“And if he doesn’t meet us? If he only wants to kill you?”
“If you think I won’t use Miss Germaine to save my own arse, you don’t know me at all.”
“But Gretna? What if he doesn’t want her back or doesn’t hear that you have her in time? Tell me you’re not going to marry the girl.”
“Hardly.” He shook his head. “But her father doesn’t have to know that.”
*
From the cover of dense shrub, leaning against an ice-cold fence, a man watched the house where only moments before, the strangest scene had played out. Was it not enough the Butcher had already made two women disappear? He needed a third? Perhaps Lasterton preyed on young women and that was the real reason he was known in military circles as the Butcher?
Where he stood afforded him a partial view of the front door so he settled in to wait. He recognized the young lady who’d been taken inside and agonized over his next course of action. The way he saw it, he had three choices. The first and only choice he should have considered would be to go to the Germaine house and let Sir Anthony know his sister had met with fouler play than she could concoct on her own. Another option was to walk right up to the front door and demand to know what was going on. Always a hothead in times of pressure, the stranger remembered his father’s shouted words and drew a deep breath, settling farther into the damp branches.
Right now, there was too much at stake to risk spooking the marquess. He would wait, bide his time, keep watching his movements and, when the moment came to take back what was his, then he would pounce. The marquess had no idea of the trouble hurtling his way.
Chapter Four
Daniella peered into all four corners of the small room and nodded her admiration of the housekeeper—there was no dust even here. She didn’t like dust. It made her nose itch and her eyes water followed by sneezing fits that would not cease. Even though she had been taken against her will by a stranger, sneezing for the next few hours—or however long they planned to hold her—would not do. She needed a clear head to plan her next move.
The space was completely void of anything except for the wooden stool upon which she now sat, backside cushioned by the thin fabric of her cloak, and a single candle. Escape wasn’t an option. Yet.
Should she let this James Trelissick keep her and hope there was indeed something about him that might force her father come after her? Could she take that risk? So far she’d tried everything she could think of to gain her sire’s attention and none of it had worked. Perhaps this would.
She wasn’t sure she could put herself so entirely in the hands of another though. Especially not one such as him.
Though the carriage had been dark, and his home was not much better lit, Daniella hadn’t missed the intensity in his large brown eyes or the tension gripping the hard lines of his body. What puzzled her was why she hadn’t discovered his identity when he’d masqueraded as her servant. She should have noticed the way he held himself was different, sure, almost arrogant—or had it been? Had he walked differently as her coachman? Were his acting skills that good or had she been so self-absorbed he had duped her with no effort at all? Now she had the time to dwell on it, she realized he’d stared at her with that unnerving gaze before. And she’d dismissed it. How perfectly obtuse—how perfectly aristocratic—of her.
She cursed under her breath. She could not and would not ever accept a position in English society. If her father had wanted that for her he should have lived a respectable life and never introduced her to the rolling deck of a ship or constant sunshine and crystal-blue waters. He especially should not have let her experience the thrill of a chase or let her taste battle. Now the dreary skies of London left her feeling sad, sullen and incredibly irritable. Well, more than usual. And of late, with the kind of husband her brother talked about finding for his wild sister, she had been more than a little desperate to make it back to the decks of The Aurora. A privateer’s life should not be denied her simply because she had been born female.
Daniella huffed, leaned her head back against the wall and stretched her feet out beneath her confounded skirts. What she wouldn’t give for trousers, to kick her shoes off and wriggle her toes. Well! As to that, there was no one to stop her. She leaned forwards and removed her delicate green shoes and then, feeling decidedly daring, her stockings as well.
The air was cool on her toes and she grinned.
The bonus to this detour in her plans was that her brother couldn’t arrange “chance” meetings for her with his cronies. Her grin got wider when she thought about how red Anthony’s face would turn when she didn’t arrive for her own ball two nights hence.
It would serve him right. His priggish attitude towards his only sister grated on her nerves. He knew as well as any other that there would be no palatable offers for her hand. He should have stood up to their father then and there and refused to host her season rather than giving in to the farce that there was a husband somewhere in London who would make her more respectable. Just because her brother had been knighted for saving the prince didn’t mean their family history would be erased or forgotten. More likely the monarch needed to keep peace on the streets and so knighted a reasonably educated, lowborn nobody for seemingly being in the right place at the right time.
Her smile slipped and she sighed,
