But now the question was raised and by the end of the day, the village would buzz with news that Penfold was either dead or on his deathbed. Either way, when they failed to produce a duke, the guardian would be able to step in and interfere. Darius just had to hold on to the hope that Wickham knew nothing of the state of Penfold’s last will and testament. Whoever had broken into his study that night and set the fire had those documents. It wasn’t Harold.
“We have to be prepared to leave tomorrow, at first light if possible.” They could make the ship the day after that and then they only had to wait for the tide. Three days. If the Persecutor was ready.
Damn it, Darius knew they were running out of time and there wasn’t a bloody thing he could do about it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The very best thrill about having a secret was no one else need ever know the details. Eliza’s developing relationship with her husband was certainly no secret. He’d kissed her at the breakfast table. In front of his men. In front of her sisters. Gabriella had asked question after question the day before when she and Darius had emerged from the attic, her hair a mess, Darius with dust all over his clothes, both wearing rather large, silly smiles.
Eliza had out-and-out lied to her sister. This morning, after the dining room display, Gabriella had asked yet more questions. She wanted to know what it was like to kiss a man. Did he taste different? Did he hold her that close each time he pressed his lips to hers? Did she enjoy the act or was it terribly awful as their father had told them?
Eliza pursed her lips and bit down on her tongue. She had presumed their father had only spoken to her, being the eldest and closest to marriageable age, about ‘the act.’ She had been wrong. When questioned though, Gabriella had blushed and turned away and denied knowledge of how it all worked. She understood her sister had questions, a lot of them apparently, but Eliza would not tell. These secrets were hers to keep as close as she wanted.
The wicked things they did behind closed doors were not for the ears of the young or impressionable. Eliza wasn’t even sure she was old enough to know about such things. What she did know is that she couldn’t stop thinking. Her brain wouldn’t switch off long enough to allow her to get to sleep so there she lay, in her cot in the nursery between a sleeping Grace on one side and a softly snoring Sarah on the other, the infant happy and thriving.
Having never been apart from her siblings, she’d never had anything she wouldn’t share with them. She’d never wanted to keep anything from them either. Until now. Should she think herself terribly selfish?
She didn’t.
She felt gloriously alive for the first time in her life. Darius made her feel like a woman.
Strange that she’d never known she was missing out on anything. She certainly didn’t resent her family or even her father or mother for her life so far but she did wonder, in the dark there, alone, if Darius hadn’t come into their lives, would she have ever discovered what it was like to be touched? To crave his hands on her body and hers on his. So far, he’d done all the caressing and she had barely clung to sanity. So far, he hadn’t let her put her hands on him much other than his arms and back and her fingers in his hair. Well, he hadn’t not let her, but he hadn’t encouraged her either. Strange.
Darius also hadn’t asked her again to move back to his rooms and despite his declaration that he would have her dragged back, he hadn’t shown his face at bedtime to convince her either way. Had he but asked, she feared she would have eagerly gathered her meagre belongings and followed him wherever he asked her to go.
Even as she bit her lip against the understanding that she was indeed selfish, heat suffused her body and she clenched her thighs together. The urge to throw the blankets off and seek him out was so strong but there was still will in her yet. She didn’t need him. She just wasn’t tired. A book. That’s what she needed. Perhaps an hour of reading might make her tired. She was wound up from the tension of the day, from the anticipation of the next day too.
Tarquin had told them to start packing their things, not that they had many things to pack. Only a few items of clothing they’d managed to cut down and remake from the attic gowns. They dressed like renaissance paupers with wide yellowed collars, moth holes and threadbare waistlines that didn’t sit right. Eliza and her sisters would never make livings from their seamstress skills.
Hurrying down the great stairs in the darkened gloom with only half a candle to light her way, Eliza cursed that she didn’t have slippers. Her toes were like icicles by the time she entered the library. A fire crackled in the grate but was the only source of light. Closing the door behind her, she spent a few moments lighting more candles so she could pick a volume from the dusty shelves and then make herself comfortable in the enormous armchair before the flames.
It didn’t occur to her the fire shouldn’t be fed up quite so high at such a late hour. It also hadn’t occurred to her that she wouldn’t be alone. As she neared the hearth to set her candle down, she stepped back with a gasp.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you. I didn’t know there was anyone here.”
Darius smiled up at her, or at least he appeared to be trying to smile. The side of his eye was cracked and swollen. “I wasn’t hiding,” he said but it
