“You’d harm your own wife to get at her father? This isn’t England, James. Your title is no protection. Here you would be tried, found guilty and hanged before the day is out.” When she stopped, thought a moment, and stepped aside, he gulped. “On second thoughts, go right ahead. Perhaps I will be taking your money by day’s end after all.”
Didn’t she know by now he would never harm her? He’d lost control. Again.
This time it was Germaine who spoke. “I do believe there is quite a bit of explaining to do but not here. I’ll see the women back to the ship and then I’ll return.”
“Over my dead body. The women stay.”
“Not here. Not with you. If your mother wants to return with me, she can, but I’ll not have Amelia subjected to it.”
“Fine. But Daniella stays with me.”
“I will not,” she interjected, making to join her father.
James took her by the arm before she’d travelled two steps. “My wife stays with me. I won’t have anyone sailing off before this is sorted. If you don’t have a damned good explanation, I will call you out and put my ball in your chest.”
“Very well,” Germaine agreed. He gave Daniella one long hard look before he ushered James’s family away. Out of his sight. God, he thought he might actually be sick. He’d spent so long searching for them and they were walking away.
“You have two hours,” James called after them. “After that, I cannot be held responsible for what follows.”
He waited a few moments until they all piled into a carriage farther down the street and were off before he turned to the woman he held in his hand. Expecting another fight, he was surprised to see fresh tears.
“He hates me,” she whispered before crumpling into him, a woman who had nothing left in the world.
*
The only thing that hurt more than seeing his sister pregnant and distressed was hearing Daniella’s gut-wrenching sobs. He’d tried to hold her, but she’d lashed out at him until he was forced to take her to their room and have Patrick watch over her.
She’d said it was all his fault. He was beginning to think maybe it was. Why did his mother look so healthy and happy? Why did his disgraced sister have colour on her skin and a happy glow about her? Had he been wrong? They looked as far from prisoners as Daniella had earlier that morning.
In his mind he recalled the wording of his mother’s letter, the part about not looking for them. He’d thought her forced to write the letter but perhaps she had been merely coached about the wording?
“Another drink, Major?” Hobson held a bottle of scotch in the air but James shook his head. One was enough to revive his senses after the shock he’d had.
“What do you think just happened out there?”
“Unclear,” came Hobson’s single-word reply.
“But they actually looked happy, did they not? I wasn’t imagining it?”
“Perhaps they were just happy for the moment? Maybe a rare visit to town for something? Jumping to conclusions isn’t going to help.”
“And Amelia? What of her?” He lifted his gaze to his friend’s. “Did you see her?”
“Aye. Baby will be along any day by the looks.”
But whose baby? He wasn’t very good at the arithmetic behind reproduction but it didn’t take a scientific man to figure it out. His grip tightened on the empty glass while he raked his other hand through his hair. She must have had her innocence ripped from her within days of being taken from the sinking ship. He would demand blood for this. Nothing less would cease the howling in his veins. Not even Daniella would be able to stop him avenging his sister’s honour.
“God, Daniella…” The devastation in her eyes when her father just walked away from her was almost too much to bear on top of everything else.
“No coming back from that,” Hobson pointed out before emptying his glass down his throat.
“If this were the battlefield, I would have killed him on the spot. He deserves no less.”
“This isn’t war, Major. It’s people’s lives. The Butcher in you was never able to make the distinction. You can’t put a ball in someone here and not suffer consequences.”
“I suffer consequences every time I close my eyes,” James pointed out.
Hobson went on. “As do I. Always when I took a life, I knew it for what it was. Before the boy in the fire, did you ever think about the people behind the faces?”
“They were our enemy, Hobson. It was kill or be killed.” She’d said it so many times—Daniella. He’d thought it an excuse to absolve her of her guilt but he’d said the same words. Exercised the same excuses.
“Yes. But you are no Butcher now: you can choose a different path. One that doesn’t end with one less body on this planet.”
James stared at him. Hobson was right, as he was always right. He was hearing the whisper he’d been listening for all these months: the ghosts were leaving. He took the first real breath he had since Marie came for him in Egypt.
Oblivious, Hobson continued. “Anyway, let’s see what the captain has to say for himself first. Then we’ll decide on our course. The father of that baby will need his reckoning at the very least. That should help ease that temper of yours.”
They were interrupted then, as Germaine and his mother entered the room. No propriety, no knock, just solemn faces and a tension to make them all buckle under the pressure.
James stood as the captain saw his mother into a chair and then he sat and faced her. All he wanted to do was squeeze her tight but he doubted she would welcome his embrace. She held the same expression Daniella’s father had. Was it shame? Indifference? He didn’t like it no matter what it was. Foreboding settled with the chill in the room.
“Mother, will you tell me what is going on?”
“You should never have come
