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He inclined his head with a side smirk. “There are people in that ledger that I need to exonerate. To do that, I need the book destroyed.”
Sloane chuckled. “You do realize you’ll not get the book? Falsted wanted it as well to exonerate himself—maybe to ruin you with it for the sick games you two are playing with each other. But it will never be yours.”
“No?” Bockton’s mouth twisted in an odd line between a smirk and a frown. “Why not?”
“My husband doesn’t have it.”
“I know—I know you took it. My men sent a missive with that very message not but a day before they disappeared.”
“Those were your men?”
“Yes.” The slimy smile slithered back onto his face. “You think the dolt Falsted is smart enough to have you followed?” His long fingers tapped silently along the railing. “Tell me, how did my men disappear?”
“A bog ate them.”
He stilled for a long breath, then nodded. “Fitting. They were not the smartest men. And you did not give the book back to the duke?”
She shook her head. “But I can get you the book.” If this was how she was going to protect both Vicky and Reiner from Bockton ever setting designs on them again, she’d do it. She’d give him anything, including that blasted ledger.
“Hmm.” He stroked his chin for a long moment. “Yet I will not need the book if I kill you. It will mold and rot away in whatever place you’ve stashed it—long past the time anyone will care what evidence is in it.” He stepped closer, his thin fingers pulling along a rogue strand of hair at her temple that had fallen from her upsweep.
She jerked away from his touch.
“So what do you propose I do with you? A newly minted duchess, ripe for the taking. Why, you didn’t even get a wedding night. That is a shame.”
Bile snaked up her throat and she skewered him with all the hundreds of years of hatred her forefathers had borne upon Englishman such as him. “It doesn’t matter what you think to do with me. You’ll not hear me scream or cry or beg.” Her chin lifted, her look unwavering on him. “But I will resist. Do you truly want to chance taking on a Scottish woman well trained with a dagger—or a fork, or a cut of glass, or a shard of wood? I’m not particular about my weapons and there are a thousand ways to kill you, Lord Bockton. All I need is one reason.”
A strained chuckle flew from his thin throat. “Or simply, my dear, I kill you first. I do have need to keep you, though, at least until we reach the shore of the continent. Then, then I think I shall leave you to my men. Most of them haven’t ever seen such a highborn lady—a duchess at that. Much less touched one.” A serpent smirk slid across his face. “Oh, the tales they will tell.”
She kept her chin high, belying the fact that her stomach had flipped and hardened into a churning rock threatening to make her heave.
“My lord—there be a skiff a’coming.” The captain of the ship approached them, pointing past Bockton’s shoulder to the water. “Did ye have more joinin’ the party before we set sail? We are ready.”
“A what?” Bockton’s eyebrows drew together as he eyed the captain.
“Two men, rowing out.” The captain pointed to the water between the ship and shore again.
Bockton spun to the water, his fingers gripping the railing.
Sloane followed suit, her look casual about the water until she saw the rowboat bob into view just past the stern of the ship.
Two men rowed with a fury, one on each oar with their backs to the ship.
The man on the left smaller. The one on the right, big, strong. Strong like…
Reiner.
A gasp flew from her lips and she gripped onto the railing, leaning out to see past the stern. The skiff was halfway to the ship. The man on the right glanced back over his shoulder.
Heaven to hell. It was Reiner.
Bockton chuckled next to her. “So he did come—you are the exact leverage I suspected you would be. But I think he’ll be much more useful alive—alive and knowing I have you.” He glanced to the captain. “Set sail.”
Bockton’s thin white cheek lifted as his look fell back down to the rowboat quickly skimming across the shallow waves. “Sails up before we have to kill him. I don’t know what the fool thinks to accomplish boarding a ship full of men ready to skewer him at my command.”
The sudden hope that had flared in her chest at seeing Reiner twisted, falling past the pit of her stomach. Reiner would be killed the second he set foot upon the deck.
Because of her.
