“Montrose isn’t going to marry the chit,” Darius had declared with frustration. The sinking feeling lowered in his stomach as heavy as three hot cannon balls. Never a gambling man himself, he’d laid it all on the line before setting sail. Though he owed his sire nothing, he owed his friend too much. He’d (not very wisely) paid the debts owed to Deklin in advance. Out of his own pockets. If anything happened to him on the voyage or after, Deklin wouldn’t be out of purse.
Darius was wealthy in his own right, both in earned gold and ill-gotten goods, but he’d paid the three titled men’s ways at a heavy dent to his personal wealth and then set sail. So, the debt was no longer owed to Montrose, it now belonged to Darius. Which meant, so did Eliza Penfold. In a way.
She could not possibly have a clue about this turn of events and he wondered how she would take the news. He’d certainly never envisaged purchasing a bride but under the current set of circumstances he could see no other way around it. If he let the Penfolds go about on their own and she somehow found the money to pay her father’s debt to Wickham, then Darius’s own revenge plans for his sire fell to dust. If she didn’t give them the money, then Wickham and Harold might very well be forced to even more desperate measures. Either way the children were in danger and Darius would not let them starve, or worse.
There was also his ship and his men to think about. The Persecutor had sustained heavy damages on the crossing from Boston. There was very little money for repairs and while he sailed for Montrose, he’d given his word: no piracy. At all.
It had taken only an hour for Darius to come to a definitive first step. “I will need to speak to Eliza and find out about this dowry of hers.”
“She’s not just going to tell you something like that,” Wes said. His first reasonable input all day. “She might even wonder why you’re asking. Not a dumb one, that girl. You know, it could help to have an English wife, see you and Montrose through those doors that keep shutting in your Yankee faces.”
Darius kicked himself that he hadn’t thought of it like that. His friend was right about the doors, but despite Darius’s mixed accent, he wasn’t a Yankee. Not yet. He still had a claim to being English. Not that it mattered with his reputation.
Damn it. “All right, so I will ride to London and see the duke’s solicitor. If we can get our hands on a copy of the will, then we will be able to sort the truth from the rot regarding the Penfolds and make our decisions from there.” Then he would be free to deal with his father and brother.
Darius smiled a cunning smile. He wasn’t usually one for devious tricks but his father had to be stopped. He could not be left to keep terrorising innocents. Wickham had made it well known to Darius before he was even ten years old that he was a bastard and would never amount to anything. After beating him to within an inch of unconsciousness, he’d warned Darius that if he ever returned to London, he would bandy about the full story of his conception. That Darius’s mother had thrown herself at the earl and begged him to take her over and over and then killed herself in a fit of rage over unrequited love after the babe had been born.
If he’d been stronger then he’d have fought back but he’d been as defenceless as a child. He wasn’t now.
Deviousness was the only trait Darius saw in himself handed him by his father and he was willing to use it as a weapon in this battle. Eliza Penfold was an obstacle to the steps in his plans but the ultimate goal still stood fast.
“Mr… ah… Mr Darius?” a young clerk called from across a cluttered desk, beckoning him to rise and come forward.
He cleared the soot and dust from his throat. How he hated London. “It’s just Darius. One name.”
The clerk nodded and yanked on his necktie with one finger to his neckline, appearing to be about to impart bad news and knowing Darius would be unhappy to hear it. “My employer, that is Mr Westrill, has been called out on urgent business and must reschedule his meeting with you. How does next week suit?”
“It suits me not at all,” Darius said with a shake of his head. Even though he had men watching the Penfold ruins it did not mean he wanted to tarry.
“May I ask what the nature of your business is with Mr Westrill? He was quite perplexed as to your request.”
Darius didn’t miss the gleam in the young man’s eye but was it a gleam for gold or a gleam for gossip? “I am serving as the new man of business to the Duke of Penfold. He’s asked me to fetch his will so he can have a new one drawn up. Silly old bounder can’t remember who gets what in the last version.”
“Do you have a letter from the duke?”
“Do I need one?” Darius leaned over the desk, all menace as his gloved hands rested on the messy, ink-stained surface. “Or are you disbelieving of my reasons for being here?”
The clerk’s voice pitched high as he leaned back in his chair to create a space between himself and imminent danger. “Not at all, sir, but you will have to wait for Mr Westrill to return so you can speak to him about that.”
“Does he not keep his records in the office?” Marcus asked as he closed the main door to the outer office after checking the hall was empty. It was just the three
