“What do you suppose they want?” Grace asked when the silence became too hard to bear.
“The same as the others,” Nathanial answered. “Money. Money we just don’t have.”
“What are we going to do?” Ethan asked.
Eliza wondered the same thing, her fingers clenched in the folds of her skirts to try to stop the stinging and not let her siblings know how much pain she was in.
“Could we ask to borrow money from Darius?” Ethan said to Nathanial.
He looked to her and she shook her head. They had nothing to bargain with and Darius had already pointed out that they had no way of finding funds in the foreseeable future to repay him. He’d also shared that he had no money to lend them.
The only other alternative was nearly as unbearable as all the others. It’s what had started the scandal in the first place, Harold asking her to settle her father’s debts in other ways. If only the duke had known why she’d been alone with Harold that day in the first place. Perhaps if she’d had the courage to tell her father the whole truth, it would have all turned out differently, better.
She knew now that it would have ended the same way. For her to have given in to Harold would have meant the end. Society would never have forgiven her, her sisters would be at the mercy of her father’s creditors and none of them would ever be safe.
Would Darius be any different? He didn’t go about in society but would he keep her sisters safe? Or would he do as their father had been thinking and sell them all to swell his empty coffers?
If she offered her last bargaining chip to Darius, would he reconsider her rejection?
She shook her head. They’d likely be dead before the hour was out anyway. Dead men didn’t settle debts.
Their bloody children did!
She relaxed her fists at her sides beneath the edges of her torn skirts. She wouldn’t give up that easily. She couldn’t.
“We should follow the tunnels to the kitchens and then try to make a break for the forest from there.” Everything in her screamed it a terrible idea but they wouldn’t sit there as lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
Before any of the children could respond, there came a thumping against the timbers at her back, enough to jolt her forward a little.
“Miss Penfold? Are ye in there?”
Eliza shook her head to silence the others, one finger against her lips.
“It’s us, Marcus and Duncan. The beggars are gone, it’s safe to come out.”
A second, more irritated, voice sounded, “How the hell do you open this bloody thing? Has to be a trigger or something. They could be bleeding to death. The captain will whip the skins from our backs for this.”
Eliza sighed and reached for the intricate lock holding the secret door closed. She turned it and then stood back, the others behind her, Ethan in the folds of her skirts, Gabriella’s hand clenched tightly in her own and Grace standing behind them all.
“Thank the gods,” Marcus exclaimed when he saw them huddled together.
Ethan stuck his head around and asked, “Did you kill them?”
Marcus smiled and squatted down to the boy’s level. “Didn’t have to. They ran off after Duncan put a bullet in one of them. He won’t die from it but I bet it bloody well hurts.”
“Mind your language please,” Eliza admonished gently but her heart just wasn’t in it. She was ridiculously glad to see the men but terrified of what would happen next. Her feet felt glued to the floor and she was suddenly more tired than she had ever been before.
“I would have killed them had they entered the house,” Nathanial assured them, as though he’d already been branded a coward and needed to defend his actions.
“I know you would have,” Duncan replied but then his attention fell on Eliza and he waited for her to say something.
“Thank you.” It was all she could come up with as she stepped from the wall to survey the damage. A bitter wind howled into the room, drying any tears that might have come to her eyes. Eliza shivered.
“Will you come back with us to the house now?” he asked. “The captain is going to be furious when he returns.”
“Who were they? Was it Wickham? Harold?” Nathanial asked.
“Those two from the other day?” Duncan shook his head. “Younger. Fatter.”
More creditors? Eliza knew they had to say yes but she couldn’t form the words. Her gaze dropped to her hands, to the cuts, the blood, the sting. She focused on the pain as she nodded. It seemed it wasn’t even a choice anymore. Yes or no. Dead or alive. They were utterly ruined no matter how the day ended.
*
Darius was really quite good at hiding. In his younger years aboard ship, he had been adept at remaining hidden while captains thundered about looking for a lad to cuff or the battle raged, before he’d known know how to fight, how to defend himself, or take down a man twice his size. God, it had been years since he’d had the need to hide but he wasn’t such a proud man he didn’t know when it was wise to stay down rather than rush into the thick of things.
Sometimes when something underhanded had to be done, he let his men do it for him while he waited in the background. He didn’t call it cowardice, he called it cunning. If he’d marched into Eliza’s house after the gunfire died down, then she’d probably jump to conclusions. She’d very quickly figure out that the ambush on what was left of their home was Darius’s idea and not thugs coming to collect money like it would be made out to seem.
Perched there in the tavern on a stool as hard as stone, Darius tipped the last of his warm, bitter ale to his mouth and emptied the mug in one long
