He looked so uneasy as he entered the room, leaving the door open wide—less like a military peer facing battle than an ordinary man facing a woman sat up in her bed.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come,” he said immediately upon seeing her.
“Pish,” she said with a huff. It wasn’t as though she was naked.
Her cheeks warmed.
“I wondered if Mrs McDougal will be well enough to travel on the morrow.”
There wasn’t an actual question there but Daniella didn’t enjoy the awkward silence that followed. “I don’t think she will be going anywhere anytime soon.”
Trelissick leaned over the cot to see the woman’s face and then straightened with a shake of his head. “Who would have guessed one little pie could upset the plan so spectacularly?”
In his voice was defeat. She knew the feeling well. “How long do you think we will have to wait here?”
“We can’t wait. We have to press on otherwise your brother might catch up to us and force an early confrontation.”
“Will you give me over to him if that happens?” she asked, immediately dreading the answer.
Trelissick met her eyes with his for the first time since entering the room and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“You must think him dreadfully weak.”
“Is he?”
She considered her answer as she lay back against the pillows. Her brother was an intelligent man of sharp words and cold shoulders. A perfect politician but a poor fighter. He would never have made a decent pirate had it come to it. He couldn’t throw a knife or aim a cannon…but he could make Daniella doubt herself and all she did with mere syllables.
“My brother has his fine points but in a fight I would wager money on your side.” Out of loyalty alone she should have told him that her brother was fierce and noble and would fight to his very last breath for her, but it was not believable. He had been knighted for saving the prince’s carriage but it was common knowledge that even that had been nothing more than smoke and mirrors and well-placed bribes.
“You are the strangest woman I have ever met.”
“Thank you?” she replied.
“Perhaps you are lying so that if I face your brother over pistols I’ll let my guard down?”
“Believe me or no, I was serious when I said I would cooperate. If you knew how desperately I want to be away from London, you would understand.”
“Why don’t you make me understand? Was there a beau? Perhaps a gentleman for whom you had a tendre, but who felt differently in return?”
“Not quite.” Daniella laughed. “What about you? Is there a lady wondering where you are tonight? Perhaps a mistress waiting for her bauble?”
“You should not know about mistresses and you certainly should not talk about them with a gentleman.”
“Can I talk about them with a lady?”
Trelissick choked, on laughter or outrage she had no idea since he chose that moment to turn towards the window and the dark night beyond. “Did your brother never engage a companion or tutor for you?”
“I know how to read and write and I don’t need a governess.”
“I meant to teach you a lady’s manners. To teach you not to talk about mistresses or sell your virginity or ride astride in a dress through the park.”
She’d forgotten his presence in the background as she’d attempted to disgrace herself again and again. “You were there for the race with Callington, weren’t you?”
“He should have known better. And I should have taken you over my knee that very day.”
Daniella blushed but replied with indignation, “The prig should never have challenged me in the first place.”
“How did that come about?” He leaned against the wall, his hands behind his back as he waited for her story.
“The earl was bragging about his horse being the fastest in all of Britain.”
“And you just had to prove him wrong?”
“Well, I did, didn’t I?”
“Where did you learn to ride like that?”
“I didn’t spend my whole life on board a ship. When the weather turned and we were forced to make for land, I enjoyed the normal pursuits of a child.”
“A boy child,” Trelissick flatly pointed out.
“My father never did know what to do with a girl.”
“One should probably not teach her how to use a sword.”
“I had to be able to protect myself, otherwise he would not have had me on the ship in the first place.”
“You shouldn’t have been there in the first place. It was irresponsible of him to drag you into danger.”
Daniella bristled anew. “You have no clue what you are talking about. What was he supposed to do? Abandon me to a nanny? Live a pauper just because my mother had the mischance to bear him a girl and then—?” She bit back the words “abandon her” just in time. He did not seem to notice.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“Only that a pirate’s life is not for a girl.”
Those were her father’s words exactly the night he’d told her of her fate. They had fought all day after he banished Jimmy the deckhand from the ship for kissing her. That they’d happened to dress before their discovery was the only reason the handsome and charming Jimmy was still alive and not deep-sea fish food. But her father wasn’t a simpleton. He’d discovered part of their relationship and put an end to it before she found herself with child. Or, and in his opinion even worse, married to a pirate.
But she was only having fun. She’d never considered marrying at all. She wasn’t the daughter of a nobleman or an heiress or a helpless lady in need of a husband. It wasn’t until her father’s threats became reality that she began to think about what marriage would be like.
She’d only come up with one answer so far. Stifling.
What husband was ever going to let her sail her own ship for months at a time or scramble about the rigging in trousers and a shirt?
Not a one.
“I’m sorry.” Trelissick
