There was more but Benny held back. His man’s eyes darted from Darius to James Trelissick and back to Darius again. “What is it?” Darius asked. “What aren’t you saying? Are they already dead?” His heart skipped a beat and his stomach dropped out. He was suddenly dizzy. He’d seen Eliza. The blood on her had been his father’s, he was sure of it. He was sure the four men who’d fled with her would be caught virtually outside the door. They had the ship surrounded.
Darius fell to his knees, gasping for breath. He’d made so many mistakes since meeting the Penfolds. So many mistakes. If they were dead, had he sent them to it? By provoking his sire, had he sent them all to their graves? He couldn’t breathe. He held a hand to his chest as hopelessness spread.
Benny squatted next to him. “They aren’t dead, least not yet, Captain, but the major’s wife, she broke through.”
Trelissick came down to their level as well and bunched a handful of Benny’s shirt in his fist. “What did you say?”
“Your wife, the red-haired one, she took us by surprise and went below.”
“Into the fire?” Trelissick asked.
“There was no fire then. First we saw the smoke was when those two came barrelling up the steps.” He indicated the men who were trussed up and gagged, tied to the main mast.
Darius was slow to follow. They weren’t dead? But Daniella had gone down there? “Why the hell would she do that? You told her to stay put.”
Trelissick barked a short, sharp laugh. “You know as well as I that she listens to no one.”
In his mind, Darius flicked through his memories of the Persephone. He’d had the ship under his command for only one short year before he and his crew had moved to the Persecutor. He remembered the hold on the ship was split into sections. It was Deklin’s revolutionary way to try to minimise the risks of sinking if the ship took cannon fire in a battle. Each section had its own hatch and was tarred and sealed. The walls were actually quite thin considering the job they were built for but they were only there to hold the water at bay. If a cannon ball was coming, nothing much could stop it so they’d constructed with thinner, inferior timbers.
Darius swivelled and met the eyes of Marcus. “I have an idea.”
Marcus raised one scruffy brow. “Is it dangerous?”
“Definitely.”
“Do you think it will work?”
Darius half shrugged. “Perhaps.”
Marcus nodded. “Good enough for me.”
“Right then. We need axes, hammers, anything the men can find. If we can go through the walls before the fire reaches them, we might stand a chance.” He attempted levity or even hope, but to his own mind, it was as though he were about to try to catch thin air in his hands.
For the second time in Darius’s existence, he sent up a prayer to whoever watched over their piece of the world.
*
Eliza felt as though she and Daniella had stumbled about in the dark, smoke-filled corridors of the ship for an age. Every slam of her foot down on the floor to find the hatch Wickham had pulled her through jarred up her leg and caused the lump in her throat to harden and grow.
With a sob of despair, she threw herself to her knees and began sliding her hands over the timbers. She winced when a splinter caught in her finger but she kept going. She knew it was there somewhere. It had to be.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Daniella asked from somewhere behind her.
“I know it is. We only climbed one set of steps and turned only one corner.” Eliza breathed deep, kept searching. When her thumb hit the edge of cold cast iron in a long line with ridges, she almost cried out. Turning on the floor, she slowed and crept her fingers along the edges of a narrow seam. Before long, she found the handle and turned it.
Frustration and anxiety hounded her from within when she couldn’t lift the hatch. It wasn’t locked; she just didn’t have the strength. Daniella was at her side in an instant and between the two women, they raised it only a few inches.
“Nathanial!” Eliza yelled, hoping the smoke from the fire hadn’t yet reached her siblings. “Nathanial?”
The heavy timbers became so light as the hatch was pushed from below that Eliza and Daniella fell backwards.
Her brother emerged from the hole, wary and looking for danger but then he threw his arms around Eliza and hugged her hard. “God, we didn’t think we’d ever see you again. What happened? Where’s Wickham and his men?”
The smoke grew thicker, the smell stronger and she coughed. “Go back below. We can’t talk here.”
He nodded and waited for the two women to climb down the steep stair, the smoke swirling like fog into the small hold.
Eliza hugged each of her siblings in turn, their eyes red and puffy, great sobs coming from both Ethan and Grace. “I’m all right,” she rushed to reassure them.
Gabriella looked her over. “But your dress? What did he do to you?”
Eliza had forgotten the moment when Wickham had meant to tear the clothes from her body and then rape her for sport. She shuddered. “Nothing happened to me, I promise.”
“Where is Wickham?” Nathanial asked, but they were all distracted when the chained captain stood and stepped forward, his eyes flickering from Eliza to a silent Daniella and then back to Eliza.
He drew a breath and then spoke quietly, his voice strained and croaking. “You have to go,” he urged. “If the ship burns you’ll be trapped down here. You’ll all die anyway.”
Daniella stepped around the Penfolds and approached him. “Who are you?”
Gabriella answered first. “He was captain of this ship before it was taken.”
She didn’t look convinced. “That’s what he tells you, perhaps.” Never taking her eyes from the man, she asked, “What is your name and who did you
