He removed his gloves, his fingers going to the buttons beneath her chin. He was only going to loosen them off slightly to ensure her breathing was obstructed in no way. No sooner had he undone the first of the blasted tiny pearls, there came a roar of fury and he was knocked off-balance and went over the back of the settee. Darius landed with an oomph as the air was pushed from his lungs, someone landing on top of him.
“You will not touch my sister, you blackguard!”
Duncan and Marcus rushed to lift the youth from him, the boy’s ineffectual punches no more than firm taps to his person.
“Whoa there, lad,” Marcus tried to calm him. “The captain was merely making the miss more comfortable.”
He struggled in their arms. “More comfortable for what? Would you have lifted her skirts next?”
Darius was still trying to catch up. Where had the boy come from? And how many more were there? He got up off the floor and stalked over to the now open panel next to the hearth and leaned his head in. The black was impenetrable even for his excellent night vision. “Come on out of there now,” he called, though trying to soften his voice took an ocean worth of effort. “You won’t be harmed.”
A moan from the settee had Darius abandoning the darkness and dropping to his knees next to Eliza, his hand covering hers as she came to. “Easy there, love. You fainted but you’re all right now.”
Her blue eyes fluttered open slowly, a thousand questions causing her brows to rise. “Fainted? I have never…”
“Perhaps you simply like being carried in my arms?” Darius teased quietly, his earlier alarm over her health only backing off a fraction.
The youth came to life again, still struggling to be free. “Don’t touch her! I’ll kill you for this.”
On his feet again, Darius addressed the lively lad in a loud, firm voice. “Hush, puppy. I saved your sister out there while you hid away behind the walls where you could neither see nor hear her. What if one of those villains had held her down while the other had raped her? Beaten her? How would you have stopped them? It’s not me or my men you need worry about.”
Darius expected the fight to evaporate but he tried even harder to escape. “I’ll show you how, you cad, you monster, you son of a bitch!”
Eliza gasped and sat up, swaying a little but then coming good as she clutched the back of the settee to stare over it. “Nathanial Joseph Penfold. I won’t have you cursing like a common sailor in this house. Now calm yourself and sit down while I attempt to sort this out.” She looked around the room, checking the corners. “Where are the others?”
A shuffle from the void next to the hearth and three more children appeared. Two girls and a young boy. “We’re here.” The smallest of the three ran across the room and threw himself into Eliza’s arms. “I was so scared. Please don’t make me go back in there again. You said last time it would be the last time. What if the demons had got us? I’d be in pieces when you got back and how would you ever go on?”
“Sshh,” Eliza crooned while stroking his hair and biting back a smile. “I told you I would come back and get you. Everything was just fine, Ethan.”
“Who are you?” the younger of the girls asked from her stance next to the pitiful fire, hands on her hips and sharp accusations in her direct gaze.
He ignored the girl and turned to Eliza. “Your father? Where is he?”
Eliza’s cheeks gained some colour but it didn’t make Darius feel any more at ease. “As I said to the other two, he has gone to Bath to take the waters. He has been poorly lately.”
“Bollocks,” Darius countered.
All four children gasped, the little boy hid behind Eliza’s skirts as she stood. “I beg your pardon, sir.”
“I say bollocks to your lies. Where is he really? No father would leave his children behind alone in this hovel. He’d have to wish them all dead if he did.” Oh God. Is that what he’d stumbled upon? A good old case of filicide? Was the old duke quite mad then?
“You go too far,” Eliza charged, her hands fisted at her sides. She turned to the older girl and said, “Gabriella, take Grace and Ethan to the kitchen and warm some cider. Nathanial, go with them please.”
“I won’t leave you here with these pirates.”
Duncan cuffed the boy gently but firmly. “Who says we’re pirates then? And is that any way to speak to the lady?”
Nathanial was quiet and sullen after that and eventually left the room where the tension had become so thick it suffocated. Whatever had happened to Darius’s plans? He should have just let Eliza go yesterday. He should never have stopped her in the snow. He wouldn’t be there now, in a room where the five of them obviously slept because the rest of the house was uninhabitable.
“You will tell me what is going on here, Eliza. Right now.”
“It is none of your business. Thank you for your assistance but you may leave now.”
He ground his teeth before biting out, “I’m making it my business. Start talking. We’ll not leave until we have the truth.”
“Aye,” his men agreed, all standing about the room in differing stances of wariness and confusion, weapons in hand and ready for a fight still.
Eliza finally sighed and sat back down on the settee, her hands clenched in her lap, all colour once again gone from her face as she dropped her clouded gaze. “Our father is dead.”
“You’re going to have to try harder than that, lass,” Marcus told her. “At least make it more believable so the captain’s conscience can be assuaged and we can go about our business.”
“It’s the truth,” Eliza confessed with a little sob as she covered her face with her hands.
“Now
