“She sounds quite the handful,” Darius remarked.
“Indeed,” James replied, his brain not functioning as it should. He should concentrate on escape. He should have been forming a plan just in case the opportunity arose. But he couldn’t think. Not when the heat from her hand on his calf sent fire shooting all the way to his groin. He leaned forwards on the bunk slightly.
“Tell me more about this virgin auction,” Darius said, sitting down and pouring what appeared to be wine into three delicately engraved pewter goblets.
“I’d rather not,” Daniella said with a sniff, finally moving her hand from his calf, only to grip his ankle. God, her fingers were slim.
“But it did happen? I’d thought perhaps the tales were exaggerated?”
James cleared his throat and switched his attention back to Darius. “Who did you hear it from?” It had only been a matter of days and if a pirate on the high seas had heard of Daniella’s disgrace, then most assuredly all of London had too.
“I have my spies,” Darius said, tapping the side of his nose with a wink.
“What are they saying?” Daniella asked, her touch on his leg halting, her grip slackening.
“One story I heard is that you stripped your clothes off right there in a warehouse and offered yourself to Leicestershire. Another said it was a coachman who bought you. And the third, and this is the story your brother received, said that you must have finally cracked. Apparently you purchased filthy virgins for a sacrifice and hoped to appeal to Poseidon and Neptune to bring your father’s ship back on a tidal wave right to London’s docks. That’s my favourite of the bunch.”
James met Daniella’s gaze and instead of shame, there was victory. “You should not look so happy about this,” he told her. “You are well and truly ruined now.”
“Excellent.”
James grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. The wet rag fell from her grasp. “What are you going to do when the world is at peace, Daniella, and there are no ships to annoy? What will you do when you are forced back to London for some reason or another? News of this calibre will spread across the continent and it will never be forgotten.”
Wrenching herself from his bruising grip, she sat back on the timbers and laughed in his face. “I don’t care what people say about me—I’ve been telling you that all along. I am going to be a privateer again, trade in legal cargo. Don’t you think rumours and disgrace will follow me forever in any case?”
“That’s different. The world is going to think you a whore now.”
She shook her head, her bright curls bouncing with her vehemence. “You just don’t see it for some reason and I’m not sure if it’s because you are a man or because you have everything your heart desires all locked up in your manor house. Not one single gentleman was going to offer for me before all of this started. They were whispering behind my back and cutting me on the street and at balls from the moment I arrived in London. No one was ever going to forgive my upbringing and make a decent offer and I didn’t want one anyway.”
“My brother—” she spat the word “—would have sold me off to one of his cronies, a mere mister either already embroiled in scandal himself or a gentleman old enough not to care so long as he bedded a debutante. What kind of life would that have been for me, James?”
Darius rose and helped Daniella from the floor but James just sat and stared, feeling the heat of her words. Finally fully understanding the truth of her statements.
“Had either of you listened to anything I’d been saying, you would have heard me try to tell you it would never work. You said it not three days ago. Your wife, God pity her, will have the bluest of blood and be immaculate in every way; there will be not a stain upon her name or her person. If you think that way, not even born to your title, imagine what the other men of the ton think.”
Darius looked down over Daniella’s shoulder at him and asked, “You don’t think that way do you, Lasterton? Surely a man of your impeccable character can see a woman as more than a breeding machine and a ball hostess?”
Another change she had wrought in him. He shook his head. He was beginning to see a hell of a lot more than he wished to.
Daniella lifted her hands to her hips. “What about Amelia? Will you make her marry politically or will you let her marry the man she chooses? Or, God forbid, remain single? A bluestocking on the shelf if she wants.”
“My sister is none of your business,” James told her, finally coming to his feet and straightening up as far as his manacled wrist allowed.
“No, but I’m interested to know how you would feel if she fell in love with a stable boy.”
“Amelia would not fall for a stable boy.” Of that he was sure. She knew only a gentleman could afford her fine things and servants and luxury.
“I’m asking what you would do if she did.”
“I would let her go. As long as she was happy and loved and well cared for, I would let her go.”
Daniella laughed. “You, sir, are a big fat liar.”
James ground his teeth to stop the reply lingering in his mouth. A stable boy might be all Amelia was good for once word got around that she’d been held by pirates for months on end. James would have to employ a physician to perform the humiliating tests needed to determine if Amelia retained her innocence but regardless the mud would have well and truly stuck and would not be shaken
