The possibilities swam in his mind until he wanted to pull his hair out. She was right. Damn the chit. But the Butcher could not be trusted and Daniella should have known that more clearly than anyone.
A stunning realization hit him and he staggered, his hand against the trunk of a nearby tree.
“What’s the matter? Patrick? I’m sorry this isn’t going the way you thought it would.”
He shook his head. Trelissick was never going to give him Amelia. Even if the marquess did get his sister back, there was no way he was going to say goodbye to her and hand her over to him. Patrick would still be minus the one woman he knew he had to have. The only woman who could provide him with both redemption and love.
And damn it all, now Daniella knew who he was. He should never have spilled his secrets before getting her away from there.
“Say something, please?” Her soft touch on his arm had him lifting his gaze. Worry filled her eyes and her lips were pressed together in a tight line.
“When did it all get so difficult?” he asked.
“I know when that happened for me, but when did it go so wrong for you?”
He would tell her nothing else. He shook his head and asked, “Where do we go from here?”
“Well, it seems I will be getting no walk tonight. I have to go back before Trelissick discovers me gone.”
“What will you tell him about me?”
“I won’t tell him anything. You must care for Amelia a great deal and I won’t stand in the way of that but you can’t do this again. I have no wish to escape the marquess yet, or possibly at all. I have even less desire for him to watch my every single move so closely that I never get any peace.”
“Are you sure this is the best way? What if you’re wrong about Trelissick? We could be wasting precious time.”
“I promise you, on my own life, no harm will come to Amelia if my father holds her.”
Patrick wanted to trust her, he did. Her big green eyes shone with sincerity in the moonlight but she was the daughter of a pirate who was tangling with a man known across half the continent as the Butcher. If he had the chance to take Amelia away from it all, he would do it. By any means necessary.
Chapter Fifteen
By the light of the full moon, James never took his eyes from Daniella’s form. What the hell was the chit up to now? The only reason he hadn’t jumped out the window and chased after her was because this particular cove went nowhere and the waters were too dangerous for a ship to get close. The innkeeper had given him a very long and detailed history lesson while James gulped down his ale as though the bottom of the mug held the answers he sought.
Unless she thought to climb the cliffs on either side of the sand, she would be coming back. Only a few minutes passed and the puzzle grew more complicated as Patrick also slipped into the woods between the inn and the ocean. James couldn’t see as far as the sand and after twenty minutes of tense waiting, he was about to join the two and find out what the bloody hell they were about when Daniella re-emerged from the cover of the trees.
If this was her brilliant getaway plan then she had learned nothing about scheming at all. Good thing for him.
When she stopped at the base of the building and pulled her skirt up and tied it in a knot, James saw red.
He crept from his room and used the key to unlock her door. As soon as he stepped into the space, the breeze from the open window was cool on his chest without a waistcoat or coat to cover the fine fabric. How in the hell she had made it from the sill to the ground he had no clue but if she didn’t break her neck climbing back up, he was thinking about doing it for her.
As he made his way to the bed to wait for her to come back through the window, unable to simply stand by and watch her fall, which was certainly a possibility he could do nothing about, he noticed something odd. It looked as though someone was already beneath the covers. A closer inspection revealed layers of petticoats in the rough shape of a sleeping woman.
James raked a hand through his hair and pulled on the strands. He was definitely going to kill her.
He made to blow out the candle but hesitated. The little dagger she had stolen from the dead man sat there on the bed stand as though it shouldn’t be in her hand right now. He picked it up, snuffed the candle and crept towards the window. He aligned his body so he was flush against the wall, his back to the corner.
Then he waited.
Quicker than he thought possible, one slim, very bare leg poked through the opening, five little toes bending and pointing as she stretched her foot to the floor. James held himself at the ready in the shadows, dagger in one hand, the other clenched into a tight fist.
By the time the other naked leg came through the window, James had had more than enough. There she stood, attempting to catch her breath, her skirt pulled almost all the way up to her derriere, hands gripping the sill. She hadn’t seen him yet but she must have known something wasn’t quite right. She looked towards the bed and the candle, a frown pinching her lips and eyes together as her breath held. As soon as her hands were free of the window frame, James pounced.
His free arm wrapped around her stomach and she shrieked
