Daniella gasped. “You can’t shoot at them, they’ll kill you.”
“Not while I have you,” he pointed out, his voice filled with smug superiority.
“And if it isn’t my father? Do you think another pirate is going to care if I live or die?” She hated the way her breath huffed in and out as she tried to reason with him.
“We’ll all be dead by that stage. It won’t matter what anyone thinks.”
She could imagine that particular headline. They would all go down in one giant blaze of scandal. The wild and hoydenish sister of a man knighted by the king found dead in her breeches alongside a marquess with two black eyes, also in breeches, also dead.
“Put me down—I’ll walk. We can move faster that way.”
“Don’t need to.” James grunted as he set her on her feet. He didn’t give her the chance to lash out as he pushed her into the carriage and onto the floor. He climbed in after her and shouted the order to go, to go and not stop for anything or anyone.
“Dammit, let me up,” she cried. Every time she tried to sit up, James pushed her back down. She slid on the floor and her head smashed into the unforgiving hardness of timber when they took a corner too fast. A hard lump, most likely to be a boot, dug into the back of her shoulder.
“Stay down and hold on. You are safer on the floor.”
“I would be safer if I had killed you when I last had the chance.”
He smiled grimly. “You keep saying that, yet here I sit.”
Another corner and they both had to hold on, James to the strap above his head and Daniella bracing outwards with her hands and feet. When James lifted his legs to jam them against the opposite bench right above her body, Daniella took her opportunity. She reached out and with an almighty tug ripped the dagger from his boot.
James roared and reached for the dagger but another corner saw him topple off the seat and land atop her with an oomph.
She couldn’t breathe. Her lungs were on fire, her ribs hurt: he was crushing her. “Get off,” she wheezed as swirling black spots played havoc with her vision. Her fingertips tingled and still she couldn’t draw a proper breath.
Her fingers were already lax when James pulled the dagger from her hand. She didn’t care. She had to draw breath before she passed out. Once he was up, kneeling with one knee between hers, his breath as harsh and short as hers, he sent her another fierce glare. “Do not try that again.”
It took only minutes, though it felt like an hour, for her to regain her lungs’ previous composure, such as it had been. Her throat burned and she worried he’d broken something in her chest. She still braced with her bare feet and tingling arms as they barrelled around corner after corner at breakneck speed. Her muscles screamed at her but fury numbed the pain to a persistent ache. At one stage she felt two wheels lift from the ground only to slam back down and still they went on.
There were no words for the way she felt about James Trelissick in those minutes. After the night they’d shared, how could he treat her this way? He spoke of trust yet wasn’t it supposed to work both ways? Trying to take his dagger probably hadn’t helped her there but he was acting a fool. All of it could have been over and done with had she been able to see the ship. She would have known right away if it was her father. They could have brokered their hostage deal and even now be on their separate ways.
How could Hobson tell the difference between one ship and another? He’d seen The Aurora only once in the midst of a battle.
She ground her teeth in frustration.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said to her, his voice low but without menace this time.
“I rather doubt that,” she bit out.
“You know this was the right move.”
“I know you are an idiot. This is your family we’re—” She slapped a hand over her mouth but then had to reach out as the carriage barrelled around yet another endless corner.
His eyes went hard. “Who told you?” he asked through teeth clenched so tight his jaw ticked beneath the stubble. “Did you know about them before I took you?”
“No! I did not! But it doesn’t matter who told me. You should have. I could have helped you.”
He barked with forced laughter. “Now you are saying you would have helped me? That tells me you haven’t known for very long. Was it Hobson or Willie? No one else knows.”
Not that you are aware of. She would not reveal Patrick’s part in it all. She would let James think it was one of his loyal men who’d revealed the truth. “We could have told my brother about your mother and sister and he could have thought of something. He might even have reached out to my father without any of this nonsense.”
By his reaction, she could tell he’d thought about it. “Why didn’t you ask him for help?” she asked when he didn’t answer.
“Your brother and I aren’t well acquainted and as far as I understand he is completely in the dark about it all. I paid someone to dig around in his house and put an ear to the ground but it turned up nothing. He is completely oblivious. At least he was.”
“What do you mean, you paid someone?”
“Half your brother’s household are capable of being bought for the right price and the other half hate him so much they give away their information for free. Germaine could not be trusted to broker any sort of deal. Amelia’s reputation would have been in tatters for a certainty.”
“What about her life? What if
