Dangerous Exile by K.J. Jackson
{ Chapter 16 }
The bloody docks.
The damn bloody docks.
Talen jumped out of the hack before it even started to slow, running toward the pier where Ness had been spotted.
He prayed it was her. It had to be.
How many dark-haired, broken-armed, innocent waifs travelled in this area at night?
None.
His feet thundering through the muck covering the cobblestone street, he slowed with heaving breath as he passed the last warehouse and could see the pier with several ships docked.
Swinging lanterns dotted the darkness. Men busy loading the last of goods onto two ships ready to depart with the tide.
His heart pounding, he rushed into the bustling crowd, searching faces, searching for someone short, probably with the dark hood of a cloak covering her face. That was if she knew what was good for her.
If she knew what was good for her? Laughable. If she was down here, she didn’t have the first clue what was good for her.
There.
Straight ahead by the closest gangplank. A tiny figure faced away from him in the middle of three men looming over her.
Shit.
His arms flying, shoving men out of his way, Talen tore along the fat wooden boards of the pier.
Before the three men saw him coming, he reached past the closest man and grabbed the arm of the small figure, yanking her body toward him.
The hood of the cloak fell from her face and Ness’s startled eyes found him.
“Talen?”
The first real breath he’d had since returning to his townhouse only to find Ness had disappeared sank down into his lungs. He’d just tortured a man to within a hair of his life and all he’d wanted was to see Ness. To let her smiling face when she saw him wipe free the echoes of the man’s cries from his mind.
But she was gone.
With another seething inhale, he stepped in front of the man to the side of her, creating a wall.
“What the blazes, ye scalawag?” The man to Ness’s right grabbed his arm, ripping away his grip on Ness. “This little piece is joining our ship.”
Talen’s foot instantly swung out, kicking out the knee of the man and sending him hobbling, holding his leg, howling at Talen. “Ye bloody maggot.”
Talen set his glare on the man between Ness and the gangplank. “Don’t touch her.” He looked down at the top of her head. “Ness, don’t even think to encourage what they’re trying to sell you.”
“Who do ye think ye are?” The man behind him shoved him in the middle of his back and Talen stumbled a step forward, falling into Ness but managing to grab her about the waist and keep both of their balances.
Talen spun around, fury spiking on his face.
The man met his eyes and his look went wide, his mouth gaping like a fish for a full second. “Ah, so sorry, Mr. Blackstone. I didn’t see that it was ye. Pardon our enthusiasm for the young lady’s…business. She thought to join our voyage to Caribbean waters.”
“She did?” He glanced at Ness, his rage directed fully at her after reaching a boiling point in his limbs. He needed to crush something. Anything. He looked back to the man, leveling his voice. “The islands, you say?”
“Aye. Then onto America. We’ll be out with the tide in the hour. The lass be lucky to catch it with us, for how much she said she needed to leave.”
Talen jabbed a step forward to the right, grabbing the man’s arm and twisting it behind his back, sending him doubling over. He leaned over the man, his words violent. “She isn’t going with you and I will forgive this incident on one condition.”
The man flailed for a second, trying to escape Talen’s hold on his arm to no avail. “Anything. Anything, sir.”
“You never saw me. You never saw her.” He yanked the man’s hand higher up his back. “Understand?”
He howled in pain. “Aye. Yes, yes, yes.”
Talen looked up at the other two men. “That goes for all of you. Understood?”
Both men nodded, their hands lifting, waving in surrender.
Talen shoved the man away, making the man stumble onto his knees.
His left arm swung out and he wrapped it around Ness’s shoulders, the grip on her upper left arm harsh and probably jostling the broken part of her forearm out of place. Not that he could help himself. Not when what he really wanted to do was throttle her.
Half picking her up, he stormed his way through the men scurrying about the pier moving barrels and crates onto ships, and then up through the streets.
The hack he’d jumped from still sat on the street and he dragged her toward it. Without even looking at the driver he flung the door open and tossed her into the interior—there was no other word for it and for the life of him he couldn’t find gentleness at the moment.
She landed in a heap, quickly trying to right herself on the bench.
He tossed a couple coins up at the driver, told him the address and jumped into the decrepit old coach, slamming the door shut behind him.
“Talen—”
“Don’t.” The one word was a bark, a command that vibrated the air around them. “Don’t speak another word.”
The one horse moved forth and the wheels of the coach started to roll.
He heaved breath after breath. Staring at her. Staring at her staring at the floor by his feet.
What the deuce had she been thinking? Did she think? Think at all?
Leaving the townhouse. No note. Nothing. Just gone.
A ghost that never was.
Blasted woman.
The silence sat so thick in the cab of the coach that she opened her mouth several times, sneaking a glance at him. Each time he shook his head slightly, his lip snarling.
She shut her mouth, time and again, her look skittering back to the floor.
A street away from his townhouse, he banged on the roof of the cab and the driver pulled the horse to a stop.
He jumped out of the carriage and didn’t pull the steps, instead grabbing Ness around the waist the second she’d half-stood from the bench, and he pulled her free of the coach.
Dropping her onto the ground, he gripped her upper right arm, a tight clamp that wasn’t about to let her escape, then pulled her along the streets, her feet not able to keep up with his long strides.
“Tal—”
“Not a word.”
“But.”
“Not. A. Word.”
She stumbled, but he paid no heed, dragging her through the mews and into the back of his townhouse. He didn’t release her until he had her upstairs and in her room where he spun her away from him at the doorway.
He needed to leave the room.
Leave her.
He didn’t trust himself to be with her at the moment.
She left him.
Left him without a damn word.
He took a step backward, turning away from her as he fished into his inner right pocket for the key to her room.
“Talen.”
Her voice stopped him.
Small and pitiful and tinged with fear. It was the fear that stopped him.
Fear of him?
“What in the almighty hell were you thinking?” He turned halfway back toward her, every word punctuated with rage. “Why would you leave like that? To the docks of all places? You damn well disappeared without a bloody word.”
She took a step backward, her hands lifting to him, even though her left hand was awkward with the bandaging on the splint wrapped up and around her palm. “Talen, stop. I cannot stay. But I didn’t…didn’t want to leave. Leave here. Leave you.”
“But. You. Did.”
Her right hand flew high beside her head, her words in a frenzy. “I panicked—I am weak and I panicked. But it was all I could think to do. Run. Terror-stricken. I had to run fast, get out—leave London. Don’t you see? There is no other choice, not now. I have to leave England and the docks were the only place to do that. I had to leave now, tonight. I still do. I have to get back to the docks before the tide. I have to. You have to let me go.”
“You’re not going anywhere near the damn docks.” His words seethed, vicious. He turned away from her, looking out the open door, sucking in a breath. A modicum of control over his voice returned and his head swiveled back to her. “By Zeus’s tooth, why in the hell do you think you need to leave England?”
Her head shook, her eyes wide to him. “You don’t understand what’s coming for me, Talen.”
“Gilroy is dead.” All control lost again, his words shook the air.
“But my father is not.” Her foot stomped into the carpet as she shouted, matching his anger. “My father is very much alive and four years ago he made me choose between a lecherous old marquess and Gilroy, and the only grace of it was that I was able to choose the lessor of the two evils. I won’t get another chance to escape. Not once he has me again. I guarantee you he is coming for me and is about to sell me off again. He wouldn’t have travelled to Whetland Castle to collect me if that wasn’t the case. That’s what Juliet’s note said—he came for me—he couldn’t have come to collect me any quicker.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t know what he wanted.” He snapped the words, even though the manic fear in her eyes should have curbed his volume. But at least her fear wasn’t at him.
“I do. My father never cared for me one way or another, where I was, what I was doing, save for the time that he wanted to make coin from selling my body off. I was sold like a whore, nothing more.”
He tried to level his voice. “So what were you thinking you would do?”
“Leave. Leave England as soon as I possibly could. Leave before you could stop me. Get on a ship and leave.”
“And then what? What was the plan?”
Her palm flew up. “I don’t know. I was working on that part. It would have depended upon where the ship landed in port. If it was in a big city, I could look for work as a governess. I could take in sewing. I don’t exactly know, but I was working on it. But I needed to disappear first.”
He took a step toward her, yelling, his fist punching into the air at his side. “You were already disappeared, Ness. No one knew you were here. Beyond Verity, Declan and me, you are nothing but a ghost. No—you were nothing but a ghost—no one could find you, not even your father. But now…”
His words cut off, his fist unfurling and curling again and again.
“Now what?” Her hand went flat onto her belly, her face paling.
He expelled a sigh, his fingers running through his hair. “Now everyone knows of you—do you have any idea how many people I had looking for you?”
“You…you sent people to find me?”
“Too many to count. In every street and alley. And one of my men spotted you by the docks. Everyone knows you’re connected to me now.”
She swayed slightly. Her fingers pushed into the dark blue muslin on her gut, looking to hold back a retch, her breath speeding. “So that means my father will find me.”
He nodded, his look grave. “It won’t be hard.”
“I am sorry I panicked.” Her head started to shake. “But you didn’t need to find me. You could have just let me go…disappear. Why didn’t you just let me go? You told me to just turn away—I’ve been nothing but a burden to you.”
His eyes closed for an elongated breath as he attempted once more to temper the anger still speeding through his veins. “I swore I would protect you, Ness, and the last thing I was about to do was leave you to whatever fate it was that tore you out of this house. I didn’t know how you left here—I thought you were taken. I never imagined it was your hare-brained idea to leave on your own volition.”
Her head dropped, her gaze fixed on the floor for a long moment. “I didn’t want to leave you, Talen. And not just because you keep me safe. I didn’t want to leave here…you.” Her chest lifted in a deep sigh as her gaze moved up to him. “But now. Now I truly do have to disappear. My father will find me and I cannot live with being sold to another brutal man. I refuse it.”
The way she stated her refusal—such finality in her voice—made him pause, wondering how very far she would go to avoid a repeat of her fate under her father’s control.
“We’ll figure out another way.” He took a step toward her. “One that doesn’t have you sailing off to a distant land with a hundred people on a ship that could identify you if your father got even a sniff of where you went. One that doesn’t have you taking in laundry in a strange country.”
Her eyes closed. “But there is no other way.”
“There is one that will cut your father off at the knees.”
Her eyes cracked open to him. “What?”
“You could marry.”
“Marry?” Her voice pitched high. “I just rid myself of one brutal husband and I don’t intend to ever take that path again.” Her head shook. “You’re mad to even suggest it.”
“Am I? If you’re married your father cannot touch you.”
Her head tilted to the side, barely restrained panic taking a hold of her voice. “Talen, no. I cannot. I cannot marry—I can never be under another man’s fist again.”
“But I can think of several men that are kind and wealthy enough and would never hurt you.”
She stumbled several steps backward, her hand waving in front of her. “No. Don’t even suggest it. I will never be able to trust a man again. Never enough to marry.”
“Or…”
“Or what?”
“Or you marry one you already trust.”
Shaking her head, her forehead wrinkled. Then her eyes suddenly went wide, her stare locking onto him. “No…no…”
“You trust me, don’t you?”
She gaped at him, frozen.
“Do you trust me?”
Reluctance vibrated in her amber eyes, but she wasn’t about to lie to him, he knew that of her. She nodded.
“Then marry me, Ness. Marry me. I can keep you safe.”
“But…”
“We marry. We marry before your father finds you and he cannot touch you.”
Words he never could have imagined uttering a month ago flew from his mouth. He wasn’t looking for a wife—couldn’t even fathom the thought of one—but his jaw still prattled on, trying to convince this one maddening woman that she should marry him for her own good. “Even better, we marry in Scotland, and should it suit you, you can always exit the marriage well after he is dead and cannot hurt you.”
Her hand flew up between them. “No. No, you cannot possibly think…”
“Do you have a better suggestion?
“No—I—”
“Your father threw your mother into a madhouse, Ness. What do you think he’ll do to you if you don’t listen to him?”
Her lips drew inward, her eyebrows pulling tightly together.
“Exactly. Let me protect you from this. Let me do this. You say you once knew me. You say the sun revolved around me when we were children. Yet I was awful to you. Let this be my amends. Let me give you this. Protection.”
Her eyes closed for a long moment, her fingers rubbing her forehead, and she looked to be drawing upon a well of patience. But there was the slightest crack in her facade. She was considering it.
And hell, he wanted her to consider it. Wanted her to say yes. He’d never even contemplated it, but suddenly, poised in front of him, the thought of marrying Ness was maddeningly attractive.
He wanted her.
Wanted her for a wife as long as she would have him.
Her amber eyes opened to him. “Sneaking toads into my slippers does not require a marriage proposal, Talen. You don’t even remember me from that time.”
“But you remember me, and I trust you.”
“You do?” Her right eyebrow arched.
“Aye.”
“Why?”
“Frankly, you have no reason to lie on the matter. You never did. I was going to protect you no matter what because Juliet asked me to. It was that simple.” He shrugged. “And the fact that you bring absolutely nothing to the marriage should assuage you of any apprehension you have on my motives.”
A breathless chuckle left her lips. “I bring nothing?”
His chin jutted out, nodding to her. “You bring you.”
“But that, that is nothing.”
He took a step toward her, so close now he could feel the panic and fear and hope vibrating off of her.
He needed her to choose the hope.
His hand lifted to drag his knuckles along her cheekbone. “I’d say that is everything. And I would never demand anything from you. Nothing that you didn’t want to give me.”
Her breath caught in an audible hiccup. She stared at him for long seconds, scrutinizing him. Scrutinizing his intentions.
He held her gaze, not flinching under her assessment.
“But this isn’t fair to you.” One last futile argument against what she was being swept into. Admirable.
“Does it matter? You’ll live life on your terms, away from your father’s clutches.”
Her right hand lifted, her fingers settling on his chest. “It matters. It does. What you want matters. What if you meet a woman you truly want as your wife?”
“I want you, Ness. I didn’t imagine this when you first appeared at the Alabaster. I didn’t imagine it in the first, the second week. But I came back here and you were gone.”
He paused, his look going to the ceiling as his head shook. “I was going to tear London apart to find you.”
“You were?”
His gaze dropped to her, his stare piercing. “I was.”
Her lips closed tightly as she stared at him. Stared at him for the longest moment, disbelief lacing her eyes. But then a flicker. Heat lighting to flame in the amber of her eyes. Fire that made him want her all the more.
Her full lips finally parted. “What if I want you, as well?”