Page 2 of The Rebellious Countess
Ellison blinked at profanity, then tossed her over his shoulder like a basket of fish.
She hadn’t fought him. She’d let him carry her below deck, into the cabin she’d occupied where he unceremoniously tossed her onto the bed and left her without another word. Then he’d bolted the door shut—from the outside! The ship had rocked and swayed violently as she’d stared at the door. If it took on water, she’d go down to Davey Jones’s locker without anyone the wiser. Despite knowing the furious pirate was the same man she’d married, she hadn’t recognized the man who’d secured her in a room with no lifeline. He hadn’t the time, nor the inclination, to deal with his sick wife.
She had hoped things would change, return to normal when they’d docked in the port of…port of…bloody hell. She didn’t even know what port she was in, and now she was cursing like the sailors around her. Would she have to fight as well?
A man bent over and looked under the table, his eyes met hers and her blood curdled under his scrutiny. His coat was clean, his trousers that of a nobleman, and his manners gave the appearance of a gentleman as he reached out to take her hand. Only a fool would believe he meant to rescue her from the melee. And despite the evidence to say otherwise, Máira was no fool. She scooted back in the corner, pushing the rat out of his home and the man’s grin grew.
“You like it rough,chérie?” His aristocratic polish and refined English were completely out of place with the street-born curses of the Frenchmen fighting around them. Yet deep in her marrow, Máira recognized the evil within. Not forone moment did she believe they would bond over shared nationalism. This man was evil down to his toenails.
“I will make you scream and beg for mercy,” he cooed.
He thought she was French and didn’t understand. To a naive miss who didn’t speak English, he would probably appear as a debonaire gentleman coming to her rescue. Máira knew differently. She understood more than she cared. His brown eyes spoke of a lost, soulless man who hadn’t felt anything other than disdain for another human being in years, if ever.
He lunged for her ankle and she screamed, but there was too much noise for anyone to hear. She kicked and punched, striking him on the temple which only seemed to feed his violence as he dragged her out from under the table and wrenched her arm behind her back. She screamed once more, as her face slammed into the floor.
“I’ll teach you to strike your betters, bitch.” She felt his breath on her ear as he attempted to slam her face against the floor a second time, but she twisted her body, sacrificing her shoulder as her arm wrenched higher.
A scream vibrated through the air, and Máira wasn’t sure if she was screaming or someone else was making the unholy noise. Her attacker’s grip went suddenly slack and he fell onto his belly next to her. Arms underneath his chest and his head turned to the side, he looked directly at her. He didn’t smirk, or talk, or even crawl away on his knees. He laid there bleeding with a knife the size of Cook’s meat cleaver buried in one sightless eye.
Máira bit the back of her hand to hold the scream in her throat. She had never seen a man die before. She had experienced tragic loss multiple times, but this was gory and horrifying. Tears of blood streamed across the bridge of his nose and cheek and down onto the floor.
She wished the man at her side was her husband—the dirty Lothario who’d left her to this fate.Thiswas what her sister had warned her about, the life of a woman who took a chance and married a stranger.
Bloody hell. “I swear I’m going to kill him.”
One
Dearest Nash,
I have good news to report about Máira which may come as somewhat of a shock. She has met and married Ellison Collins, the Earl of Dorset. I warned her against a whirlwind romance, but she said I, of all people, should know how quickly one falls in love. I couldn’t exactly argue the point, however, since I fell in love with a man I’d hated my entire life. You are the exception to the rule when it comes to rogues, darling. I did counsel her on having a long engagement. Another argument I lost. She said if I didn’t give my blessing, she would run off and marry the earl anyway. They were married the 1st of June in the chapel at Caerlaverock and have left on a month-long honeymoon trip.
Oh, how I look forward to our own overdue honeymoon. I am counting the hours until your return.
Our son misses you almost as much as his mother does. This morning, he looked to your side of the bed, and I swore he called for his “da-da” after he finished feeding. Mary just giggled and said all children make that particular noise, and that his first word would be “mum.” Regardless, he looks for you everywhere, as do I.
All my love,
Iseabail
—A letter from Iseabail Blair Handcock Harding, Duchess of Ross, to her husband, Nashford Xavier Harding, 8th Duke of Ross, regarding her younger sister Máira Blair’s marriage to Ellison Collins, Earl of Dorset, June 1812
Where the devil was he? Odors assaulted his senses. Those faculties that weren’t reeling in disgust, were quaking with pain and nausea. One minute he’d been walking down the street to meet his contact, and the next he was here—whereverheremay be—with a godawful smell permeating the pain in his head. Considering his head hurt like bloody hell, his stench was the last of his worries.
Which meant only one thing—he was recognized some time before he’d met his contact and after he’d secured fare back to Scotland for his bride. She belonged there, riding across the countryside without a care in the world, not here, in the middle of a blasted war.
Elias purposely kept his eyes closed, his breathing slow as he attempted to identify his surroundings. The first scent was obvious: manure. By the caked, dried feeling on his cheek and the flies buzzing around his face, he suspected someone had dropped him in a pile of shite.
Beautiful, just bloody beautiful.
Getting that off his skin would take a thorough soaking. To think he’d spend six days aboard ship, drenched to the bone from dodging the British and French Navies by entering the squall that nearly capsized them, and the first time he’d been dry in a week, he was covered in shite. He’d probably have to shavehis head. His hair didn’t mean much to him, but she’d adored running her hands through it…
This was turning out to be honeymoon trip of a man’s nightmares—no buxom bride to bury his cock inside, just a shite of a mission no one could know about and—hell. Where was his bloody-damned bride!
His jaw tensed involuntarily. He had to get out of this mess to save the damned chit who’d turned his mission into a disaster. He started taking stock of his injuries only to realize his hands were bound behind his back and his feet were tied at the ankles.
Bloody fanfuckingtastic.
Other than the fetor of animal waste and the obvious lump on the back of his head causing nausea to grip his innards, he was in pretty good shape. Cheap wine hit his senses next. He suspected it had to be pretty bad if he could smell it through the odorous horse excrement. Footsteps fell to his left, and his nose twitched from the sudden tickle on the tip of his nose. He suspected either something had been kicked upon his face, or a fly found it to be a cozy landing spot. The tickling continued, circling the tip of his nose as if a bug had indeed found a juicy meal in the shite painting his flesh.
