Baggens followed. “Sorry, Cap’n, he wouldn’t stand any longer and we can’t hold him up, what with all the wrigglin’ and cryin’.”
This caused Germaine to move. “Meddington? Is that you?”
Darius moved and let the man cross the room. “You two know each other?”
“Of course, we do. We studied at school together. We’ve known each other since we were lads. What happened to him?”
“Our father beat him and left him for dead, tied to a chair behind a locked door.”
“Our father?” Germaine said, his eyes finally wide and betraying an emotion other than annoyance.
“Wickham spawned us both, yes. Harold here is legitimate; I am not, yada, yada, yada. We don’t have time for the histories.”
“What has any of this to do with me?” Germaine asked as he indicated for Darius’s men to lay Harold on a long sofa beneath a portrait depicting a gruesome pig hunt.
Darius gave a nod in the direction of the groaning. “First, he needs a doctor. Wickham has taken my wife and the Duke of Penfold’s other children and is holding them captive. Harold here knows where he is taking them and you’re going to help us get them back.”
“Your wife?” Germaine’s confusion was obvious and Darius wished he would catch up quicker. “Are you talking about the Duke of Penfold? I’d heard he was deathly ill.”
Frustration made his story a short one. Only the pertinent parts were filled in and it all came out in rush but once he had relayed all to Germaine, Darius waited in tense silence. “Will you help me?” he asked when no reaction came forth.
Stunned silence made way to, “You ask a lot of me.”
“They mean a lot to me. I have to get them back.” He let his anguish show, something no pirate did. Even a ship’s captain, a man, didn’t leave his weaknesses out for display, but Darius was beyond behaving like a pirate, a ship’s captain, London’s meaning of a man.
Each gallop of his horse that day and each hour that had passed since she’d been taken from him, Darius had realised more and more just how much he needed Eliza in his life. How much he needed to get something right for once. Now he was back to being just Darius. And he wanted his wife back.
*
The stench assaulted her senses first. Eliza had never smelled anything like it. Had something died? Perhaps she had and this was the corner of hell reserved just for her.
A groan in the darkness caught her attention and something moved next to her. She would have flinched away but she was wedged in place. Unfamiliar weight pinned her legs but it was so dark, she couldn’t make anything out. Her mouth was dry as though she hadn’t had water in years and her head thumped abominably. The groan came again. Was it her? Her body hurt in so many places, the pain kind of blurred it all together so it all thumped in time with the beat of her heart.
Eliza struggled to lift herself, to discover what it was that made it almost impossible to move, but her eyelids wouldn’t open. The painful thump of her head brought with it a squeezing sensation and she slowly came to realise there was something tied around her face.
Trying to stifle her next groan, she slid the fabric away and over her brow. Pushing up to a sitting position, the darkness now not quite so dense, she stifled a scream with a hand over her mouth.
“Ethan?” She rolled her brother’s body from her legs, the weight that had held her down. He was blindfolded as well and as she came to her knees, sliding the fabric off his little face, she breathed her relief at the sight of the rise and fall of his chest. What had happened to them? The last memory floating about in her aching head had been Wickham’s sneering leer and Sir Percy’s hands on her breasts. She’d bitten and kicked and… Oh God. Had they raped her? It was all so hazy.
Frantic but knowing silence was her friend right then. She peered into the corners around her. Crude timber steps bit into her hip as she attempted to rise only to fall on weak legs that wobbled, a sob wrenched from her throat. Two steps away Grace and Nathanial lay, Gabriella in a heap next to them. She rushed to check their breathing. Sleeping as well. She shook Nathanial but he only pushed her away with a mumble.
Taking each step like a baby deer learning to walk, Eliza climbed as high as she could and pushed at the door at the top. It wouldn’t budge. She slipped back down and onto the floor. It rocked beneath her feet and she wondered just what kind of drug they had been given. She didn’t remember regaining consciousness since she had been hit… Who had hit her?
The poor light shining into the room came from a tiny portal on the wall opposite but before she could approach it and see where they were, something else caught her eye. A man. Naked but for the tattered smalls about his waist, chained and slumped against his bonds.
Eliza jumped back with a frightened squeak. Irrational since he was chained and she was not. Perhaps it was the sight of so much blood? It caked his hands and had left brown trails down his arms and across his chest. She wanted to turn away, to close her eyes against the horror, but he watched her. She hadn’t noticed at first but when he blinked, she knew his eyes had followed her about the room.
She should say something. Anything. But what? She decided on, “Who are you?”
“That all depends,” his croaked reply came.
“Depends on what?” she asked.
“On why you’re here.”
“I don’t know why we’re here. I don’t even know where here is.”
“You are in the lowest hold of the Persephone.”
“Why are you here?” she asked. She couldn’t not
