The part about the beatings and torture caught her attention. “What happened to you?”
“After you drove me over the edge of the ship, I floated there in the ocean, surrounded by the dead and dying, clinging to a barrel one of the men threw overboard when you weren’t looking, and I wondered the same thing. I was so sure I was going to win I hadn’t even considered the consequences did I lose. On the third day clinging to that bloody barrel, about to give up on life, a ship came upon me and the only other man to survive and rescued us. But then we owed a debt so were forced to work it off for a man so evil and cunning just to have him look upon you gave you a chill.”
Daniella laughed: he was making it all up to teach her a lesson. “You lie, Darius. If he was so evil, why did he not leave you there in the ocean? Why are you standing here today?”
He met her eyes then, and the solemnity and weight not quite hidden in the depths of his caused her breath to catch. The smile fell from her lips.
“I speak the truth, Lamb: why would I lie to you now? I’m trying to impress on you the consequences for rash behaviour. You never think about what will happen after the fact. Something I never did either, until I was forced to it.”
“So this is the revenge you will exact upon me?” she asked, hardly able to hope that would be the extent of it. “Chilling me with your tale and making me think about my actions? James has been doing just that for days without success.”
“James—” he drew out the name “—has too much invested in you and this situation to see what he did is also wrong. At some time his honour is going to demand he do the right thing.”
“You’re wrong. I am a means to an end for him therefore his honour doesn’t apply.”
“That’s where you are blinded, Little One. He is a gentleman despite his war wounds and military training. Though he wasn’t born to it, every man has it and he has had an abundance of time to have the notion drilled into him. Why do you think he took you to start with? He could have left you on that virgin block and turned his cheek to your fate.”
“He kidnapped me to swap me for items my father took. I already told you that.”
Darius nodded just once. “Yes, certainly. But you need a man to take you in hand. Perhaps if your passion for the ocean and for your ship could be turned in another direction, you might see the world for what it really is.”
“And what is that?”
He shrugged. “For every man it is different. The world showed me your father gave orders and worked sailors hard to keep his daughter safe and his ship on top of the water and not below it. Would I have asked for this responsibility?” He gestured to the men working the deck. “Had I known the cost involved when one loses a man, a friend? The sleepless nights, the endless running and worrying? I’m not so sure.”
“I accept that responsibility quite freely. I want it with every fibre of my being and I won’t stop until I have it.”
“That’s what scares me about you, Daniella. You think it’s what you want but you have no idea what you ask for. This is not a woman’s world.”
She stood. She’d had just about enough. “I wish you would all stop treating me like a child, as if a female cannot possibly have a mind or know what she wants.”
“But you are a female, not that you ever truly accepted it. As a female, you need someone to protect you and make the decisions the irrational part of your brain ignores.”
Ugh. She had to go along with the nonsense Darius dribbled. She might need him after all of it was done. “Would you have me, Darius? If my father truly doesn’t want me, would you have me on your ship? Would you let me work alongside your men?”
He nodded, but an instantaneous, dangerous spark lit his gaze. “I would have you on my ship but I would also have you in my bed. It would be the only way I could protect you from the men. You would be mine and mine only.” He stood and leaned towards her, took a tendril of her hair between his fingers and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “You have a passion that is very rare in a London lady. It might be fun to explore it.”
She slapped his hand away and distanced herself a few steps. “I would as soon bed you as I would kiss a rat.”
“I thought you would say that.” He laughed but he didn’t look as though he had tossed the notion from his mind.
Just then a thump on the deck to her left signalled James had had enough climbing. “Daniella, are you all right?”
Daniella stood at James’s back, glaring at Darius but needing a barrier between them so she didn’t strike out. There was an irony there, that she felt protected by James and his presence. Even so, she was on Darius’s ship surrounded by Darius’s men. She would not be the victor in that fight. “Everything is quite fine.”
Darius was still laughing, his guffaws subsiding to chuckles, that mischievous glint in his eye. He was up to something more nefarious than ransom. “Daniella and I were discussing the pros and cons of having a man in her life. Someone to calm her hoydenish ways. I made her an offer should she wish to stay here with me.”
“And you had to touch her to do that? I hope she declined your offer?” James asked.
“That is between her and me. Daniella and I are old friends. I’m
