Patrick cleared his throat. “I don’t know how you can all be so calm. Who will pay my ransom? My clan know nothing about any of this.”
James let go of her, the cold and distance instantaneous, and went to sit at the table with the men. “I’ll take care of the ransom. If we survive it all, you’ll be free to return to your family with no debt.”
He scoffed. “No debt? I’m not a man accepting of the charity of others. I’ll pay you back the money somehow. I’ll not owe the Butcher.”
“Enough of this Butcher nonsense,” he said to them all. “I’ve never cared for the moniker and find I would like to be rid of it once and for all.”
She wanted to tell him it made him who he was. He was a warrior and a fighter and any man who met him knew that. It was a time in his life he would never forget or forgive. It was something in him that she loved.
She pulled up short on that single, ridiculous thought. No. She admired him but there was no love there. Nothing worth abandoning her plans for, certainly. There could be no marriage. It was lust. Pure and simple. And lust was no foundation for a life together—especially when that life would undoubtedly trap her in London, inland, under grey skies, away from the sea.
“Patrick.” She turned from the window and addressed him, pushing away all traitorous thoughts. “There will be time enough to sort through it all later. First, we have to get free of Darius and find my father. It’s the only way we can put all this business to rest.”
“I agree,” James said, inclining his head. “We need to take this day one small step at a time. I want Darius to believe we have accepted his plans.”
“We bloody well have.” Hobson was not at all happy but she doubted he would gainsay James. He hadn’t yet.
“We are unarmed and outnumbered. If we fight, we die.” When James looked to her, a thrill shot through her body, leaving wild energy in its wake. Definitely lust. But his next words warmed her in a way she hadn’t thought possible and had nothing to do with wanting to see him naked again. “I for one have something to live for beyond this day and if it only costs me my pride, then so be it.” No. She pushed the warmth away, but smiled as naturally as she could.
“Ugh,” Hobson groaned and put his head on the table. “You are addled.”
James and Daniella laughed and when Darius finally entered the room, he wore a look of complete confusion. “You’re all in unusually high spirits.”
Daniella didn’t miss a beat. “I’m hoping my father takes to you with his walking stick before the day is through.”
Darius frowned. Daniella laughed harder.
Behind him, one of his minions held in his arms what looked like heavy gowns under his triumphant grin and thick neck. Daniella swallowed and James stepped in front of her.
“Don’t fret,” Darius said, waving him to stand down. “I merely thought Daniella might like to make herself a bit more presentable when meeting her father after so long estranged.”
Daniella snorted. “My father has seen me in breeches before.”
“Yes, he has, but the good people of Kirkcudbright have not. I don’t think it the best idea to attract more attention, do you?”
She could see his logic but she didn’t have to agree with him. “Very well. You may put them on the chair.”
Darius stepped back and let his man dump the dresses. He then executed a bow worthy of a courtier at the feet of his queen. “You have ten minutes.”
She didn’t want to fall in with Darius’s plans but even here, in the sun-warmed cabin, a chill permeated. She would be better served in warmer clothing and she couldn’t very well wear James’s coat all day.
“Turn around,” James told Patrick and Hobson. “If either of you so much as peek, you’ll have me to answer to.”
Neither man put up an argument as Daniella chose a gown of the darkest blue, which she guessed might fit her. There were no undergarments though she did find a matching pelisse. “You can turn around too,” she told James.
“With only minutes to get this done, you are going to need help.” He raised a brow, challenging her to contradict him, but any words were futile. As she huffed and shrugged out of his coat and handed it back to him, she poked out her tongue as a protest.
He didn’t laugh. His gaze darkened and dropped to her mouth and then lower still as she began to loosen the shirt’s laces. As nimbly as she was able, she shed the wrecked and stained shirt and slipped the gown over her head, the weight of the velvet sending the fabric cascading over her body to her toes. If she’d only been able to wash in more than a shallow basin she might be quite comfortable.
James came behind her and began doing up the little buttons, quickly, deftly, smugly. When he was finished, he came so close his breath fanned her ear, sending desire shooting to all the places he’d touched and then some. “Remember what I said about skirts and how you would have no chance had you been wearing one?”
Her heart skipped at least three beats. She nodded.
“Leave your breeches on.”
When she turned in the enclosed space, he wore an expression of both raw desire and tension. She wanted to defy him and would have if it had been just the two of them in the cabin for the rest of the week.
When she would have answered, his
