Darius kneeled before her and placed his hands on her shoulders in what he hoped would be taken for support though he barely knew her. He fought to keep his touch gentle as the ramifications of her words truly sunk in. His stomach pitched like he was back on the decks of his ship in the middle of a storm. “Tell me exactly what happened. Leave nothing out.”
She wiped her eyes and met his gaze. “The last time the earl and his son were here demanding money my father didn’t have. He…he got quite foxed and then…” Her voice was lost in sobs as more tears dripped down her face and her words were nothing more than shallow intakes of frigid air.
He should never have done it. He knew exactly three seconds after his arms closed about her slender shoulders and her warm tears soaked his coat that he should not have offered her comfort. As her scent filled his nostrils and her hair tickled his cheek, he knew that as long as he drew breath he would do anything in his power to protect Eliza Penfold and her siblings from his sire’s wrath and his brother’s damaged pride. The two men would be back to collect their money and if the duke was nowhere to be found it would end very badly.
Damn but he was in trouble. If the Duke of Penfold was in indeed dead, they were all in big trouble.
Chapter Five
What had she done? She’d promised her brother that she would never breathe a word of what had happened to their father until he’d come of age and could take the title. Now she’d told a perfect stranger that they were all alone in the world. Worse still, he was the bastard son of their current number-one enemy. But he offered her comfort in a way no one else had since her mother had died. She didn’t know who to trust anymore. Suddenly her plans seemed fraught with flaws, her weaknesses becoming too obvious to disguise. Her tears were not so much the actress in her but the situation becoming too out of control.
Her mind brimmed with terrifying thoughts. What if the Earl of Wickham showed up tomorrow or the next day? She couldn’t fight him off with her empty gun again and again. But where could they go? And how would they get there when they had absolutely nothing left? She’d known Darius was coming, well, not Darius exactly, but someone. Her father had rambled on about the shipping line in one of his drunken stupors. Most of what he’d said had been unintelligible, only snatches of words like dowry, marriage, Montrose. Enough to worry them all.
While pondering her family’s dire straits, she’d quite forgotten that she was being held intimately by a man she neither knew nor should want to know. But it felt so lovely. Like someone in this cold world wanted to lend her their strength and warmth. She’d been alone for so long.
When Darius pulled away, Eliza sniffed and wiped the last of the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her dress. Crying about their situation wouldn’t do anything to solve it. It didn’t even make her feel better.
“Where is your guardian?” Darius asked as he sat back on his heels. Did he really have to look at her like that? With so much pity in those large hazel eyes?
“The children’s guardians are people who would drive a knife in my brother’s back and then murder the rest so they could have the title for themselves. I would not let that happen. It is only two short months until Nathanial comes of age.”
“So, you are hiding the duke’s death until then? How long has it been already?”
“Almost four months.”
She watched for his reaction as he turned his gaze on the room. On the cracked plaster, the fading wallpaper and the ancient furniture. She spoke before he could. Told him more than she should, a stranger, perhaps a danger to them all. She found once she started, she just could not stem the flow. “Our mother died seven years ago and my father sort of lost his mind. He began to gamble large amounts. The estate has had no care for five years and wasn’t in the best condition before that. With no money, no servants and no upkeep, it has gotten quite out of my control…”
“How many have come to claim on his empty pockets?”
“Too many to count. We’ve sold everything we could to pay the debts but the one belonging to your father is too large.”
“Don’t ever call him that,” Darius warned her in a voice so low it sent chills racing down her already cold spine.
“Call him what?”
“He may have forced himself upon my mother, but he is not my father. He never was and never will be.”
“But you are Jonathan are you not? Jonathan Meddington? You lived at the estate as a boy. I remember your grandfather’s grief when you ran away.”
She could no longer read the emotion in his eyes as he went to stand before the window, pulling the moth-eaten drapes aside so he could peer out upon the snowy landscape. “I didn’t run away. Meddington and Harold had me beaten and taken aboard a ship. After they nearly killed me, I knew I could never return.”
“It has been years—why did you come back? Why now?”
“There are many reasons, more now, thanks to you and your father.”
“You won’t tell anyone about us, will you?” Eliza held her breath. The futures of her brothers and sisters depended on his silence. On his discretion. She didn’t know what she would do if he refused her and reported them to the magistrate. He had to be the one they’d been waiting for. She never would have risked telling him about the duke otherwise. He had to be an emissary for his American
