“I didn’t know what else to do. Gabriella was too calm. She just stood there staring at all the blood, the pistol still in her hand as our father gurgled his last breath.”
“So you forged the suicide note as well?”
Eliza shook her head. “He’d already written that letter. It was probably why he had the loaded pistols on his desk. When he grew maudlin, he would lock himself away and howl and break things in his anger. This time, the door wasn’t locked. Gabriella had only to reach for one of the pistols, they argued and she shot him.”
“You should have called for the magistrate.”
“I thought my father’s brother and his wife our guardians. They would have done even more damage to the estate and to our family name. Gabriella would have been married off to one of our uncle’s cronies, or worse, Wickham—her dowry gone, my family gone. I couldn’t let it happen. I would have been cast out, the scandalous relative. Past the age of…of needing a…guardian.” She tried to hold back a sob but they racked her body one after another. Darius put his arms around her and held her tight while she cried.
“Sshh,” he whispered against her hair before kissing her ear, her cheek. She tasted of salty tears and regret. “It’s going to be all right now. He’s gone and can’t do any more harm.” His temper cooled a little but he was still angry with English aristocrats thinking they could sell whatever they ‘owned’ to the highest bidder.
“Is that all of it?” he asked her when she quieted.
She pulled back from his arms and nodded. “Where does that leave us?”
“Us as in you and me, or us as in your family?”
“Both, I suppose. I lied and tricked you. You could apply for an annulment since we…we haven’t… I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to be rid of us.”
“You’ve been worried I would leave you all? Why?”
She wiped her eyes and then shook her head. “You’ve distanced yourself these last two days, since our wedding. I wondered if you were plagued with doubts.”
“Second and third thoughts as well,” he confided with a small smile. “But only about what to do next, not as to whether I should have married you or not. I admit that this day has seen several more thoughts but I’m not going anywhere. How could I?”
“But you haven’t tried to kiss me again or…or…”
Darius stilled to the point where he barely drew breath. “Or?”
“Touch me.”
His heart stopped its rhythmic thud against his ribs and the alcohol turned to ash on his tongue. “Do you want me to touch you?”
*
Did she?
Eliza didn’t know what she wanted. Didn’t even know where to start. In the back of her mind was Nathanial telling her to seduce her husband but in the forefront of her mind was an almost irrational need to comfort Darius as he’d comforted her. To wrap her arms around him and help take his mind off everything else but her. It was brazen. It was shameful. Her body actually hurt with the yearning to be close to him and she didn’t know how to make it stop or go away. It was a nonstop beating but not in her chest; this incessant thud was much lower in her torso.
Since that night, when he’d kissed her and put her to bed, she’d felt empty and alone despite being forever attached to Darius. She didn’t want to be alone anymore. She wanted to share her thoughts and emotions, her secrets and fears.
“I think I do,” she admitted, her face aflame, her insides practically itching to throw her body into his arms if only to share in his warmth again, if nothing else.
Darius’s jaw ticked and she thought he clenched his teeth before answering. “You think? I told you I won’t take what isn’t freely offered.”
Throwing her hands in the air, she almost gave him a shove. “I don’t know how to offer it. You kissed me with such…such… I don’t even know what it was and then you didn’t show any interest after that. I thought perhaps you didn’t want me after all. You said you could offer friendship and a roof over my head, you didn’t say anything about… I thought perhaps you didn’t want me.”
“Didn’t want you? God, I was scared to touch you again.”
“Scared?” Why did that have to sound so bad, so ominous? She hadn’t frightened him. Unless it was her bold response that had worried him? But he was a pirate. Surely one little female wouldn’t have the power to send him running.
“I’ve not been with a woman for a long time and never a virgin. I’ve been focused on my ship, on my ties to something tangible and reliable, to something real. When I kissed you, I forgot all of that so yes, I was scared. Terrified even.”
“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
“I know,” he said with a nod. He paused for a while before saying, “I felt like when I held you in my arms, that I had no control. I want to do so much more than touch you, Eliza. I want to kiss you everywhere, to put my hands all over your body and taste and—Damn, see, you are too innocent for the likes of me.”
This time she didn’t blush. Her thoughts ran too fast to bother with embarrassment. “So again, you were trying to protect me? But this time from you?”
Darius growled and got to his feet. “I’m not your hero, Eliza. Not even close.”
“No, perhaps not. But you are my husband and you helped me today, helped me in a way that I very much doubt any other man would have.”
“Then you haven’t looked in a mirror lately. One smile from you could make a man do almost anything. You
