“Did I miss something, Eliza?” he asked her when he saw an extra cot made up, a basket for the baby next to that.
She had the good grace to flush but then her little chin went in the air and he knew he was in for a fight. “I had my things moved up here after you left. Now that we have Sarah, I am needed in the nursery.”
“You are needed by my side also.” He tried to convey his meaning into the statement without spelling it out. The household were meant to think them in love in case anyone came and asked questions. Also, there was the fact that she belonged in his bed, with him.
Eliza passed Sarah to Gabriella and then dragged him into the hall by his arm. She pulled the door shut behind her so the children wouldn’t hear but the warmth of her hand on his shirt distracted him from her first words. “I was by your side when the children’s lives were at risk after the fire. Ethan was terrified and asked me to stay near. Now Sarah needs me as well.”
“I didn’t ask you to come to me that night,” he pointed out, irritated that she would place the blame on him. Irritated that she seemed skittish now. Days ago she almost begged him not to leave. Now she behaved like a stranger he had wronged somehow.
He’d held fast to two things since leaving her and spending his days with his ship and his men. One was that she had the softest, palest skin a man could spend forever and a day exploring—with his mouth.
The second was that she had come to him. Strangely, while he was in a terrible rage over burning the duke’s body, she had come to him. She hadn’t so much as offered herself but she could have said no, could have turned from him and fled. He wouldn’t have followed.
Well, maybe not.
Then she’d made comments about him leaving them. Had she martyred her innocence in the same way she’d handed over her freedom? He’d felt a little sick after thinking about it and hadn’t been able to shake it off since. Darius wasn’t dumb, he knew they had to consummate eventually but he hadn’t been about to rush her; in fact, he’d tried his damnedest to keep his hands to himself so as not to scare her or turn her away, his blushing English rose.
Hands that now itched to either draw her closer, or throttle her, he clenched at his sides. “You can sleep up here tonight but then tomorrow, you have your things moved back down to your room.”
She straightened and jabbed a finger into his chest. “You might presume to order me about like one of your sailors but my brothers and sisters come first to me. Sarah too. They are vulnerable and need someone close by. Someone who will cuddle them when they wake from a nightmare. A friendly face to recognise when they wake in the morning in a strange bed in a strange house.”
“Tarquin was right outside the door,” he pointed out but what he really wanted to say, to ask, was what about me? Yes, Eliza had charges under her care, but she was his wife now. Perhaps he should ask her to rank him in the order she saw him in her life so he would know where he stood? So it wouldn’t hurt his heart to know even with her, he was not a priority.
“And where is he now?” Her foot tapped against the floor and he knew he’d lost this battle.
“He has chores to see to.”
“So you would place yet another pirate at their door? An unfamiliar face?”
“All of my men are beyond trustworthy, Eliza. They have each earned their place by my side and on my ship. I’ll not let you cast aspersions.”
“But they have not earned a place at my side and this is not your ship. If I’d lost my family in that fire, when some madman broke through your defences, what would I have done then? What would I have had left then? I won’t leave them again.”
He wanted to tell her she’d have him but his words would have been hollow. He belonged to his ship and the sea. He’d told her as much the night before their wedding that he would leave her eventually. He may be a husband in a few words and one act to seal the deal, but he could never be the kind of husband to offer his love and his fidelity and his life. But then she already knew that. Was this her way of distancing herself before they became too attached to one another?
Suddenly his desire to return to her, to have her fall into his arms and welcome him with her kisses seemed so ridiculous. He’d been about to fall for the oldest trick in the book. He’d been beginning to fall for her. Darius knew better than to do that.
He bowed low and when he straightened, wariness had overtaken the fury in her gaze. “You’re right, of course,” he said, pushing the hurt way down, back into the previously impenetrable chest he’d built for it fifteen years before. How could he have ever thought to earn her trust or her respect anyway? A silly naïve dream that would land him right in trouble. “Your place is here with the children. Mine is below you, as it will always be.”
He didn’t wait for a reply; her intake of breath was enough to know he’d hit something. A target? A soft spot? Her conscience? But that wasn’t his aim exactly. He didn’t need to remind her he was nothing, or that she
