, I didn’t see past your pretty face or your tears.”

  “You have it all wrong.” Her voice was cold and devoid of emotion as she sat, her hands wringing in her lap the only outward betrayal now that she was anxious, that she was anything other than caught.

  “Then tell me.”

  She thought about it. It was plainly obvious she waged a war between the truth and what she thought he wanted to hear.

  Darius sank to his knees on the carpet in front of her, his own personal battle waging within. He wanted to believe her good. He wanted to still believe himself a reasonable judge of character. He wanted to believe himself the knight in shining armour, the dragon slayer she kept hinting towards. He wanted her to need his rescue, not his arse in a trap, someone to pin a murder on if the finger was pointed in her direction. He gritted his teeth. “You have to tell me what happened.”

  “It wasn’t me…”

  He grabbed her by the arms and shook her a little, hoping to dislodge actual honesty and maybe loose the edge of his temper without really hurting her. “Someone was there with him. He had two bullet holes and could only have inflicted one and not the other.”

  She tried to cover her face but he would not let her. He batted away her hands and took hold of her cheeks, forced her to look him in the eye. “Who shot your father, Eliza?”

  “I did.”

  “You’re lying. Try again.” He tightened his hold on her face while trying desperately to stem his fury.

  “Gabriella,” she finally whispered. “Gabriella shot him in the heart. I shot him in the head.”

  “Why?” He loosened his grip at her confession but as the first of her tears fell he didn’t let her go. No longer would he be moved by the moisture dropping from her eyes. She could have been an accomplished actress rather than the daughter of a duke.

  “Most of what you know is the truth. Gabriella found our father writing his notes, about to end another bottle of liquor, and his life. He was to give Gabriella to Montrose, his debt repaid with the dowry.”

  “Not you? But your name is all over everything.”

  “I forged the rest to save her. She is only sixteen. Too young to be sold to a stranger. When she yelled at our father that he couldn’t do it, that she would kill herself before being handed over to a foreign man she knew nothing about, he told her Grace could take her place and fetch a much higher price. I never meant to marry anyone, only to gain the time it would take Montrose to come and collect me. Nathanial would have been a duke and able to turn Montrose away at my change of heart.”

  A sinking feeling dragged at his chest. “But the debt was mine. Not Deklin’s.”

  She nodded, sniffled. “I had to do something. Anything. When the windows were shot at and the children put in harm’s way, real harm’s way, you became our only choice.”

  “You said you shot him in the head? Why?”

  “Men don’t shoot themselves in the heart. In all the books I’ve read, all the newspaper articles, the man always shoo
ts himself in the head. It’s easier to reach with both hands on the pistol.”

  “You read all that?” What else could he say? She hadn’t killed him. His new bride hadn’t been the one to end the duke’s life; she’d merely made it look as real as she thought she could and then had hid the body. He knew he shouldn’t have experienced relief but it lightened him a little.

  “I didn’t know what else to do. Gabriella was too calm. She just stood there staring at all the blood, the pistol still in her hand as our father gurgled his last breath.”

  “So you forged the suicide note as well?”

  Eliza shook her head. “He’d already written that letter. It was probably why he had the loaded pistols on his desk. When he grew maudlin, he would lock himself away and howl and break things in his anger. This time, the door wasn’t locked. Gabriella had only to reach for one of the pistols, they argued and she shot him.”

  “You should have called for the magistrate.”

  “I thought my father’s brother and his wife our guardians. They would have done even more damage to the estate and to our family name. Gabriella would have been married off to one of our uncle’s cronies, or worse, Wickham—her dowry gone, my family gone. I couldn’t let it happen. I would have been cast out, the scandalous relative. Past the age of…of needing a…guardian.” She tried to hold back a sob but they racked her body one after another. Darius put his arms around her and held her tight while she cried.

  “Sshh,” he whispered against her hair before kissing her ear, her cheek. She tasted of salty tears and regret. “It’s going to be all right now. He’s gone and can’t do any more harm.” His temper cooled a little but he was still angry with English aristocrats thinking they could sell whatever they ‘owned’ to the highest bidder.

  “Is that all of it?” he asked her when she quieted.

  She pulled back from his arms and nodded. “Where does that leave us?”

  “Us as in you and me, or us as in your family?”

  “Both, I suppose. I lied and tricked you. You could apply for an annulment since we…we haven’t… I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to be rid of us.”

  “You’ve been worried I would leave you all? Why?”

  She wiped her eyes and then shook her head. “You’ve distanced yourself these last two days, since our wedding. I wondered if you were plagued with doubts.”

  “Second and third thoughts as well,” he confided with a small smile. “But only about what to do next, not as to whether I should have married you or not. I admit that this day has seen several more thoughts but I’m not going anywhere. How could I?”

  “But you haven’t tried to kiss me again or…or…”

  Darius stilled to the point where he barely drew breath. “Or?”

  “Touch me.”

  His heart stopped its rhythmic thud against his ribs and the alcohol turned to ash on his tongue. “Do you want me to touch you?”

  *

  Did she?

  Eliza didn’t know what she wanted. Didn’t even know where to start. In the back of her mind was Nathanial telling her to seduce her husband but in the forefront of her mind was an almost irrational need to comfort Darius as he’d comforted her. To wrap her arms around him and help take his mind off everything else but her. It was brazen. It was shameful. Her body actually hurt with the yearning to be close to him and she didn’t know how to make it stop or go away. It was a nonstop beating but not in her chest; this incessant thud was much lower in her torso.

  Since that night, when he’d kissed her and put her to bed, she’d felt empty and alone despite being forever attached to Darius. She didn’t want to be alone anymore. She wanted to share her thoughts and emotions, her secrets and fears.

  “I think I do,” she admitted, her face aflame, her insides practically itching to throw her body into his arms if only to share in his warmth again, if nothing else.

  Darius’s jaw ticked and she thought he clenched his teeth before answering. “You think? I told you I won’t take what isn’t freely offered.”

  Throwing her hands in the air, she almost gave him a shove. “I don’t know how to offer it. You kissed me with such…such… I don’t even know what it was and then you didn’t show any interest after that. I thought perhaps you didn’t want me after all. You said you could offer friendship and a roof over my head, you didn’t say anything about… I thought perhaps you didn’t want me.”

  “Didn’t want you? God, I was scared to touch you again.”

  “Scared?” Why did that have to sound so bad, so ominous? She hadn’t frightened him. Unless it was her bold response that had worried him? But he was a pirate. Surely one little female wouldn’t have the power to send him running.

  “I’ve not been with a woman for a long time and never a virgin. I’ve been focused on my ship, on my ties to something tangible and reliable, to something real. When I kissed you, I forgot all of that so yes, I was scared. Terrified even.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

  “I know,” he said with a nod. He paused for a while before saying, “I felt like when I held you in my arms, that I had no control. I want to do so much more than touch you, Eliza. I want to kiss you everywhere, to put my hands all over your body and taste and—Damn, see, you are too innocent for the likes of me.”

  This time she didn’t blush. Her thoughts ran too fast to bother with embarrassment. “So again, you were trying to protect me? But this time from you?”

  Darius growled and got to his feet. “I’m not your hero, Eliza. Not even close.”

  “No, perhaps not. But you are my husband and you helped me today, helped me in a way that I very much doubt any other man would have.”

  “Then you haven’t looked in a mirror lately. One smile from you could make a man do almost anything. You have the majority of my crew jumping at the chance to assist you.”

  “They watch me because you have ordered them to do so.”

  He took her by the hand and drew her to her feet. “They watch you because you are lovely to watch.”

  Her stomach did that strange flipping inside of her and she was lost for a reply. She turned her head and went to walk away but then he wrapped his arm around her and pulled her against his body. “Please don’t go anywhere.”

  Eliza shook her head but still she couldn’t speak. How did he manage to radiate such heat? From leg to chest they pressed together, one of his knees between hers and a hand on the back of her hip. The other hand he brought up to cradle her cheek. She leaned into him with a sigh. She desperately wanted it to be simple, easy, effortless. All of it. But it wasn’t.

  When she finally dredged up the courage to meet his gaze, she nearly gasped at the raw vulnerability there, the hunger, the passion. It all showed in the intent way his eyes drifted down to her lips.

  “What do you want, Eliza? You have to tell me.”

  “I want you to kiss me.”

  “Only a kiss?” he asked, his tone rough, as though wrenched from deep within as his gaze flicked back to hers before his head dipped again, his mouth hot on her cheek, her chin, her neck.

  “More,” came her fervent reply.

  The hand at her back skimmed lower to cup her buttock, to pull her tighter against his hardness. “Tell me,” he commanded between kisses that seemed to travel all the way to her abdomen where they settled uncomfortably.

  “I don’t know!” she cried with frustration.

  “Don’t know?” Darius pulled back slightly, his eyes now full of defeat, full of disappointment.

  “No, no not that. I do know. I want you to kiss me, to touch me, to…” She didn’t know the words, didn’t know how to say them or even show them. At that moment she wanted to scream something, anything to vent her frustrations. “I want to give myself to you but I don’t know how.”

  His body twitched as she said the words, the grip he now had on her lower half tightened and her body grew so tense, she thought she might die. “I just don’t kno
w how to say it.”

  “You don’t need words. You only need to kiss me back and let me make love to you as a husband should.”

  Let me make love to you.

  Eliza hesitated when she raised her arms. She didn’t know where to put her hands, but then Darius skated his fingers up her sides, past her shoulders and elbows to guide her with a feather-light touch. “Don’t overthink it. Just feel and do what comes.”

  A half-chuckle escaped her. “I don’t know if I can. It doesn’t feel natural.”

  “Then we aren’t doing it right. Not yet.” And with those words, his mouth came down on hers in a kiss so hungry, so ferocious, so demanding. It wasn’t gentle yet she didn’t shy away this time. When his tongue dipped into her mouth and his palms returned to her bottom, her hands went into his hair to draw him closer still. She’d never imagined touching a man this way, each strand of his coarse hair sliding through her fingers.

  Yes, she wanted this.

  But she shouldn’t.

  Why didn’t it feel wrong? She had tricked him, she tricked him still, yet as his hands shifted once again, squeezing her buttocks and forcing her body closer still, her heavy breasts flat against his chest, her hands on his shoulders to steady herself, or to get closer still? She wondered why it felt so, so incredibly right.

  *

  Lifting his bride in his arms, Darius worried again that she was too small, too fragile. He would break her. The worst part was that he wasn’t going to stop. She was too innocent to realise just how hard he was for her, just how close he was to ripping her skirts up and sinking into her. This was the control he fought for, the control he worried would snap the instant she lay naked before him.

  But there was a lot of time between the first kiss and naked, and he planned to savour every moment of it.