“I promise you will make it home in one piece. Your purse will be a hell of a lot lighter but you will make it home.”
“Ladies do not curse, Daniella.”
Ah, there was the James she had been getting used to. Mr Proper. Another one of his many personas. As he shifted in the growing light, Daniella looked down and said, “James, you’re bleeding.”
“You ought to know. You sliced me when you attempted to stage your own mutiny.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? I could have tended this.”
“Should I have told you when we were shouting at each other or when we were being taken captive? Perhaps when I was unconscious I might have found a way to communicate my discomfort? You could have removed my boots before attaching your chains.”
“You are very surly this morning.”
He sighed but didn’t smile as she’d hoped. She went to kneel in front of him and inspected the damage to his shin. It wasn’t deep but it needed cleaning. “We do seem to always hurt one another, don’t we?”
“In all my years in the army I don’t think I shed this much blood.”
“You are lying but thank you for trying to make me feel worse about it. I appreciate that.”
“You’re welcome. Now, can you release me from these manacles or do I present a danger to you?”
“I was protecting myself last night. I know now about your night-time violence but I wasn’t sure what would happen while you were so deeply unconscious. They wouldn’t let me ask Hobson.”
“You didn’t tell Darius about it, did you?”
“Of course not. I told him we injured one another when I tried to escape. I told him we fought.” She didn’t tell him she’d had to talk her old friend out of killing James for putting his hands on her. The purpling around her throat was so vivid now that no one was going to miss it and everyone was going to assume the worst. She couldn’t even swallow without pain reminding her of all her follies.
He hadn’t fared any better. Around James’s eyes the skin was swollen and bruised and his nose looked a fright. Any other injuries sustained were hidden beneath the dark growth of a thickening beard. Long gone was the handsome, clean aristocrat. In his place sat the Butcher, or perhaps a professional pugilist. She only hoped her father asked some questions before he jumped to conclusions when the time came.
Two days.
In two days she would face her father and possibly his wrath. That’s why she hadn’t told Darius the truth about her kidnapping. That she’d basically gone willingly with a man she didn’t know and continued in his company when her chaperone fell ill. She’d actually not hated the journey. There were times when she’d almost enjoyed herself. Not that she’d tell James, Darius or her father that.
The slice to James’s leg wasn’t as bad as it looked and had already stopped bleeding, but his hose were beyond ruined so she gently peeled the frail fabric back and off.
“I can do that myself,” he muttered, making no move to take over.
“I know,” Daniella said. “But it will give me something to do.”
She got back to her feet and banged on the door a few times. She ignored James’s raised brows and merely arched her own in reply. The door was barred from the outside but, if she knew Darius, a man would be standing by.
Within a tap of her foot against floor, the heavy timbers flew open and a sailor peered in. “What?”
“We need warm water and linens to bind a wound and food and drink for two.”
“You what?” Shock met her request but she ignored that too.
“Water, linens, food and something to drink. Hostages are allowed to be reasonably comfortable are they not?”
“I s’pose so,” the man finally, reluctantly, agreed. But then he shut the door and locked it again without a yes or no.
“Not a clever lot, those ones,” she murmured more to herself than to James.
“Daniella, can you please untie me now?”
“I don’t have the key.”
A smooth, unmarred spot by James’s temple began to tick and she watched his face grow red. Before he could explode, she explained, “Darius took the key. I couldn’t very well ask him not to.”
“For the love of God, woman, you make the worst captive ever! You don’t fight at all for the things you should and go meekly at the times you could be fighting. If I’m chained to this bed, then I can’t protect you. I can’t even protect myself.”
“Do you want Darius to think there is something more between us than what I have told him? I for one do not need the complication.” Though she made the statement, the words rang false and her cheeks heated.
James’s quiet voice reached her through her musings. “I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
Daniella turned her back on him to look out of the small cabin window. “You’re right though. This is not where I planned to be, not what I planned to be doing.”
“I think we are both excellent examples of lives not unfolding as wished.”
“If you could choose to be anything or anyone, who or what would you be?” Daniella asked him, turning back so she could search his expression for truth or lies. She already knew her own answer to the question but she wondered if he’d thought about it for himself.
“I don’t get to choose. Right now I have to be a marquess. I have to care for my lands and my tenants and my family.”
“There must have been a time in your life, before your family came into the title, when you thought about the future.”
He shook his head. “I was eight, and a naive eight at that. What kind of adventures were you dreaming about at eight?”
Daniella laughed quietly as she leaned against the wall at her back. “I was living my dreams. I spent my days on a
