Page 48 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

Twenty

My darling Iseabail,

I have located your dearest treasure, and after a short sojourn for minor repairs, I will return it to your loving care. I cannot, however, guarantee that I won’t throw the thief into the sea before this journey’s end.

Congratulate your sister for me. An annulment may not be ideal, but the groom has agreed to seek one.

Your ever-devoting husband,

Nash

—A discreet letter from Nashford Xavier Harding, the 8th Duke of Ross, to his wife Iseabail Blair Handcock Harding, Duchess of Ross, regarding locating the duchess’s sister on the coast of northern France.

M on Dieu . Elias had never been so grateful to see the shore.

His muscles twitched with fatigue when his feet gained purchase in the silted sand that still had the propensity to swallow his feet if he didn’t keep moving.

He reached over and grabbed Máira’s arm to help her ashore.

For a small woman, she had been a remarkable swimmer, matching him stroke for stroke.

She may not have held the strength he had behind each pull, but she had more stamina than most of his sailors, especially considering some had never learned to swim prior to him demanding it.

She’d made the journey in trousers and a shirt, which were plastered to her form and causing his loins to stir at the delectable sight.

The last thing he wanted was for anyone else to get a look at that intoxicating view.

Her long locks had fallen from their pins making her look as alluring as any siren he could have imagined, until she shivered.

“Go ashore. I will get your shoes and my shirt for you to wear.”

“But you’ll need help with?—”

He leaned over her, the pull of their attraction driving him to let his body touch hers despite the audience a short distance away. “ S'il vous pla?t, mon cher . That wet shirt is giving me ideas I don’t want the cardinal to have."

She glanced down between their bodies and he was certain he could see the heat of her blush pinken her cheeks even in the darkness.

He counted himself blessed when she untied the red strip of satin from his waist, rolled it up with the one from her waist, and said, “I can think of ways to use these later.”

“Later I will act upon those ideas.”

She gave him a quick kiss before she headed toward the grassy shore.

Damnation, but he would never get tired of her unprecedented knowledge of what a man desired. More importantly, he could not wait to use that fine strip of cloth to tie her to his bed aboard the Maribelle .

“Stop your wool gathering and come help us.”

He shook his head and returned to the boat Father Charles had pulled up upon the muddy shoreline. He reached in for his shirt and her shoes and then held them out to Sébastien. “Take these to my wife. She is cold from our swim.”

“ Oui, monsieur. ” The boy assisted the cardinal from the boat, and then ran for where Máira stood in the distance.

Astley’s skin glowed with translucence and pallor of death. He had only met the earl once, but on that occasion the earl’s complexion had been much darker, and much richer.“How is he?”

“He breathes. Beyond that, I could not say,” his mother replied.

“Could not or would not?”

Aventine bristled, yet the question was a valid one.

Then she shrugged and lifted the nobleman up and away from her body for Elias to take hold of him.

It was at that moment Astley chose to wake.

“Where is Sébastien?” His gaze frantically searched the area, confusion marring his face.

“Sébastien! Sébastien!” He pushed upward, batting at Elias’s arms as he tried to lift himself from the boat.

“He’s with us,” Elias replied, but Astley continued his frantic search. “He’s here, Astley. We did not leave him. He’s with Máira on shore.”

Astley’s gaze speared the grassy coastline, his eyes finally pinpointing the spot where the two stood, and Sébastien raised his hand in greeting.

The affectionate grin that began to form on the earl’s face instantly dropped into stark fear.

“No!” He struggled to stand, his lack of strength and balance threatening to dump the boat as his mother also yelled, “Elias, look!”

Two horsemen charged toward Máira and Sébastien.

“Máira!” He raced to her, the distance between them too great as horses drew to a stop and she placed her body between Sébastien and the invaders.

She raised one hand with her knife to ward off an oncoming blow, and Elias roared.

Everything in him focused on getting to her fast enough to kill the bastards threatening her.

The distance he had told her to take was now his enemy.

She was farther on shore than he’d expected, and before he could reach her, a man who matched his size and breadth, but not his fear or anger, jumped off his horse and attacked, his massive arms enfolding her.

Sébastien pummeled him with tiny, ineffectual blows from his fists as Elias raced with vengeance and murder flowing through his veins—as Máira disappeared from his view.

Absent, as if she’d been swallowed whole by the assault.

Elias sensed rather than saw the second assailant leap from his horse and knew he would have to defeat him first. Despite every fiber of his being wanting to rip her assailant limb from limb, he had to face this second interloper first. He charged without thought, letting his instincts take hold as the man squared off, embraced for impact.

Elias struck iron, his impact driving the two of them to the ground, and Elias wasn’t about to give up his advantage of being on top. He raised up, his fist reared and ready to deliver a punishing blow—only to freeze when he recognized the face below him.

“T-Tomás?” His voice stuttered with shock.

“Elias! Elias, stop!” Máira’s sweet voice raised in panic caused him to push off his mother’s thug and turn toward his wife.

Her sweet face framed by the glow of the full moon as the damp tendrils of her blond hair radiating in its light.

That was all he wanted to see. Healthy and unharmed, he wanted to kiss her and wrap her in his arms, yet her assailant stood behind her with an expression of murder on his face.

“Touch her and I’ll kill you,” the man growled, as if his English threat meant something in this land.

He held a combative Sébastien at arm’s length with a palm to his head.

Sébastien’s fists swung at the air, his feet striking out with little success.

Then Astley coughed and the boy immediately stilled.

He looked from Máira to Elias to the hand that held him in place, and ran for the earl, and the Englishman’s hand fell to his side to ball in a fist.

Elias grasped Máira’s wrist as he attempted to pull her behind him in the same manner she’d handled Sébastien, but the Englishman held her other arm firmly in his grip.

He didn’t understand why Tomás was with this man, but he knew with absolute certainty Tomás would not hurt his wife.

The man in front of him, however, was an unknown entity.

“Your instruction means very little on French soil, wandought. Release my wife.”

“Elias—” Máira started.

But the man whose nostrils flared and shoulders squared interrupted. “You believe me feeble and impotent?” He wore a smirk, but the look in his eyes held anything but humor.

“You couldn’t hold onto a child,” Elias taunted, as he nodded in Sébastien’s direction.

Máira pulled at his arm. “Elias?—”

“Not now, Máira.” He needed all his attention on the threat in front of him.

“You’re the one being a wandought, you ignorant fool.” This latest insult came from his mother, who was helping Father Charles set Astley on the ground, while Sébastien knelt at the ailing man’s side. The shivering cardinal kept his distance from them all.

His mother continued. “What is the meaning of this, Tomás? You are supposed to be at The Happy Hag.”

“It burnt to the ground,” Tomás replied.

Elias spared Tomás a glance before returning his gaze to the man in front of him. “You burnt her tavern?” he accused.

“No.” The man drew out the word as if he were speaking to an imbecile. “French soldiers did.”

“What?” The shock resonating through his mother’s voice made him want to go to her, but at that very moment, he could do nothing but listen as Tomás explained.

“After you left, he came.” Tomás nodded his head in the other man’s direction and continued, “Then he began asking questions all over town about the Miss.”

“My wife?” Elias clarified.

Tomás moved next to the Englishman. If Elias didn’t know better, he would have thought he was siding with the man, but Tomás had been at his mother’s side since a few days after his father died.

He was also the one who’d smuggled Elias to England to live with his uncle.

The thought of Tomás betraying Aventine was as foreign as the man in front of him.

Still, he kept his guard up and listened for holes in his explanation of events.

“Yes, your wife, and then soldiers came looking for him.” Tomás tilted his head toward the stranger once more. “I had to smuggle him out the back, and when they couldn’t find your mother or him, they burnt it to the ground.” He looked at Aventine, his expression full of remorse. “I am sorry.”

Aventine didn’t miss a beat. “Was it my father?” she asked, her voice as hard as stone.

“Oui.”

That left one question still unanswered. Elias directed his query to the stranger. “Who are you, and why do the French want you so badly?”

“Because he’s the Duke of Harding, my brother-by-marriage.”

“And I’ve come to take my wife’s sister home.” The duke’s jaw tightened as if Elias were the prey, and the duke a starving beast ready to tear his head off with jagged teeth.

Bloody hell.

“I was trying to tell you.”

“My apologies, my dear. I was caught up in my own thoughts of destroying your brother-in-law because I thought he’d accosted you.”

“I believe the opposite is true, and for that?—”