Just like all the men in her life so far, Darius had lied to her. He’d fabricated an event to push her from her home and into his. She knew why he had done it, she wasn’t daft, but she wished he hadn’t. Someone could have been very seriously hurt, even killed. She would have said yes eventually. Another day, another week. Time had been running out—she knew that. Obviously Darius’s patience had come to an end sooner. He’d sped things up beautifully. For himself. But he’d put the children in serious danger and that really pinched her temper. She felt betrayed.
As her mind raced from one thought to the next, something Sir Percival had said kept resonating and wouldn’t stop. “You said you have the papers to prove Wickham our guardian? Where did you get them?”
Sir Percival gestured with his head to Wickham. “He gave them to me. Don’t much care where he got them from though. You were in severe danger, my dear.”
They were in severe danger now, she thought as she transferred her gaze to Wickham. “My lord? Where did you get the papers?”
“That should not be your concern right now.”
“Oh? What should my concern be?”
A flicker of irritation crossed eyes the same hazel as Darius’s. “If the ton discovers you were holed up with a pirate, hiding the death of your father, there won’t be a corner of the world to flee to, to escape the gossip.”
Ethan lifted his head and said, “Darius isn’t a pirate anymore. He’s my—”
Eliza squeezed the last words from him, fearing what he had been about to say more than the man sitting across from them.
Wickham wasn’t easily fooled. “He’s your what, lad?”
“He’s our knight in shiny armour. He’s going to slay Eliza’s dragons.”
Percival and Wickham both laughed at this but Ethan didn’t like it. “He’s an honourable man! Eliza would never have—”
“Not another word, Ethan,” she whispered, clapping a hand over her brother’s mouth. He met her gaze and nodded.
The men stopped laughing in an instant. A fraught moment later and Percival frowned. Wickham went from jovial scorn to red-hot anger. His face brightened and his eyes narrowed. “Eliza never would have what?”
Eliza kept her hand over Ethan’s mouth. “You needn’t listen to him, my lord. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Little teeth bit down on her palm and Eliza flinched with a yelp. “Ethan? You bit me!”
“I’m not a little boy anymore, Eliza. I am a man with honour. Honourable men say the things they want to.” He pointed his stubborn look at Wickham. “You have to take us back to Darius so he can look after us the way he has been already.”
“Hush, please.” Eliza tried in vain to keep him quiet.
Wickham addressed Percival as though she weren’t even in the carriage. Her stomach dropped as he said, “Sir Percival, are we in the habit of handing over innocent children to pirates?”
“Never.”
Wickham stared at her with a keen intent and she shuddered. “What say you, Eliza? Would you rather live with a bastard and his filthy pirates? Or with an esteemed peer of the realm?”
“I would prefer you return us to our estate and leave us be.”
Wickham snorted. “I am your guardian now and I have to decide how to keep you safe.”
Eliza drew herself up as anger coursed through her. “You failed to mention you were our guardian when you were yelling at me on my own doorstep, my lord.” She filled the last two words with hatred before turning her attention to the magistrate, the only man there who might be able to help her now. “Harold and Wickham have already threatened us once. What do you think they will do once they have us alone?”
“More lies?” Percival sniggered. “You need Wickham’s help to lift your brother from this mess before he takes the title. As it stands, right at this moment, you are all utterly ruined and heaped in scandal. You need him.”
Nathanial spoke up for the first time. “We don’t need anyone. We have been doing just fine on our own. Eliza has taken care of us well. Darius is a good man. Your son is a good man.”
An unholy light shone from Wickham’s eyes. “That pirate is not my son.”
“He’s not a pirate anymore!” Ethan yelled.
Wickham roared back, his face only inches from her little brother’s, “He will always be a pirate! He will always be a blight on the landscape! A plague on the seas!”
“You’re wrong!” Ethan shouted before tears rolled down his cheeks and he buried his head in Eliza’s side.
Eliza pleaded with Sir Percival, “You can’t let him do this to us. My sisters and I aren’t safe from his demands on our dowries.”
Percival showed his hidden colours when he grinned and reached out his hand. He placed it on her knee with a lecherous expression that made Eliza want to cast up her breakfast. “You will all be in good hands, don’t you worry, my dear.”
Eliza stood in the confined space and swatted his hand away but Percival grabbed her wrist and pulled her down on his lap. His fingers bit into her arms as Wickham held Nathanial back.
Bile rose up her throat and burned her mouth when Percival’s hands travelled up her arms to close about her breasts. Nathanial and Gabriella began to yell at him to remove his hands. Eliza leaned to the side and vomited down the wall of the carriage, the mess spattering Percival’s trousers and coat.
He threw her off with a curse. The coachman must have worried about the sounds and screams. They came to a complete stop and Eliza was out the door and running. Perhaps if she could get help, convince someone to take them back to town.
Before she’d even had the time to get her bearings, she was tackled to the ground, the wind knocked from her lungs, snow and gravel biting into her
