Sea of Ruin Read online

  “Yes, my lord. I was anxious about meeting you and went for a ride to calm my nerves.”

  “Virtuous girls bred to proper living don’t take rides into the wild alone. Imagine what would’ve happened had I not tracked you. I daresay you might have been ravaged by a pirate!”

  Realization cleaved through my chest. By stealing his horse, I’d unknowingly led the soldiers right to my father. If it weren’t for me, he would be safe on his ship, free from the clutches of a town that salivated to see a buccaneer hanged.

  The bitter taste of regret hit my throat, and my eyes burned with tears. The flood of guilt blurred my vision, and I couldn’t stop the wetness from searing my cheeks. The devastation was too powerful, the pain too big to hold.

  “I was foolish.” I wiped my face on the sleeve of my gown, and more tears shook free.

  “How touching.” He stroked his thumb along my upper arm. “My betrothed sits upon a stolen horse, crying with remorse for the poor choices she made.”

  “Betrothed?” I choked on a sob.

  “Indeed. I made an offer just this morning.”

  He could shove his offer up the hole upon which he sat.

  “I shall return home at once and accept my punishment.” I tried to pull from his grip, a useless effort. “Remove your hand from my person, if you please.”

  “I’ll accompany you.”

  “Not without a chaperon, my lord. It’s not allowed.”

  “Do you see a chaperon in the vicinity?” He gestured at the surrounding woodland and scowled at my appearance. “You look like you were attacked by a pack of ruffians.”

  “I just lost my way is all.”

  “I’ll see to your safe return.”

  I flexed my hands around the reins.

  Above the canopy of trees, dusk deepened into ribbons of purple. Every second I spent with this grabby, cross-eyed addle pate was another moment my father sat in the gaol, awaiting a fate I wouldn’t accept.

  “You’re a busy man, Lord Grisdale.” With a hard yank, I freed my arm from his grasp. “I must refuse and insist that you return to where you are most needed.”

  “No one refuses me.” His eyes narrowed with a thousand blade-sharpened threats, all of which promised unspeakable pain. “Insolent little bitch.”

  I saw his arm assail too late. The back of his hand slammed into my cheekbone with excruciating force, and the impact knocked me from the saddle.

  The ground crashed into my back, jarring me so viciously I couldn’t move. Spots dotted my sight, then nothing at all as unconsciousness swallowed my senses.

  I woke in a haze of pain. The scent of earth tickled my nose. Dead leaves crunched under my twitching body. I was still in the forest, lying on my back with hard dirt beneath my head. But my hands…

  I twisted my wrists, yanking on the rope that restrained my arms above my head.

  Blinking rapidly, I cleared fresh tears from my vision and stared up into chilling eyes.

  “Do you know how I bring naughty little girls in line?” The marquess stood over me, tapping his cane against his leg. “A decent beating is most effective.”

  “The countess will see to my punishment.” My voice scratched like sand in my throat. “You needn’t trouble yourself with—”

  “Silence!” His roar shook the sagging skin on his cheeks. Then he straightened, drew in a regal breath, and composed his smile and his voice into polite refinement. “As it was my horse you stole, it will be my welts upon your fair flesh.”

  As Lady Abigail’s disobedient daughter, I was accustomed to discipline. For propriety’s sake, my punishments were always dispensed in the presence of a lady’s chaperon. And usually delivered with a strap. Never a cane.

  If I were found alone with the marquess, it would ruin my reputation. I didn’t care about that, but as his gaze made a sluggish, skin-crawling voyage over my person, this felt alarmingly, decisively wrong.

  “Roll over.” Bending down, he whacked the cane against the soles of my bare feet.

  Biting pain bowed my back and hurled me into a fog of righteous fury.

  “God damn your blood!” I wheezed, thrashing against the restraints on my arms. “Untie me! It’s getting dark, and the countess will be worried.”

  “The countess answers to me.” He lowered to his knees and shoved my skirts up my legs, baring skin that had never been seen by sun or man.

  “What are you doing?” I kicked and screamed, helpless to stop him.

  He exposed my body all the way to my waist, and I could only stare in horror, the humiliation more than I could bear. The way he leered at my womanhood struck fear so deep in my heart I no longer felt it beating.

  “Your beauty confounds me.” He caught my upper thighs in a bruising grip and forced my legs apart. “Untamed and untried, snarling and writhing like an unlicked cub.”

  “A pox on your eyes.” My pulse exploded, shooting feverish chills across my flesh. “God’s wounds, cover me!”

  “It’s not consistent with reason that a lady invokes God by vain and careless swearing.”

  “By God’s feet, his tongue, and all his unmentionables, may he refuse you and condemn your soul to hell.”

  His forearm landed across my hips and pinned me to the ground.

  “You will roll over.” He pressed the tip of the cane against the private place between my legs. “Or you’ll bleed in ways you’re only beginning to fathom.”

  The shivering started in my belly and spread to my limbs. By the time I wriggled onto my stomach, I was trembling so violently I had no control of my tongue. It flopped between my chattering teeth and filled my mouth with blood.

  With my backside exposed to the air, I clenched every muscle, bracing for the strike. But when it came, I wasn’t prepared. Without the buffer of clothing, the blow crashed into me like fire, penetrating deep into muscle and bone and robbing my ability to scream.

  The agony throbbed through the next hit, and the next. The crack of the cane landed hard and fast, with no breaks in between and no sign of stopping.

  “No! Please, stop!” I dug in my toes and scrambled away on elbows. “I beg you. Stop!”

  He stayed with me, smiting my backside with unleashed brutality.

  “You’re stronger than my other wives.” He pressed a shoe onto my back, holding me immobile. “They swooned upon the first cut.”

  “Wives?” My voice broke on a guttural sob. “But you’re a widower!”

  “Indeed, I am. Three times over.” His hand gripped my behind, squeezing abused flesh. “Perhaps, you’ll be the one I keep.”

  My stomach heaved. Saliva pooled around my gums. My chest convulsed, and everything came up in a spray of vomit. It saturated the dirt and clung to my hair and chin in strings of slime.

  His touch vanished, and the cane swung again, harder and more intense than before.

  The blinding agony didn’t spare a single nerve in my body. It devoured all thought and stunned me into a sobbing pool of snot and tears.

  Pain was all that existed.

  It lasted longer than I thought I could survive. “No more. I beg you to stop. I’ll do anything. Anything! Please!”

  I needed the torture to end. I needed my father. I needed mercy, and I pleaded for it, screamed for it, willing my soul unto any god who would have me in exchange for a moment of relief.

  Nightfall wrapped the forest in shadows, and my cries lost strength. Blood soaked my broken fingernails, and dirt coated my cracked lips.

  When the cane finally dropped to the ground, I couldn’t move, couldn’t think past the dense, trembling misery.

  Until he touched me there.

  Inside my center.

  Then I was screaming, kicking at the legs that crawled between mine.

  He grabbed my waist and pulled my hips to his naked groin.

  “No! Don’t do this!” I twisted and slid through the dirt, dragging my chest through vomit. All the rolling and wriggling moved my body toward my bound hands until they wer
e caught beneath me.

  That was when I felt it. The hilt of the dagger in my sleeve.

  A spark of hope.

  As he wrestled my lower body into position against his, I pulled the blade free. But with my arms tied at the wrists, I couldn’t cut through the rope.

  “Not like this.” I adjusted my fingers around the hilt. “Turn me over. Please, my lord?”

  He rubbed invasive fingers between my legs and groaned a vile sound. “As you wish.”

  The trumpet-shaped sleeves of my gown concealed my hands. I pinched the folds of fabric around the blade and pointed it outward as he rolled me.

  The instant my back hit the ground, he dove between my legs.

  And landed directly onto the dagger.

  My heart pounded as I thrust with all my strength, piercing the soft meat of his abdomen.

  He stared down at me, eyes wide. His jaw opened in a soundless scream, and ropes of red-tinged drool stretched from his gaping mouth and plopped onto my cheek.

  I pushed harder on the blade with both hands, my fingers slipping through wetness as I carved a line toward his chest.

  A choking sound gurgled from his throat. His body spasmed, sinking onto the dagger before collapsing on top of me.

  I strained to hear his breath, but my heart beat too loud, banging in my ears. And the trembling… By the grace of almighty God, I couldn’t stop shaking.

  But he didn’t move.

  His stillness avowed his departure from this world. I’d plunged a blade into his belly and sent his soul to hell. I couldn’t bring it back. Nor did I want to.

  Relief rode in on waves of exhaustion and horror. My mind lagged, struggling to process, as my stomach retched in great dry heaves.

  By sheer will, I managed to push the body off me. It landed in a lifeless heap of limbs, breeches unbuttoned at the waist. The protrusion of male flesh flopped to the side like limp seaweed.

  The periwig hung off-center, revealing the skull beneath. Bald, not gray.

  With a shudder, I went to work on the rope around my wrists. Endless minutes flogged me as I twisted one hand free, ripping skin in the process. The bounds unraveled, and I shoved knots of crusty hair from my face, scouring the trees for the horses.

  My eyes refused to adjust in the dark, and the forest blurred around me. My insides didn’t feel right. It was the coldness, the shivering, the constant twitching.

  My shoulders jerked in tight convulsions. Spasms attacked my eyelids, throbbing swollen skin. My fingers didn’t work, the joints kinked from prolonged clenching.

  An attempt to stand sent me spinning, stumbling, and plummeting to my knees. I rose again and forced my numb feet over the ground, propelled by a single imperative.

  Save my father.

  If I reached a horse, I could guide it back to the beach and find Charles Vane.

  Every step shifted the gown against my backside, blazing agony across my skin. I cried out and reached blindly for something to grab onto. My hands grappled air, and I turned my ankle on a rock. The startling pain sent me wheeling back to the ground.

  I sobbed in frustration and sprung back to my feet, pushing my body beyond its abilities. Everything hurt, and the uncontrollable trembling threatened to suck the last of my strength.

  I twitched forward, centering my mind on each dragging step.

  Twitch. Step. Twitch. Step.

  Every branch in my path was a test of coordination, every uneven bump beneath my feet a challenge to overcome. My balance wavered, teetering on the edge between awareness and oblivion.

  At last, my legs gave up, but I didn’t feel the ground hit me. I might have blacked out.

  Sprawled on my side, I rubbed dirt from my sightless eyes and crawled on my belly. My thoughts tried to abandon me, but I held on, kept moving, determined to reach my father.

  Until I couldn’t move at all.

  The abyss pulled me into its yawning void, and as I fell, part of me hoped I would never wake again.

  Of course, I woke. Life was too cruel to grant me a permanent reprieve from the pain. I lay face-down, my body a single pulsing ache wrapped in the welts of my mistakes.

  I’d failed, and my shame took on a horrifying new meaning in the silver light of dawn.

  With my cheek pressed to the leaf-littered ground, I blinked the grit from my eyes, disoriented by the view before me.

  A pair of dirt-coated slippers peeked out from a hem of lavender silk. I twisted my neck, following the wrinkled skirt of a gown, up, up, up to the glaring visage of the countess.

  She stared down at me, hands on her hips, scrutinizing the remains of a dress she’d worked so hard to make.

  Guilt crushed my chest.

  “Mother…” My voice burned in my throat, raw from screaming and parched from dehydration.

  “Don’t.” She simmered in her stillness, her jaw quivering in unholy rage. “I don’t know what I did to invite such vile disrespect and hatred, but I will not hear your excuses. Not this time.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Not another word!”

  A brown mare whinnied behind her, and the sight of it confused me. That horse didn’t belong to the marquess.

  Had my mother ridden it here? This deep into the woods before dawn? Alone?

  I returned my attention to her face, her complexion drained of color in the frame of fallen, untamed hair. She looked so disheveled and tired, nothing like herself. And she was still wearing the gown I’d last seen her in yesterday morning.

  “You came for me?” I rolled to my back and regretted it instantly.

  A violent burst of pain blazed through my body, plaguing every muscle and joint. Dizziness mottled my vision, and I gasped through the torment, squinting at her ghost-white expression.

  “Whose blood is that?” She pointed a trembling finger at my chest.

  “Not mine.” I sat up sluggishly and scanned the thick grove for the Marquess of Grisdale.

  How much could I tell her? Had news already traveled to the house about the arrest of Edric Sharp? I’d never so much as mentioned his name in her presence. If I told her everything now, would she stop me from rescuing him?

  She stepped over me in a rustle of silk and made a beeline through the shadows of the trees, ducking under branches and yanking her skirts free from thorns.

  A few paces away, she stopped with a gasp. Her hand fell to the bodice at her stomach, and she bent at the waist, heaving for breath.

  I pushed to my feet, swaying through a bout of wooziness, but I didn’t follow her. I could see the body well enough from here.

  With the dagger protruding from the torso and the breeches unbuttoned at the waist, no words were needed. Comprehension glowed in her clever eyes.

  But understanding didn’t beget compassion. I’d ruined her chance at returning to English society and stood before her as a murderer, covered in the blood of my crime.

  Locking my knees, I braced for her condemnation.

  “I would’ve done the same.” She lifted her chin and turned away from the body.

  “Truly?” Shock stuttered my breath.

  “Any man who meets with a prudent woman and offers to meddle with her, without her consent, shall suffer present death.”

  “Even at her own hand?” My pulse raced.

  “Even so. No matter the laws of man.” Her expression turned to stone. “Tis our law. Yours and mine.”

  I stared at her, thunderstruck. Never had I felt a connection to another woman as I did to my mother in that moment. She met my eyes with more confidence and conviction than any titled lord. Her stubbornness was the bane of my existence, but I realized now that same ferocity would be used to protect me.

  For the first time in my life, I saw what my father saw. A woman who was brave enough to cross the Great Western Ocean alone and pregnant. She was beauty and strength in her own right, a force to reckon with. If anyone could help me rescue him, she could.

  I tamped down my rioting nerves and treaded car
efully. “Has there been word of an arrest?”

  “No one has discovered the body.” Returning to my side, she gripped my arm and guided me toward the horse. “I’ll send someone I trust to collect the remains. This will be our secret. One we’ll take to our graves.”

  “No, I mean…” I stepped back from her grip, stumbling on shaky legs. “Someone else was arrested.”

  “I’ve been searching for you all night. I haven’t been home to hear of any…” The blood drained from her face. “Who was arrested, Benedicta?”

  “A seafarer.” I swallowed, and my eyes burned with tears. “A buccaneer.”

  She went still, and her voice trembled to a whisper. “What have you done?”

  “He’s…” I shook my head, faltering over the confession. “My father…”

  “No.” She staggered backward and tripped on a branch. “No, no, no. He promised me.” With an ungraceful spin, she flung herself toward the horse. “He promised he would never get caught when he visited you.”

  “What?” A fist clamped around my heart. “You knew?”

  “Of course, I knew.” She fumbled in her urgency to mount the horse, her skirts tangling around her legs. “He always sent two hounds. When one passed, the other showed the replacement how to find us. They were his couriers.”

  “That’s how he sent you his letters?” My eyes bulged. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I needed you to fiercely guard that secret. As long as you hid it from me, I trusted you could hide it from those who would harm him.” Her slipper caught in the stirrup, and she swung up onto the saddle, her features distorted with an emotion I’d never seen there before.

  Fear.

  “When was he arrested?” She turned the horse about, facing the opposite direction.

  “Before dusk.” I floundered after her, my pulse tripping in my veins. “There will be a trial.”

  “Not for a pirate, you foolish girl. And certainly not for Edric Sharp. Don’t you get it, Benedicta? We made him weak.”

  “No, he loves us!”

  “And I gave him up because I… I couldn’t be the reason for his demise.” She turned away and signaled the horse to move. “Go home and burn that gown.”