Eliza hadn’t recognised the man before but now she saw the difference a few years had made to the shire’s magistrate. He had aged twenty years and was double the man he had been when Eliza had last seen him.
Stepping around Darius, Eliza approached and dropped a low curtsy, appealing to the man’s sense of propriety if nothing else. “Sir Percival, how lovely to see you again.”
He gave her a short nod but didn’t bow in return. “Miss Penfold.”
He insulted her station but then Eliza had become used to that after the scandal. She didn’t bristle or step away. “Surely you aren’t entertaining the notion that my father has passed? We would have notified you of his death immediately.”
He looked down his long fat nose at her but then shook his head. “I’m sure you would have, had you known the duke had been murdered.”
“Murdered?” she repeated with a shaky laugh. “Goodness, what tales has Wickham been sharing with you?”
“Not tales, miss, truths. About this pirate and, pardon me for being the one to say it out loud, your brother.”
Eliza stepped back. “Nathanial has nothing to do with any of this.”
Wickham chose that moment to laugh again, the maniacal sound already so filled with triumph, she almost sagged in defeat. When he reached back into the carriage and withdrew a black velvet sack, Eliza returned to Darius’s side to stand between her husband and her brother.
No one breathed in the time it took for Wickham to loosen the ties on the bag but everyone made a sound when he withdrew what looked to be half a blackened skull. Eliza’s stomach dropped and when Ethan squealed and tucked himself into the back of her skirts, she knew they were all doomed. It had only been a matter of time.
The past two weeks, the past three months, the paying of the creditors, the forging of notes, the constant terror, was all about to be undone. Even Darius, her dragon slayer, would not be able to protect any of them from what was about to happen. Gabriella would go directly to The Tower, Eliza would be transported, Grace would be at Wickham’s mercies and God knew what would happen to her brothers. They would probably hang Nathanial by the end of the day.
Her courage faltered, her will crumbled and her world came crashing down.
*
Darius didn’t know what he’d do if Eliza fainted but as Nathanial gathered closer by her side, he felt a tiny measure of relief. A prickling of warning had been climbing his spine ever since they’d walked out the door but now it was an almost painful pounding at his temple. And they were sitting ducks. Out there in the open with very little in the way of defences besides their weapons. He was holding his baby sister for God’s sake.
“What’s say we let the women go back inside while we discuss this like gentleman,” Darius suggested, shifting Sarah in his arms, ready to pass her to Eliza to take back into the house.
The action drew Wickham’s attention. His sire narrowed his eyes. “You dare have these innocent ladies in your home while you tout your bastard before their eyes?”
Darius hesitated before he answered. “We all have our crosses to bear, don’t we, Father?” He wanted to call his father out on his womanising and leaving bastards in his wake but for the sake of Sarah, he bit down on the end of his tongue and only made sure the magistrate was aware of their familial connection.
“Father?” Sir Percival muttered. Not aware then. Darius almost smiled. Almost.
Wickham was fast to defend himself with lies. “His mother accused me of being his father but whores do lie.”
All three Penfold girls gasped at the crudity of the conversation and Sir Percival shook his head in admonishment. “I must say, this is all too strange for the likes of me. What have you drawn me into, Wickham?”
“As we discussed, the children’s father is dead and they need to be rescued from the hands of this pirate before their good virtues are called into question.”
Sir Percival’s eyes stopped on Eliza and he raised a brow. She straightened her spine and stared right back, nearly daring him to comment out loud.
Darius stepped in front of her once again. “This is not conversation for the gently bred. Either say what you have come to say or let me convey these children to their father.”
Wickham roared with anger and held the half skull up in his hand. “This was their father.”
“Can you prove it?” Darius asked. He made a show of searching behind the men before fixing his attention on the lawman. “Harold isn’t here. Are you sure Wickham didn’t murder his own son to conjure coincidental evidence?”
Percival didn’t look at all convinced about that tale but Darius could tell the man was stuck between the warring factions and had no idea how to proceed.
Wickham spoke again. “Harold is weak. He decided to stay at the inn. At least let me take the children in, since I am their legal guardian, until the duke returns. It is our Christian duty to ensure they are safe from harm.”
“You are not our guardian,” Nathanial said, finally finding his voice. He even sounded like gentry when he spoke. “Our father will be waiting for us in London and he won’t be happy that we have been held up by these lies.”
“Harold saw you digging up your father’s body in the snow, he saw the bastard set the light to the timbers himself and then dug out what was left from the ashes.”
“A convenient story,” Darius said, “but the word of a gambling wastrel can hardly be believed. He probably made up the story to disguise his own actions in failing to take Eliza by force.”
Percival spluttered before snapping his gaze back to Eliza. “What? What did he say?”
Darius stepped forward with a pointed finger of
