Page 9 of The Rebellious Countess (The Ruined Duchess #2)

Four

My lovely wife,

I also met with the Duke of Braeberry, who assured me his country estate was not available for let, by an earl or anyone else. He was so concerned, he left for the country with a gaggle of footmen immediately after our meeting.

I’m sorry I was unable to discover more.

After meeting with Braeberry, I hired the best Bow Street Runner in the business, Mr. Johnathan Payne.

He came with the highest of references when I was attempting to locate you last spring.

He found you; however, Edward discovered his investigation first—and paid him off.

I do not resent the man for that mistake in judgement, as I am unsure of where the two of us would be now had we met under different circumstances.

I have no doubt I would have loved you, yet I fear your love for me may not have flourished the way it did.

Because of that, I will give him the benefit of doubt.

If he double-crosses me again, however, I will have his head.

I will do everything in my power to bring Máira home safe and sound.

If need be, I will secure a husband for her.

My dear friend Astley is in need of a bride.

He and Máira get along very well and are constantly conspiring to bring your sister Caillen out of hiding.

He will make the best of husbands for Máira, and as an earl, he can minimize the scandal.

Please do not fret, dearling. I cannot wait to hold you and our son in my arms once more. If I am delayed next week, it will be due to following a lead to bring your sister home safe and sound.

All my love,

Nash

—A letter from Nashford Xavier Harding, Duke of Ross, to his wife Iseabail Blair Handcock Harding, Duchess of Ross, regarding her missing sister, Máira Blair Collins, Countess of Dorset, or Mrs. Máira Blair Drake, or the ruined Miss Máira Blair

H e would kill Peter. No, that was too good for his first mate. He would draw, hang, and quarter him. Watch as the man’s blood stained the decks of the Maribelle as a lesson to any man who put his wife in danger. That was the punishment for treason.

Except he’d married her under subterfuge, and he had no doubt her family wouldn’t recognize it as legitimate, despite the Duchess of Ross and four of her sisters attending the ceremony. Damnation.

He had assumed the loyal, incorruptible Peter had been overpowered by Jack and Billy.

Caught unawares at worst. But betrayal? It was like one’s brother turning around and stabbing you in the heart—the one place you allowed in only the few who were deemed worthy.

Peter had been one of those people for the past ten years.

They had gone on mission after mission together, saved each other’s worthless necks countless times. It made no sense.

It was the last bit that made him pause. He stood up in the trough, naked as the day he was born, and Máira’s eyes nearly popped out of her skull before she squeezed them shut. He did notice she only did that after she took a long look at the part of him that longed to be buried deep inside her.

His lips quirked. He couldn’t have her, but the urge to corrupt her drove him to distraction.

He grabbed a horse’s blanket from a peg on the mews wall and covered his lower body.

“Tell me everything that happened after I left the ship yesterday morning.” His voice was calm and devoid of emotion and brooked no argument.

“Peter told me he was taking me ashore to help me escape, but when we arrived, he left me in the street with no means to find passage home.”

“Why would you think you had to escape?” He’d had no plans of hurting her or placing her on shore in France. He had every intention of transporting her directly to the Confiance and return her safely home.

“I don’t know, maybe because you turned out to be a pirate, who treated me as a prisoner. Then when he told me you planned to sell me?—”

“Sell you!” Damnation. Every part of him wanted to believe she wasn’t telling the truth.

She nodded and warily continued. “Once we were at the docks, he said I should go to The Happy Hag and ask to speak to Hag.”

Frustration simmered through his body, threatening to send him into a rage. His pounding head kept his voice low. “Why the bloody hell would you believe such a story and not create a scene for me to hear?”

She bristled at that. “Because you were the reason I was imprisoned on a pirate ship to begin with! Who or what was I supposed to believe?”

Elias grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward the kitchen’s back door.

Máira squealed and attempted to drag her heels in the mud.

He lifted her up and tossed her over his shoulder then picked up his gun and dagger.

Hopefully he could secure Máira safely upstairs in a locked room before any further violence erupted.

“Ellison—Elias! Put me down!” She pounded on his back in time with the pounding in his head. It was as if she could hear it, too, and wanted to make godawful music to torture him.

“Be quiet, Wife. Or everyone will hear us going through the kitchen to the back stairs and know exactly where we’re going. Unless you feel safer with the men in the bar knowing exactly where you are?”

He could almost hear her thinking as she pondered his question, wondering which path was the safest one to choose. He breathed a tired and thankful sigh of relief when she chose not to fight him further and entered the kitchen.

The cook looked up from the stove and stared.

“Send the maid up with enough food for the two of us. Then my wife will need water for her bath. We’ll be in Hag’s room. She was good enough to offer it up, seeing as how we’re newlyweds.”

“ Oui, monsieur .” The cook didn’t bat an eye at his request. She did ogle his naked chest and legs that dripped with water with each step he took, until her eyes snagged on the cockstand he couldn’t hide.

The bloody thing had been wanting his wife for too bloody long.

He winked and the older woman grinned, her sagging cheeks turning the slightest bit pink before she turned back to her stove.

He felt a pinch on his backside and couldn’t help but laugh at the minx in his arms. “There will be time enough for that when we get to our room, Wife.”

She pinched him harder and his cock responded in kind, as he thought about her bare hands on his buttocks, nails biting into his flesh while he drove into her tight, sweet cunny.

If his head wasn’t splitting, she would be in danger of losing more than the filthy clothes she wore.

As it was, all he wanted to do was take another bath and fall onto a mattress. Any clean mattress would do.

It was the lie he kept telling himself. His traitorous cock, however, was the only honest bone in his body.

At the top of the stairs Máira spoke. “Hag won’t be happy with you taking her room.”

“It will be us taking her room, not me.”

“Same thing.”

“Not even close. If it were just me, she’d shoot me.”

“Like the man she shot yesterday?”

Her question spoke of fear and shock, and so much more that a gently bred woman should never be forced to endure.

Yet he could tell she wanted him to believe she was as comfortable with their conversation as she would be if they were discussing the weather while she lounged in her library doing needlepoint.

She deserved more truth than he could give her, and knowing that only caused the pang of guilt to squeeze harder.

He would make certain she was safely returned to her home, but it was up to Sir Williamson to repair the damage to her reputation.

Elias looked down the darkened hallway and listened for any source of danger among the other guests.

Normally he stayed in the first door on the right.

Since he was taking Hag’s room he went in the opposite direction, to the left.

Once they were inside, he could slip the drawbar into place, sealing the heavy wooden door like a medieval castle.

If they needed to escape due to the tavern being under siege, or Peter bringing troops to take them into custody, the drop from the window would be soft enough to survive without breaking a limb.

To climb into it, however, would take a man with the capabilities of a spider.

At Hag’s room, Elias made his way inside, kicked the door closed and set Máira down on her feet before turning to slide the heavy drawbar into place. He lit a candle and glanced around the room. “Hag has been doing very well for herself as of late.”

The bed was large, with a deep luxurious mattress and bedding made of the highest quality linen and deep burgundy silk that glistened in the dim light of the fireplace.

In the corner near the window was a screen hiding a copper tub fit for a queen, or at least a duchess.

The ornate desk and chair on the opposite wall of the bed was as opulent as the furniture sold out of the Palace of Versailles, and Elias wondered if Hag had bartered for the piece the same way she had maneuvered him out of more Scotch whisky.

He walked over and checked the desk drawer but found it to be locked.

It wouldn’t take much to break into it, but he couldn’t do it without destroying the drawer and lock which would defeat any attempt at stealth.

If it were any other mission, he would take his chances.

Discovering Hag’s secrets, however, was of personal interest, not the Crown’s.

A table and singular chair sat next to the fireplace.

He stared at the scene and imagined the small, stern redhead, capable of killing a man in cold blood, eating alone while looking out the window into a back garden that hadn’t been tended to in a decade.

He, of all people, knew Hag had chosen this life for herself, but it still didn’t make it any less tragic.