Gabriella said, “She always begins the meal with us but then she says she has had enough and offers the rest to the boys.”
There was that explanation. It also spoke volumes about why she wore so many layers of scarves and mufflers and coats. The chit was probably always freezing but more than likely also hiding her bones from her loved ones. She was seeing that they ate first and she the leftovers, not that there would have been much.
The two oldest children were finally catching on to what he wasn’t saying but he shook his head at them. No need for them all to wallow in guilt. He was sure he would have done the same were they his siblings.
“I’m going to take Eliza to a room so she can bathe and sleep. You children can help Marcus spur the cook and have a broth sent up. She needs sustenance and rest. I think she has looked after everyone else for long enough don’t you?”
They nodded. Lucky for Darius, their thoughts were running so deep, not one thought to gainsay him.
Until they got to the door. Ethan turned around, a question on his lips. “Who will look after us now? Eliza really does do it well enough most of the time.”
“I’m going to marry your sister and then I will take care of you until Nathanial has learned to be a duke.”
“She said yes to that?” Gabriella asked.
Where were the cries of outrage? Where were the calls of bastardry and he not being anywhere near impeccable enough for the daughter of a duke, for their sister who should have been a duchess or marchioness or some such title?
“She fainted from the joy of it all, I suspect.” He tried to keep the sarcasm and disbelief from his own voice.
“But you barely know one another,” Nathanial commented.
“I have been enraptured from the moment I first glimpsed her in the snow.”
“Let me get this straight,” Ethan started, a very serious frown on his face. “Our new guardian is a pirate?”
“I am not a pirate,” Darius said, but as he crouched to the boy’s level he added with a wink, “not anymore. And I won’t be your legal guardian. Just your sister’s husband.”
Questions flew at him then: “So she will live here with you? Right next to us?”
He nodded. They hadn’t even begun to sort the details yet and that wasn’t a stormy sea he wanted to cross until hell froze over. He had enough on his plate just taking a foreign wife. He did not want to think about it more. He didn’t want to doubt his actions any further than he was already.
“Will you have a large wedding?”
He shook his head. “The vicar will be summoned in the morning. I won’t have scandal fall on you all for living beneath my roof.” At least in his home, there was no snow in the entryway or the corridors.
“How many men have you killed?” That from Ethan but then Grace shushed him. Darius wouldn’t answer that question to a lad not even technically out of the nursery yet.
He waited for more but Marcus broke it up, much to Darius’s relief. “Let us go and see about that broth. And perhaps some salts to wake the lady?”
Finally everyone left and he scooped Eliza up into his arms but this time rather than limp and defenceless, she was stiff and tense, her eyes still closed. “How long have you been awake?” he asked, jostling her to get a better hold on her unyielding form.
“Long enough to hear you make the decisions for all of us.”
“Are you very mad?”
Her eyes flickered open and stared up at him with a mixture of relief, confusion, defeat and maybe the tiniest spark of hope as she shook her head. “I believe I’ll take my chances with you and hope you don’t let us all down.”
“I know you don’t know me well, Eliza—”
“I don’t know you at all,” she pointed out. “But between you and Wickham…” She trailed off with a little shrug.
“I am a good man. Sometimes slightly misguided and yes, my past is as black as black can get, but I like to think myself a good man. I won’t treat you or your siblings with anything but respect.”
Moisture clouded her blue-eyed gaze then and he worried she might cry again but she only lowered her chin and nodded.
In the back of Darius’s mind, he knew it was all too easy. Her capitulation, the children’s understanding and acceptance. There had to be a catch here, something he didn’t know, a fact or truth she wasn’t telling him. But all of that would come later he was sure. Their secrets wouldn’t stay hidden forever. They were too young and naïve, not yet adept at hiding what needed to never see the light of day.
*
Eliza’s mind was a whirl of activity but she forced her body to relax in his arms. Why did he have to be so warm and smell so good, like pine and snow and man? She should have been thinking about where he took her in the huge house but she could only wonder at what the next day would bring.
Married. To him.
This wasn’t how her plan was supposed to play out, she was meant to be buying time for her brothers and sisters, but Eliza was adaptable. Having an unpredictable wastrel for a father meant she had to be ready for anything.
As she peeked up through her eyelashes at the man holding her so securely, she couldn’t help but think he was so much more…than anything. The shallow part of her enjoyed looking
