The Pirate's Duty (Regent's Revenge #3)(67)
“My father had magistrates in his pocket.” She shivered as she narrowed her eyes, no longer seeing John but her mother lying in a pool of blood. “My father wasn’t a good man, but fool or no, my mother was determined to save him.”
“You don’t have to tell me this,” John said, his eyes riveted on the treasure chest.
“No, John. Ye deserve to know what this gold can do to a man.” She watched him carefully, praying he wouldn’t become as crazed as her father and brothers. “One magistrate, in particular, threatened to turn my father and my brothers in.”
“What happened?” Contempt gave his voice a distinctive harshness.
“My father learned that my mother had been talkin’ to the magistrate. He beat her to death, John, because she betrayed him.” She swallowed thickly, closed her eyes, and then reopened them. “I found her body. And when the magistrate discovered what my father had done, he enlisted several men to set a trap. My father and brothers were good and caught, killed while bringin’ contraband ashore. Charles survived only because he wasn’t with them that day. And I have continued to fight for his soul ever since . . .”
“You cannot blame yourself.” John pointed to the treasure. “May I?”
“Of course.” She raised the lantern to chase away the shadows, hoping they’d dissipate from her mind, as well.
He flicked the latch and opened the chest. Gold coins reflected the light, casting dancing spheres on the walls.
He closed the lid, growling something low in his throat. “This is all your brother wants?”
“Not all.” She put the key back in the latch and turned it. The stone slab began to descend over the space, locking the treasure away once more.
John retrieved the barrels and stacked them back where they’d been before following her to the locked leather-bound chest in the corner.
“This is what my heartless brother wants.” She took another key from the ribbon around her neck and inserted it into the lock. “He was in love once, as strange as that may sound.”
“Not strange,” John said, his deep voice resonating within her.
She nodded. “Charles was capable of love a long time ago. Her name was Eliza Price. These are her things.”
She held up a brush, a cameo, a piece of hair tied with ribbon, and a baby rattle.
“Eliza was a passenger on board the Remus. See, Charles wasn’t the first member of my family to slaughter entire crews and passengers of wrecked ships . . . My father seemed to thrive on it. And when Charles found Eliza strugglin’ in the surf, fightin’ to make her way to shore, he became besotted with her and saved her life. He spirited her away, out from under our father’s control. It was wild, dangerous, even endearin’ the way he fought to keep her presence a secret. He built a cottage on the moors and kept her there, warnin’ her not to go out, not to be seen, not to speak to anyone about her past or how she’d come to be there.” She paused, closing her eyes against the horror. “The toll ate away at Eliza’s soul. So she didn’t listen, and one day, she sought out the magistrate.”
By John’s reaction, she knew he understood where this story would lead.
“My father discovered what Charles had done,” she said. “And as Eliza begged for her life, swearin’ she would never betray Charles or our family, our father did somethin’ I never thought him capable of, somethin’ unspeakable.”
“Was this before or after your mother’s death?” he asked.
“Before.” She fought to find her voice as the sickening memory tore at her heart. “After my mother found out what had happened, she visited a magistrate that wasn’t in league with him, a man who’d tried to catch Gabriel Thorpe committing a crime for nigh on ten years.”
John narrowed his eyes and wrapped his fingers around hers. “Tell me. What did your father finally do that your mother could not forgive?”
“He put a knife to my throat.” She placed her hand below her ear. “It was me or Eliza. Charles argued . . . fiercely. But our father would not back down.” She lifted her hair, revealing the scar there. “Charles relented to save my life. I’ll never stop hearin’ Eliza beggin’ and pleadin’ for her life as my brother held her head down under the water and drowned her with his own two hands.”
John made a noise at the back of his throat. “He chose you?”
“Aye.” She averted her gaze, swallowing back the bile that welled in her throat. “Now,” she said, fighting back her agony, “do ye understand why I’ve fought so hard to help him?”
John stilled. “And the rattle?”
Tears welled in Oriana’s eyes. “Eliza was pregnant with their child.”
Nineteen
FISHERMEN returning from pilchard TROLLING runs report that a BLACK SHIP was seen heading EAST off GRIBBIN and PENCARROW HEADS. Is the SHIP returning to TAUNT our illustrious CAPTAIN W’S crew by sailing over their watery GRAVES? Or does CAPTAIN CARNAGE have more DIABOLICAL plans?
~ Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post, 27 October 1809
Walsingham cursed under his breath and lowered the tiny silver rattle, laying it reverently in the box. Until now, he hadn’t believed it possible that Carnage could do anything more disgusting than he already had, though Walsingham had to admit he was grateful that Oriana’s brother had chosen to save her life. Bile rose in his throat. How could a man kill the woman who was carrying his child, his own flesh and blood? And what kind of madman forced his son to choose between his lover and his sister? Walsingham would fight the powers that be to save the woman he loved, but he knew he could not sacrifice Chloe to do it. And what did that make him? Just like Carnage?