Page 2 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

One

Dearest Nash,

Oh, how I look forward to our own overdue honeymoon. I am counting the hours until your return.

Our son misses you almost as much as his mother does.

This morning, he looked to your side of the bed, and I swore he called for his “da-da” after he finished feeding.

Mary just giggled and said all children make that particular noise, and that his first word would be “mum.” Regardless, he looks for you everywhere, as do I.

All my love,

Iseabail

—A letter from Iseabail Blair Handcock Harding, Duchess of Ross, to her husband, Nashford Xavier Harding, 8th Duke of Ross, regarding her younger sister Máira Blair’s marriage to Ellison Collins, Earl of Dorset, June 1812

W here the devil was he? Odors assaulted his senses.

Those faculties that weren’t reeling in disgust, were quaking with pain and nausea.

One minute he’d been walking down the street to meet his contact, and the next he was here—wherever here may be—with a godawful smell permeating the pain in his head.

Considering his head hurt like bloody hell, his stench was the last of his worries.

Which meant only one thing—he was recognized some time before he’d met his contact and after he’d secured fare back to Scotland for his bride. She belonged there, riding across the countryside without a care in the world, not here, in the middle of a blasted war.

Elias purposely kept his eyes closed, his breathing slow as he attempted to identify his surroundings. The first scent was obvious: manure. By the caked, dried feeling on his cheek and the flies buzzing around his face, he suspected someone had dropped him in a pile of shite.

Beautiful, just bloody beautiful.

Getting that off his skin would take a thorough soaking.

To think he’d spend six days aboard ship, drenched to the bone from dodging the British and French Navies by entering the squall that nearly capsized them, and the first time he’d been dry in a week, he was covered in shite.

He’d probably have to shave his head. His hair didn’t mean much to him, but she’d adored running her hands through it…

This was turning out to be honeymoon trip of a man’s nightmares—no buxom bride to bury his cock inside, just a shite of a mission no one could know about and—hell. Where was his bloody-damned bride!

His jaw tensed involuntarily. He had to get out of this mess to save the damned chit who’d turned his mission into a disaster. He started taking stock of his injuries only to realize his hands were bound behind his back and his feet were tied at the ankles.

Bloody fanfuckingtastic.

Other than the fetor of animal waste and the obvious lump on the back of his head causing nausea to grip his innards, he was in pretty good shape.

Cheap wine hit his senses next. He suspected it had to be pretty bad if he could smell it through the odorous horse excrement.

Footsteps fell to his left, and his nose twitched from the sudden tickle on the tip of his nose.

He suspected either something had been kicked upon his face, or a fly found it to be a cozy landing spot.

The tickling continued, circling the tip of his nose as if a bug had indeed found a juicy meal in the shite painting his flesh.

Bloody hell. If he were still passed out, none of this would bother him. As it were, he was going to sneeze. “Ahh—chooo!”

“The Cap’n’s awake, is ’ee?”

Elias opened his eyes, blinked at the light threatening to crack his skull in two, and looked up at the two men standing over him as recognition set in.

He’d know those black teeth anywhere. He allowed himself to slip into the language these two would understand.

“Billy, me boy. It seems I got meself tied up and tossed in a bit of muck.” He grinned and tugged at the bindings that held his arms behind his back.

“This particular wench’s perfume not to yer standards, Cap’n?

I be thinkin’ she’s not quite as sweet as that bit o’ flesh ye had back on the Maribelle , tho, is she?

When we’re done here, we be meanin’ to show yer lady a bit o’ fun, right Billy?

” Jack nudged Billy in the ribs with his elbow and the man responded with a vile grin.

In that moment Elias decided he’d kill Jack first for suggesting this man even think of touching his wife…

right after they told him where he could find her.

He winked at Jack despite every muscle in this body wanting to tear the blighter limb from limb.

“Jaaack,” he let the man’s name drag out on his tongue the way he’d make the man die—slowly and painfully.

“Ye know I’ve been without that morsel the entire trip.

Me cock isn’t very fond of a wife too sick to swallow.

Now cut these bindings, and let’s go find some real whores who like it deep.

” He thrust his hips in a crude gesture these two could appreciate.

The two of them laughed humorously. “Now Cap’n, I’m ‘fraid those days be o’er for ye. We just be needin’ to know where ye stashed the chit.”

“Who? What the devil is going on? Enough games,” he growled. “Untie my damned hands and I’ll let you off with a couple lashes. If you don’t, I’ll see you swing.”

Jack reared back and kicked him in the ribs.

It was all the answer he needed. He was at war, and these two picked the wrong enemy.

Whoever tied his hands didn’t know a stopper knot from a clove hitch knot.

He rolled with the impact, his speed and momentum overtaking Jack.

He was down on the ground with an “Umph.”

Still moving, Elias threw the rope clear of his hands and grabbed Jack’s pistol before Billy even realized he was loose. Eyes wide, Billy desperately fumbled for the knife at his waist.

“Don’t do it,” he cautioned.

Billy ignored the warning and pulled the knife from the sheath.

“Billy…” Elias used the stern tone he used with his crew, hoping to leave no doubt in the other man’s mind that he would do what was necessary. But Billy was new. The voyage to France had been his first with the Maribelle crew.

And his last.

Billy raised the rusty blade to shoulder height, his eyes targeting Elias’s chest.

Elias pulled the trigger. The blast reverberated off the walls as smoke swirled in the air and the scent of gunpowder mixed with blood.

Billy’s sightless eyes stared at him as the bullet hole between his eyes began to seep.

The knife dropped to the ground, followed by the hollow thud of Billy’s body.

“Dammit,” he cursed. He turned his attention back to Jack as he struggled to stand up. The pain in his head not letting him forget the beating he’d taken. It rolled through his skull like a licentious storm on the ocean, and he swayed as he reached for his satchel on the table.

Jack scurried across the floor, crawling over his partner’s body, and grabbed Billy’s knife. By the time Jack looked up, he was already beaten.

Elias shrugged. “You left my pistol.” He nodded toward the empty leather satchel lying on the table as he pointed the gun on a now cowering Jack, who held his palms extending outward in a gesture meant to placate. “Don’t be shoot’n, Cap’n. Just a bit of fun we be havin’.”

“I don’t think Billy finds your idea of entertainment very diverting.” He rubbed at the back of his neck. What day is it?” He asked. He’d come ashore on Tuesday morning, but he had no idea how much time had passed.

“Wednesday,” Jack answered, his gaze traveling to Elias’s bound feet. The addled brain was concocting a foolish plan of attack.

Elias growled. “Drop the dagger and move over to the empty stall.”

The small dagger dropped in the filth as Jack began to stand. “Crawl on your hands and knees,” Elias ordered. “Then lie on your stomach in the middle of the stall.”

“But—”

Elias cocked the pistol.

“Aye, Cap’n,” Jack obeyed the order without further complaint.

Elias grinned and patted one of the nags on the neck as she ambled out of her stall to see what all the fuss was about.

He would have thought she’d run at the sound of the shot, but somehow the old girl was more curious than frightened.

He supposed a life on the streets would do that, even for an animal.

“You get used to the wench’s sweetness ,” he told Jack, as he crawled through shite. It was a lie. He couldn’t wait to dunk his head in a trough and get the shite off his body. “Who’s the chit you were wanting information about, Jack?” It had better not be his wife.

“Yer wife, Cap’n.”

Elias delivered a nasty taste of Jack’s own medicine and kicked the man in the ribs, making sure he cracked ribs with the first blow.

Jack curled in on his injury and grabbed his side with a moan. “Please, Cap’n. We wasn’t goin’ to urt ’er.”

“What were ye going to do with her then, Jack? The two of you aren’t known for treating the whores particularly well.”

Again, Jack curled in on himself as if Elias had delivered a second blow. He hadn’t. Which meant the arse was going for the blade in his boot. “If you want to keep your foot and not be called Stumpy for the rest of your miserable existence, I suggest you leave the blade inside your boot.”

Jack froze, the fingers of his left hand lost to Elias’s view somewhere in between his calves.

Elias raised the pistol. “It’s not a particularly good day to die…

according to Billy.” He smiled, every bit of the deadly desire to pull the trigger visible to the man in front of him as he thought of what Jack had planned for Máira.

“I suggest you lie flat on your belly with your hands spread wide, palms up.”

Jack showed more intelligence than he had the entire time Elias had known him. He obeyed with a gasp of pain as he straightened his torso.

“Count the pain you’re experiencing as the blessing it is, because if you don’t put those arms straight out away from your body, you won’t be feeling anything ever again.” With his directions followed, Elias tried again. “What were your plans for my wife?”

“A toff promised twenty pounds each if’n we delivered ’er to ’im.”

The price was more than his crew would have received for this voyage. “What toff?” he asked.

“Ah dinnae ken, Cap’n. Ah swear it. Billy, he be makin’ the deal in Dumfries.”

Elias growled his frustration. “It seems I killed the wrong arse.”

Jack’s eyes widened as if he saw his death warrant on the wall. “No Cap’n, you dinnae. I can take you to ’em. The spot I ken well.”

“Why did you ask me where my wife was? You know bloody well I left the ship without her.”

“After you left, Peter brought ’er ashore. We figured ye wanted a fuck.”

“If I wanted a fuck,” he nearly spat. “I’d go to Hag.” It wasn’t true. If he wanted to fuck, he would have done what he’d been doing since this blasted mission began. He’d have used his damned hand, not his virgin wife.

“Where’s Peter now?” He asked to keep his mind focused on what was important, locating his wife, who was becoming a major hinderance to the job he was supposed to be doing.

Peter was one of the few men who knew Elias’s real identity. They were working this mission together, and if he brought Máira to shore, he’d had a good reason.

“’Ee came back without ’er.”

“Did you ask him where she was?”

Jack shook his head, another automatic reaction that hurt to his core and back.

“’Ee wouldn’t answer our questions,” he continued.

“Said ’twas none of our damned business what ye and yer wife be doin’.

” He shrugged and then winced when the movement was too much for his broken ribs. “When night fell, we came ashore.”

“Then what?”

“We waited outside The Hag. When ye arrived witout ’er, we took ye instead.”

Wonderful. Just bloody wonderful.

He’d had some time to waste before meeting his contact, and he’d spent it buying a change of clothes for his wife.

She couldn’t return home in her wedding dress, it would cause a scandal.

He’d had the local dressmaker send the items to the merchant ship Máira was to take back to England the next day. No, that ship left today.

Blasted. She missed her damned ship home, and because he’d been distracted with thoughts of her and had gotten himself kidnapped by these two idiots.

While carting him off, they undoubtedly spooked his contact, and now the mission was at risk. His two former crew members were trouble through and through.

“Did Hag know you were part of the crew from the Maribelle ?”

Jack shook his head with caution, no doubt wondering if his answer would get him shot.

“Where were you going to take my wife?”

“Let me stand and I be showin’ ye.”

“Ye be telling me, now,” Elias replied through gritted teeth.

Jack smirked. “Think not, Cap’n. Otherwise ye be killing me sooner rather than later.”

Bloody hell. He’d have to take the arse with him. His damned wife was turning out to be more trouble than she was worth.