“What happened to the marquess’s brother?” she asked.
“Poor lad went quite mad with the drugs.”
“You mean the heir? Trelissick’s older brother?”
Willie clucked his tongue and shook his head. The horses pulled at the reins and adjusted their stride as they picked up speed on a straight stretch of road. “Weren’t never made to be a marquess, that one. Didn’t have the balls, beggin’ your pardon.”
“That’s quite all right.” She waved for him to continue and when he didn’t, she spoke. “Is that when Trelissick returned from the war?”
“Had to. His mam and Miss Amelia needed a man when the brother and father were found dead.”
Daniella gasped. “What happened?”
“No one is real sure. Heard the gunshots and found both the master and the boy in the study. Dead.”
“That’s awful. How did Trelissick’s mother take it?”
“Finally found her strength, that woman. Aye, she had some help but she still arranged the funerals, covered up the truth and had the army send for the other boy, held it all together.”
“No wonder she is traveling the continent. I take it she rather needed a holiday after the shock of that.”
Willie looked sideways at her, shook his head and then turned his eyes back to the road.
“What?” she asked. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Mayhap the master should be telling you the rest of the story.”
Damn. She had been quite involved with the tale. Did she dare ask Trelissick the rest? As certain as she was that she would once again man the decks of The Aurora, she was sure there was much more to the story than what she had heard so far. How did the two men wind up dead? Were they murdered? Did they kill each other somehow? What truth did Willie allude to?
Poor James. The scandal must have added to the heartbreak. Perhaps it was the reason for his mother and sister’s trip abroad. He must have sent them away for their own good. Much like her father had done to her but theirs was a holiday and hers was a prison.
She wasn’t nearly as naive as she’d have others think. She wanted to regain her place aboard the ship but she had no interest in sailing for the king of Spain once she did. She’d shared her grand trade plans with her father, to try their hand at legitimate dealings while they had the blunt to back themselves and buy their first load of precious cargo. He’d laughed at her. Told her no one would barter with a woman, let alone one as young as her. She’d spent every day for a year or more thinking about the ways they might take advantage of wars raging all over the world. She’d made plans on maps, drawn up list upon list upon list. As soon as word of Anthony’s knighthood reached them, her father sent her away.
He’d obviously spent those days thinking of ways to rid himself of his overly optimistic daughter. Hand her off to some gentrified lord who could keep her caged and safe. After the loss of his leg, he changed, the captain.
Daniella shook her head and bit the inside of her lip. James did that to him. In some roundabout way, James was the root of her current problem.
They might be cooperating for now, but she would not romanticize James. For the last month, he had masqueraded as her servant with the intent to draw out her father and, when that failed, he’d kidnapped her. He was no hero in this no matter what had happened to his family or what motivated him.
Then why was it so difficult this morning to see him as anything but?
*
The only thing better than a bed to sleep in and four walls and a roof to keep out the wind and rain was the inn they discovered later that afternoon nestled in a hamlet on the edges of the cliffs off the coast just south of Frodsham or Fidsham or maybe even Shamfrod.
Before she settled in, Daniella needed to walk. She needed to breathe in the fresh scents of the ocean and pretend for one moment that there was nothing odd in her current situation. That there was no pull between her and Trelissick.
Between her and James.
How could she have any kind of warm feelings for this man who used her so callously?
You’re using him too…
She damned her subconscious to the deepest depths of the ocean. He was her means to an end and she was his. That was it. That was all there could ever be between them. They weren’t friends. To even think about more meant the end to something else entirely.
Her freedom.
Daniella shook the thoughts free from her mind. Marriage would never be the answer for her. If she thought the constraints of London stifling, she would be absolutely smothered under a husband’s rule. Especially his. He had already made it more than clear what he wished for in a wife. A breeding machine and a housekeeper. Oh, and a pretty face. Not a freckled, tanned hoyden with scars and calluses and a keen sense of adventure.
If she were ever to marry, her husband would have to make her feel wanted. Desirable. Needed for more than babies and warm meals. He would have to admire her tenacity and welcome her opinions, her advice. She supposed it would be nice to feel wanted again. She felt that with Jimmy the deckhand. He’d always stared at her with such gentleness and barely concealed hunger. She’d felt safe giving herself over to him. It had felt right.
James had only twice stared at her with anything but anger and it hadn’t spelled gentle.
