The Duke with the Dragon Tattoo (Victorian Rebels, #6)(40)

Veronica whimpered from behind her, and poor Barnaby’s head dipped so low, he looked as though he wanted to disappear into the basket with the kittens.

Somehow, their fear emboldened Lorelai, and she rested a hand on the Rook’s thick wrist, her resolve clicking into place. “What if I made you an offer?”

His gaze flicked to where her hand rested on his skin. “I’m listening.”

“Let Veronica and dear Barnaby go, and … and I won’t try to escape you again.”

More laughter. That didn’t bode well, at all.

His fingers stroked from her chin to her jaw, testing the downy skin there. Oddly, she salivated, and was forced to swallow as a wash of foreign awareness poured over her like warm honey.

“There is no escaping me, Lorelai.” His silken voice deepened to a husky velvet. A threat of inevitable seduction. A promise of possession.

Lorelai’s knees trembled, and she could have sworn the calm seas had become decidedly choppy beneath her.

Barnaby stepped forward, one hand out. “Don’t you give a worry for me, m’lady. There inn’t no need to—”

One look from the Rook silenced him, and he took a step back.

“Barnaby needs no saving,” the Rook said. “He’s been a loyal member of my crew for almost a decade, now.”

The wash of warm awareness became a splash of cold betrayal as she gaped at her employee. “Barnaby?” He’d been a plant? A spy sent to inform on her to his ruthless captain? Tears pricked her eyes. She’d thought they were friends, that she’d saved him from the workhouse.

Was there no one on this earth she could trust?

“I needed someone loyal in your household,” the Rook explained dispassionately. “And only you would hire a doddering old waif over an able-bodied or handsome young hand.”

Barnaby’s stooped old bones straightened, and he took off his cap, suddenly losing ten years. “Forgive me, m’lady.”

Pain and humiliation pricked and tore at her resolve, but still she fought for composure, “Veronica, then.” Her voice was harder now. Colder. “She goes, and I’ll stay.”

Veronica clutched her arm. “Lorelai, no!”

The Rook snorted and released her, gesturing to the expanse of the ship they still could not quite see through the fog. “You are both in my custody. You’re hardly in a position to make a bargain. This isn’t a trade deal, it’s me collecting what’s mine.”

“Veronica is not yours,” Lorelai argued.

“But you are.” His cold eyes blazed for a transient moment before he blinked it away. “She’s just insurance.”

Heaving a great breath, Lorelai stepped toward him, out of Veronica’s grasp. “What will it take to secure her release?” she murmured. “What will I have to do?”

Dawn broke over them, then. Scalding the mists, but not completely dissipating them. Pillars of golden light graced the deck, spilling over the Rook as he regarded her. It gilded a cobalt hue in his midnight hair and glinted off the sable lust in his eyes.

After a protracted moment, he answered her. “I think you know.”





CHAPTER ELEVEN

The hungry glint in his eye left no room for interpretation. He desired her submission. He was hungry for sex. Lorelai gulped as an explosion of butterflies erupted in her stomach.

“I’ll do it,” she said, then cleared the catch of fear out of her throat to proclaim, “I’ll do anything you want.”

“Lorelai, stop. You don’t have to. Not for me.” Veronica seized her, thrusting herself between Lorelai and the Rook. “She’s innocent. Take me, instead. I am younger than she, and less fragile. I’ve been married, and I … I know how to please a man.”

The glance of distaste the Rook flicked toward Veronica baffled Lorelai. Her sister-in-law was considered a great and mysterious beauty, and she accentuated her natural allure with a wardrobe fit for a queen, all designed and stitched by her own hand.

“I don’t want you,” the Rook bluntly informed Veronica.

“I’ll take ’er!” a crewman with a heavy French accent offered from somewhere off to their left. A chorus of male guffaws spread across the deck like a wave.

Veronica spat at the Rook’s feet. “What kind of monstrous brute forces himself onto a frightened, crippled woman after murdering her brother and her intended on her wedding day?”

He stepped forward, grim amusement deepening the brackets around his hard mouth. “This kind of monstrous brute.”

Even in such an extraordinary situation, it occurred to Lorelai that she didn’t at all appreciate being discussed as though she were not capable of making her own decisions. Her own sacrifices.

The Rook held his hand out. “Come with me, Lorelai.”

Lorelai couldn’t bring herself to release Veronica and reach for him. The woman next to her trembled, and a wild terror bled from her eyes.

“I gave you my word, Lady Southbourne will not be harmed.” He motioned her forward. “If you behave, I’ll let her go.”

“We cannot trust his word,” Veronica said.

Lorelai extracted herself from Veronica’s clutches. “It’ll be all right,” she soothed in a voice that failed to even convince herself, let alone her terrified sister-in-law. “You had to … to lie with Mortimer. Nothing can be worse than that.”