Page 38 of The Rebellious Countess
“We are at war. It is not safe—I can make faster time traveling alone.” He rubbed the back of his neck as if it hurt, and Máira took over the massage. He stiffened at first, but then relaxed and melted into her touch. She tried not to think about how her hands were moving across his bare skin and every partof her was coming alive with the feel of his smooth, tight muscles flexing and relaxing underneath her touch.
She leaned into him, her nipples growing hard at the feel of his bare back against her front, and asked, “Do you know what Simon looks like?”
His muscles tensed under her fingers and his lips thinned into a straight line as she peered around his shoulder.
“That would be a resoundingno.” Hag responded, and Elias’s eyes snapped in her direction with daggers in their depths. He was not happy with his mother. She, however, was grateful.
“Besides, how can I trust Peter?” she added. “He abandoned me on land without any money to my name.”
“She could have ended up working on her back,” his mother added.
Máira blushed, and she could have sworn she saw Elias launch those daggers of his in his mother’s direction as he shrugged away from Máira’s touch and stomped toward the door.
“Where are you going?” She asked.
“To theMaribelle. It’s time I find out once and for all just exactly where Peter stands.”
“Don’t you think clothes might help?” Hag asked.
Elias stopped just short of the door and Máira covered her mouth, but a strangled giggle split the seams of her fingers.
“Are you telling me that now you magically have clothes for me, Hag?” His voice held back his temper remarkably well.
“As a matter of fact, I do. It seems my beloved husband was about the same height and weight as you are.”
“I cannot take?—”
Hag refused to accept his excuses. “I insist. He would have wanted it this way.”
Elias didn’t turn around but he nodded just the same. “Then I would be grateful and honored.”
“Tomás?” Hag didn’t need to yell—her ever-present shadow stood to face the three of them.
“Yes, Hag.” There was no hesitation in the way he addressed Hag. It was as if he had accepted it a long time ago.
“If you could fetch my husband’s clothes for Elias, I would appreciate it. He and his wife will be leaving at once.”
“Of course, Hag.” Tomás bowed and left the room as the three of them watched him go, with very different thoughts on their minds.
Ten
Elias—
I may have information that will lead you to your clerk. Bring plenty of Scotch, I am in need of more inventory.
—An unsigned letter delivered to Elias Allistair Drake, May, 1812, Carlisle, England, in the middle of nowhere
Prior to leaving the tavern Hag had pulled him aside and hugged him tight for the first time in a decade. It made him want to take her and Máira away from this place he had once viewed so happily.
He made it to the ship and back in record time, thanks to the help of Tomás. It had taken all his self-control to not beat the answers out of Peter while aboard ship, but his first mate had done exactly what Elias would have done in his shoes.
Cook had heard two men talking below deck but had not been able to identify them, and rather than take a chance, Cook notified Peter, and Peter had sent Máira to Hag, where Elias was supposed to be. Since Peter was uncertain if anyone else had been involved in the plot, he thought it best to get back to the ship posthaste and protect it. Elias couldn’t blame him, especially after he saw the gash on Peter’s head that he hadsuffered upon his return to the ship. His friend was in worse shape than he. Peter could not stand the light, nor could he even open his eyes. If Cook hadn’t sewn up his skull and his gut, Peter might still be bleeding in his bed. His first mate was fighting for his life.
Jack and Billie had been intent on killing Peter after learning Máira was no longer aboard ship, and that was the last thing Peter could remember or communicate. Cook advised that Jack and Billie were the only two unaccounted for aboard ship, and the ship’s jolly boat was missing. The men aboard theMaribelle, although happy to see him, were uneasy sitting in a French port. Elias put the second mate in charge until his return. Even though he had full confidence in his second mate, Elias decided Máira was safer at The Happy Hag.
Changing into a set of his own clothing and shoes that fit, he returned to the Happy Hag to find three French soldiers sitting at a table drinking ale and being less than polite to Hag. When one half her age pinched her arse, he’d nearly stormed inside. It had been Hag’s open palm to the soldier’s ear and the laughter of his two companions as he fell from his stool that had given him pause. Hag was used to men like that, he reminded himself.
His father would not have wanted this life for his wife, just as Elias didn’t want it for his mother. Fate, however, did not allow her on English soil any more than it wanted him in French territories.
