Life had been simple once. Happy and content. How she longed to be again but it couldn’t happen until she was safely back on the decks of her father’s ship. Her brother kept talking about compromise. Search for a husband with a shipping line; marry a naval officer or a man with property close to the coast. Then she might be able to sail some of her days away.
Daniella snorted. Even she was not that naive. Perhaps a Scottish husband would allow a little of her wildness out to play for a time, before any children were born, but an English lord would expect her to embroider and take tea and generally be quite limpid and useless.
Her heart gave a wild thump when suddenly the silence was interrupted by the door lock sliding open with a click. The timber flew wide but she didn’t get up, didn’t bother to move at all as the deceitful marquess himself stood on the threshold and took stock.
“Making yourself at home?” he said with a raised brow.
Daniella shrugged and wriggled her toes again.
“There are some questions I wish to ask, if you would come this way?”
Daniella looked around and wondered if she should refuse. At least in this tiny room she was safe from his intentions and his anger.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
Damn him. Was he a mind reader too? “But you’re not going to let me go either, are you?”
His gaze narrowed and he made as if to say something but instead shook his head.
“Then I shall leave my shoes.” She stood and followed him into what appeared to be a cross between a study and a library. The diminutive one who had manhandled her was already seated in front of the desk but rose and bowed his head before waiting for her to sit in the chair next to him.
“I must say, this is all very strange,” she remarked as she settled her skirts to hide her toes. Not very effectively.
“Indeed,” agreed her neighbour, as he stared at her ankles.
“Hobson,” the marquess warned, his tone low, almost growly.
Ah, so that was his name. Daniella looked to where the marquess perched on the edge of the desk, swirling liquid in a tumbler between his fingers. Her mouth watered.
“May I have a drink?” she asked. “Please?”
“So you do have manners?”
She bristled. “Of course I do.”
Hobson choked on a laugh and Daniella had to resist the urge to glare at him. Instead, she saved her glowers for the marquess. “You had questions. Let’s get on with it.”
“Do you have somewhere more pressing to be?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. The sooner my father hears you have me, the sooner I might get home.”
“Home?”
“The Aurora,” she pointed out with an impatient roll of her eyes. “How about you cease pretending you don’t already know everything about me.”
This time the marquess sighed, poured her a drink in a matching tumbler, and then sat behind his desk. “Not everything. If I had known what you were up to tonight, I would have abducted you this morning.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“You sound almost glad to be my hostage.”
“Don’t mistake me, my lord, I’m not one to easily hand over control, especially not when it comes to my future, but you seem to have a plan that is far better than my own. For the moment, I bow to your superior scheming.”
“Why do you want to rejoin your father so badly?” he asked. “I would think some amount of continuity and safety would make a young lady happy.”
“Then you would be wrong again. Safe is boring, stability stifling. You wouldn’t understand since this is the only life you know.”
He snorted and she knew she’d missed something by the expression on his face.
“Where do you think your father is right now?”
“I’m not just going to hand over information like that to someone like you.”
“I didn’t think so,” he said with a wide grin. As much as Daniella tried to ignore it, his grin did things to her insides that she didn’t want done. He really was very nice to look at now he was clean. Since arriving in London, she’d not been in the same room as a gentleman in his shirtsleeves other than her brother. Especially not one with his shirtsleeves rolled to his elbows and no necktie. Dark hair sprinkled his wide forearms and chest, similar growth darkening his jaw also. Perhaps he wasn’t a gentleman after all?
“Who are you?” she asked, before thinking the better of opening her mouth.
“James Trelissick, the Most Honourable Marquess of Lasterton. I assume you know how to get a message to the captain?”
She shook her head and looked at him narrowly, ignoring the insulting bow he offered with the repeat of his name. “No. Who were you when you weren’t the Marquess of Lasterton?” There was more to his story and she wanted to know what it was. How could she hand over her fate without all the facts?
Hobson chose that moment to intervene. “His lordship was a major in his majesty’s army.”
“Hobson.”
The man stared at Lasterton for a moment and then gave a small nod. She would have to remember that Hobson knew just as much as his master.
“I didn’t know marquesses went to war.” When The Aurora took a ship, the titled were always the fattest and laziest men and she often wondered if they did anything at all for themselves. This marquess was not fat and she doubted very much he suffered from idleness.
“I didn’t have the title when my commission was purchased. How do you communicate with the captain when you are away from the ship?”
“I don’t. I was forbidden any further contact.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Fury warmed her cheeks. “Don’t you think if I had a way to speak to my father, I would have considered that before putting my innocence up for
