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But for what she’d had to say about Vicky in order to get Bockton to leave her at Wolfbridge, she didn’t expect her niece was about to encourage anyone to come after her.
Least of all Reiner.
Yet if her brother and Domnall knew—they would come for her. She didn’t doubt that. But she’d left in such a storm of destruction with her words, she had to accept the fact that Reiner wouldn’t tell her brother a thing. No one would be coming.
Not until it was too late.
“Get in the boat, Duchess.” Bockton’s nasally voice slid with mockery around the word “duchess.”
Water sloshing about her feet, soaking her fine silk slippers, she lifted her leg and stepped into the rowboat in front of two disinterested sailors sitting at the oars. Unbalanced, the boat swayed with her movement and she flailed for a moment, falling until she grabbed onto the lip of the skiff to steady herself.
Within fifteen minutes, she was awkwardly ascending the ladder onto the smuggling ship waiting just offshore, attempting to keep the folds of her skirts tight to her legs so the two men beneath her didn’t get a view.
She stepped off the ladder onto the main deck of the ship and glanced about. Deckhands were scurrying about, heavy coils of rope unfurling, a constant barrage of orders and blasphemies filling the air around her. Not a one looked at her. Not a one paused a step, other than to push past her as they hauled rope and canvas. Bockton stood across the deck, talking to a stout man with a thick beard and a faded blue coat—the captain, she presumed.
Leaving the captain, Bockton walked across the deck toward her, dodging the busy sailors running to and fro. He stopped at the side of the ship, setting his thin fingers on the railing and looking out to the land. The tips of his long fingernails tapped on the wood. “Take a last look, Duchess, for this isle will never be yours again. You realize you can never return.”
“I can and I will. My family is here and I intend to return to them after some time.” Her head tilted to the side as she stared at his profile, refusing to look toward the land. The wide brim of his top hat sent a deep shadow across his ghostly skin. “But you—this is the last time you’ll be able to see your home. You realize you will be hunted, far and wide, for your crimes.”
“I don’t worry upon that.”
“Is it worth it? Your title will be stripped, your lands forfeit.”
“It is. My estate in Belgium will surround me with the finest luxuries until my dying days. Or my estate in the West Indies will do the same, though the heat is not to my liking. Either one is a far better fate than the crumbling abbey and the bone dry coffers I inherited with my title.”
Her lips pulled inward for a long moment. “You realize that the duke will find you, eventually. Even if you chose to be half a world away. He is not one to let a trespass slide.”
Bockton looked down at her. “The problem with Wolfbridge is that I never had anything to leverage against him were he to find out my identity. No vices. No bastard children. No suspect investments. I looked far and wide for something after that idiot Falsted entangled him in my business. But there has been nothing he cares about, save for that niece of his—not that I ever got the impression he cared much for the girl.”
Sloane winced. She’d said the very same thing to cover for how very important Vicky was, but to hear someone else speak the blasphemy cut her to the core. She knew how deeply Reiner loved Vicky. Like she was his own—because she was.
“But with you, Duchess—with you it’s clear in his eyes. Any fool could see that he is besotted in way that will be most detrimental to him.” A smirk curled the thin edges of his lips. “You are leverage, your grace. The best kind.”
“What do you mean, leverage?” Her right eyebrow lifted. “I came with you willingly. I ensured your escape as I said I would. Your use of me is over and we will part ways on the continent.”
“You can cease the farce, your grace.” His right hand stayed on the smooth wooden railing as he turned fully to her. “I know you don’t mean to ruin him—you never did. We are a long way from the continent and it will get tedious watching you maintain this charade of yours.”
“You’re wrong.”
“I’m not.” He shook his head, the line of the shadow bobbing along his chin. “You almost had me convinced. I thought to believe you for a few hours. But your actions since leaving Wolfbridge have failed you. Constant glances over your shoulder. The worry on your face.” He exhaled an exaggerated sighed. “I should have taken the girl, as well, shouldn’t I?”
Her lips pulled into a tight line. “Probably. Having Vicky would have ensured you of anything you wanted from the duke. A full pardon from the crown. Riches so plentiful you wouldn’t ever have to scurry to the underbelly of the seas.” The full truth, because it didn’t matter now. The bastard was far away from Vicky and Wolfbridge. That was what mattered. “Though had you taken the girl he also would have hunted you down like the animal you are and killed you.”
The next breath she took fell easily into her lungs.
Relief. Finally.
An odd reprieve, free of should-haves and regrets. Free of the constant gnawing in her stomach over worry on Vicky and Reiner.
This ship was leaving as soon as the sails hoisted and there was nothing more she could do on it. By now, Reiner would have found Vicky and she would have told him what happened. What she had said. And he would never let her near him or Vicky again. Never.
Lord Bockton chuckled. “At last, we are at a shared understanding.”
Sloane shook her head. “I don’t ken that we are. You overestimate the leverage you think I am. For what I said about my niece, about my husband in her room—I am nothing to him now. A wife he will declare dead as soon as it is reasonable. A memory to be forgotten.”
“Yet I still need something from him.”
She stared at him for a long moment, her eyes narrowing.Hell.“The book?”
